Beatles News

Blink and you’ll miss it, but Ron Howard’s intensely enjoyable documentary about the Beatles’ touring years has a great surreal moment at the very beginning. The moptops are getting out of the plane in New York, on their way to a date with destiny on The Ed Sullivan Show, and the newsreel camera briefly catches a couple of placards held up in the huge airport crowd. “Beatles Unfair 2 Bald Men” reads one, and another says: “England Get Out of Ireland.” The images vanish, and their atypical sentiments are in any case drowned by the global scream of unironic adulation. Yet both echo other undercurrents in Beatlemania: a fear of these weirdly attractive aliens, a hatred of youth culture and youth itself, and perhaps mixed feelings in New York and the US about this extraordinary new British invasion. Maybe Paul McCartney even saw that second placard and modified it as a song title for Wings.

Is there really anything more to say about the Beatles? Well, Howard gives us a movie conceived on similar lines to his non-fiction features such as Apollo 13 or Frost/Nixon, real people tested in the fire of publicity, with the same classic narrative arc of personal growth. Yet he persuades you details

Chapman thought about taking his own life after killing The Beatles frontman John Lennon. But after shooting the star outside his New York apartment in 1980 he decided against saving one bullet to kill himself. “At one point I did have a thought of saving the last bullet and putting it in my mouth, but no, not me,” he told a three-member parole board. "I am too much of a coward to take my own life." The born-again Christian admitted at the hearing where he was denied parole he had a sociopathic mind.

He has admitted he killed Lennon because he wanted to be famous. Recalling the confrontation at around 2pm, he said: ”He came out, and this is a part that I really regret happening, he came out and as a ruse, I had his album and a pen and I asked him to sign the album," Chapman said. "He took his time. He asked me if I wanted anything else. "His wife had come out with him … and she was waiting in a limo and that’s something I often reflect on how decent he was to just a stranger.

"He signed the album and gave it back to me. He got in the limo.” Chapman walked away but returned that evening with a .38 calibre revolver and shot Lennon four times in his back. Police found him readin details

Every single day is a Beatles anniversary of some kind. This week alone marks several worthy commemorations. 1963: the Beatles scored their second No. 1 hit with “She Love You.” 1965: “Yesterday” was released as a single in the US. 1966: Revolver started a six-week run atop the US chart. 1967: the Fab Four began filming Magical Mystery Tour. 1968: “Hey Jude,” clocking in at seven minutes and ten seconds, became the longest chart topper of all-time. In this edition of Audio Rewind, though, I’m honoring an anniversary with a much shorter lifespan, an event that long eclipses the Beatles era.

This week in 2005, Q Magazine polled music experts and determined “A Day in the Life” to be the best British song of all-time, calling it “the ultimate sonic rendition of what it meant to be British.” And indeed, the track is one of the most indelible in modern music history—British or otherwise. Complex. Innovative. Topical. Dynamic. Haunting. A sonic approximation for what it feels like to live “A Day in the Life.”

The song arrived as the final track on the Beatles seminal record, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The 1967 full-len details

Fifty years after they stopped touring, and four decades after they ceased to exist as a recording entity, is there really anything new to say about The Beatles?

It's pretty safe to conclude that no modern rock group's personal, professional and musical history has been as thoroughly combed through as that of Messrs McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison.

You could stock a decent-sized library and then wallpaper it with all the books and articles that have been written about the band over the years. From authorized biographies and purported tell-alls to socio-cultural ruminations and forensic examinations of their recording techniques, so much water has flowed over their history that the band's collective edges have been sanded down to almost nothing.

My own bookcase counts at least three such volumes, including one that improbably roots through the dream symbolism of the Liverpudlian band and its music. The most well-thumbed book, by far though, is "Lennon, the Definitive Biography," by Ray Coleman.

Yet here we are, as a culture, talking about the band again. The occasion? The release of the new Ron Howard-directed "Eight Days a Week," and an expanded reissue of 1977's "Live at the Hollywood Bowl details

In 1964 Larry Kane was a 21-year-old journalist starting his career at the Top 40 music station WFUN Miami.

Kane considered himself a serious journalist. He'd contacted the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein in advance of the band's arrival in Florida to ask for an interview at the Gator Bowl stadium in Jacksonville.

"We planned to fly young fans to Jacksonville to meet the guys," he says. "But instead Brian Epstein and their publicist Derek Taylor suggested I cover the whole 1964 US tour. I've never quite worked out why the offer was made - except possibly that Brian, being new to America, assumed I was far more important than I was."

Kane tried to persuade his bosses to send instead one of the DJs already into the band. "There were all the Cuban refugees in Miami. There was war in Vietnam escalating and racial revolution in America - why would we bother about an English band who would doubtless disappear in a few months?"

But in December 1964 Kane found himself at the first venue on the tour - the Cow Palace in Daly City, California. "The reason WFUN sent me was because they wanted a real story every day - not just frivolous happy talk. Ultimately I was filing five or six stories each day because i details

This week sees a special one-off screening of the much-anticipated documentary film, The Beatles: Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years, from award-winning director, Ron Howard. But for those who want to keep the music alive after the credits finish rolling, there are a whole host of Beatles attractions to visit. From Paul McCartney and John Lennon's childhood homes in Liverpool to handwritten lyrics on display at the British Library, here are some of the top Beatles haunts to visit.

1. Liverpool and The Beatles

Evan Evans, London’s largest sightseeing company, offers a day trip exploring the historic city of Liverpool, home of the Beatles. The 'Liverpool and the Beatles tour' includes round-trip travel to Liverpool with Virgin Trains and tickets to The Beatles Story, where guests can experience the most sensational story the pop world has ever known. 

In the afternoon the 'Magical Mystery Tour' takes guests around all of the landmarks in the lives of the Fab Four, including their homes, schools, birthplaces, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields and many other significant spots, before ending at the famous Cavern Club. The tour - which operates April to October - costs £138 per adult and £ details

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were reunited on the red carpet this evening for the London premiere of Ron Howard's new documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years. Featuring remastered footage from their live concerts, the documentary charts the rise of The Beatles from their early years performing in The Cavern Club in Liverpool to sell-out tours of the US.

The legendary singers, who made music history as part of the Fab Four were joined by thousands of fans in Leicester Square. Wearing a dark suit with a velvet lapel and black suede shoes, Paul, 74, arrived hand in hand with wife Nancy Shevell. The music idol stopped to sign autographs as screaming fans called out his name.

Drummer Ringo, 76, wore a smart a black suit jacket and trousers for the evening accompanied by wife Barbara Bach, to celebrate the live concert performances of the band in their heyday. The film directed by Ron Howard has had the support of the surviving Beatles and their families as it celebrates their timeless music and their legacy.

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney's fashion designer daughter Stella McCartney also arrived at the event in support of the film. George Harrison's widow Olivia Harris details

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will view Ron Howard's The Beatles documentary for the first time at its premiere.

The two surviving members of the band joined Ron for a filmed Facebook question and answer session on Wednesday (14Sep16) and revealed they were yet to see The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years.

"I haven't seen it," Paul said in response to a question about his views on the film and Ringo indicated also hadn't viewed the film ahead of its release on Thursday (15Sep16). "We're looking forward to tomorrow night as you can imagine," Paul added, referring to the movie's world premiere in London on Thursday.

The Yesterday singer admitted he was particularly looking forward to seeing new footage recorded by fans of himself, Ringo and late members John Lennon and George Harrison. "We know there's new footage that fans sent in so that's very exciting," he said, before Ringo jumped in to say he was looking forward to hearing remixed audio of the band's live performances. Paul agreed with his bandmate, explaining it would be a unique experience hearing a high quality recording of himself perform live with the band. "In the cinema we're actually going to hear ourselves for the first time," details

No one had too much hope for the Beatles' movie debut. Director Richard Lester was told to shoot quickly, to get it into theaters before the fab fad faded. And a worried United Artists wondered if maybe, for the American release, the boys' voices should be dubbed, to get rid of their accents.

"Look, if we can understand a bloody cowboy talking Texan, they can understand us talking Liverpool," the usually polite Paul McCartney snapped. (And he used a stronger word than "bloody.")

But, like the Beatles, "A Hard Day's Night" exceeded all expectations. Lester – a band favorite, as he'd directed their idol, Peter Sellers – gave the film a fun, frantic pace. And screenwriter Alun Owen, a fellow Liverpudlian, caught their distinct personas – rebellious John, nice Paul, serious George, sweet Ringo.

A smash, it was quickly followed up by the more gimmicky, less satisfying "Help!" – and, eventually, the charming cartoon, "Yellow Submarine." But there were other Beatles projects, too, some solo, many bizarre. A few, like Ringo's "Caveman" comedy, were even hits. Here are eight, though, you may have missed – but that any true Beatlemaniac will want to catch

How I Won the War (19 details

Apple Corps Ltd, the music company founded by members of The Beatles, was accused in a lawsuit on Monday of infringing copyrights of a company claiming to own a master recording of the group's famous 1965 concert in New York's Shea Stadium.

Sid Bernstein Presents LLC sued before this week's scheduled release in theaters and on Hulu of "Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years," a Ron Howard-directed documentary about Beatles concerts from the dawn of Beatlemania through 1966.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Sid Bernstein, who died in 2013, was a promoter who helped bring the Beatles to the United States from their native Britain. The complaint said he also helped stage the group's Aug. 15, 1965, performance at Shea, and arranged for TV variety show host Ed Sullivan's production company to film it.

But the plaintiff, which said it was assigned Bernstein's rights, said the group's manager, Brian Epstein, took custody of the "Master Tapes" and began using them without seeking consent. It said the recording was later used in the 1966 movie "The Beatles at Shea Stadium," the 1995 documentary "The Beatles Anthology," and the 201 details