Beatles News

When Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys heard the Beatles' Rubber Soul for the first time, he knew something in pop had changed.

"I listened to Rubber Soul, and I said, 'How could they possibly make an album where the songs all sound like they come from the same place?'" Wilson said in the 2008 documentary The Beach Boys and the Satan. "I couldn't deal with it. It blew my mind. And I said, 'Damn it, I've got to do that. I've got to try that with the boys.'

" He saw it as the first pop album without any filler, and it likely was. It hit stores at a time when the industry was far more focused on singles, and records were largely viewed as methods to house them. It inspired Wilson to write Pet Sounds, a highly symphonic masterpiece, which in turn inspired the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's the Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was arguably the greatest musical conversation that has ever existed. These three albums — Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's the Lonely Hearts Club Band — all sit in the top of Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums" of all time, Nos. 5, 2 and 1, respectively.

Beyond just inspiring Wilson, Rubber Soul challenged all of pop music to step up and start seeing albums as artistic wholes an details

Andy White, the Scottish studio session musician who played the drums on Love Me Do and other early tracks by The Beatles, has died in New Jersey. According to his family, the 85-year-old died on Monday following a stroke. White was chosen ahead of Ringo Starr in September 1962 to play drums on the single version of Love Me Do and its B-side, P.S. I Love You. White, who was born in Glasgow in 1930, is also believed to have played on the album version of Please Please Me. He could therefore legitimately claim to be one of the so-called "Fifth Beatles", alongside the likes of Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe and others.

White also played drums on Lulu's 1964 cover of Shout and Sir Tom Jones' 1965 single It's Not Unusual. He went on to tour with Marlene Dietrich, Burt Bacharach and Rod Stewart and perform with the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra. In a 2009 interview with a New Jersey newspaper, White revealed he was often called to London's Abbey Road studios in the 1960s. "I would get a call from EMI and you never knew what you were going to be asked to do," he told The Progress.

White was paid a one-off fee - £5 - for his three hours with the Beatles and received no subsequent royalties. Starr, who played drums on details

To mark ITV's broadcast of 'The Nation's Favourite Beatles Number One' we take a look through the archives to see what links the Fab Four to this county we call home.

It was back on Friday June 21 1963 the band played to an audience in Guildford, in their one and only visit to the town. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison were the headline act on the Jimmy Crawford Package Show. The band headlined two concerts at the Odeon in the upper High Street. Scores of screaming fans were in tow waiting to hear the band of the moment and their many hits. Some braves fans even tried to scale the wall in Sydenham Road in an attempt to get into The Beatles' dressing room.

At the time the Surrey Advertiser's sister paper, the Guildford and Godalming Times, reported on the gig. The reviewer said: “The Beatles did their best to sing above the deafening screams of the audience. “I recognised their hit numbers but most of the words were inaudible.”

Even though the band did not frequent the music venues of Surrey, they did see the appeal of the county as three out of the four band members have at one point called Surrey their home. John Lennon lived in Kenwood, St George's Hill in details

Paul McCartney Signs Rocking Horse for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital Auction “Let’s get rocking for Alder Hey!"

 This Christmas, one very lucky child could be receiving a personalised rocking horse signed by Paul. The horse – made by Stevenson Brothers – features Paul’s signature along with a handwritten lyric from the classic Beatles song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’: “Rockin’ horse people eat marshmallow pies!!"

The signature and Beatles quote are not the only ties the wooden steed has to Paul: Stevenson Brothers – who have previously designed rocking horses for ‘Her Majesty' the Queen - modeled this particular creation not on “Henry the horse” who of course “dances the waltz”, but on Paul’s own Appaloosa named ‘Moonstar’, copying both his colouring and markings.

On top of this, Paul has also placed an additional surprise inside a “secret locking chamber” that’s been built into the underside of rocking horse!

This one-of-a-kind rocking horse is now up for auction to raise funds for the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool and will be exclusively details

Colts owner Jim Irsay didn't add a fourth Beatles guitar to his collection this weekend, but he did pick up an iconic piece of Fab Four history. Irsay paid $2.125 million for the bass drum head used by Ringo Starr during the Beatles' 1964 performances in the United States -- including appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and two concerts at the Indiana State Fair. The band's Feb. 9, 1964, visit to Sullivan's program launched the "British Invasion" of rock music and introduced U.S. viewers to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Starr.

"Mr. Irsay is thrilled to be able to bring this special piece of music history to Indianapolis," said Chris McKinney, curator of Irsay's rare guitars and collectibles "One of the largest television audiences ever watched the lads for the first time and had that logo etched into their minds forever."

The "drop-T" logo drum head, a 20-inch model made by Remo and originally attached to Starr's Ludwig kit, was auctioned Saturday by Julien's in Los Angeles. Before the auction, experts predicted a bid in the neighborhood of $1 million would secure the drum head.

The auction also featured John Lennon's 1962 J-160E Gibson acoustic guitar, which sold for $2.41 million t details

"I wanted to put out what I felt about revolution. I thought it was time we spoke about it," John Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970. With "Revolution," The Beatles songwriter "wanted to tell you, or whoever listens, to communicate, to say 'What do you say? This is what I say.'

" Lennon wrote "Revolution 1" -- and, subsequently, the faster single version, "Revolution" -- with the dual purpose of glorifying the spirit of the idea as well as calling out its potential for charlatanism. With the context-less and wide-ranging lyrics, such as, "But if you want money / For people with minds that hate / All I can tell you is brother, you have to wait," Lennon's intentions with the song were not explicitly clear, meaning it could have broader appeal.

But an interview with film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, exclusively provided to The Huffington Post with the recent release of "The Beatles 1" video set, provides a new entry point for the song. Lindsay-Hogg, who directed four music videos for The Beatles, recalled Lennon instructing him when they shot the "Revolution" video in 1968: "Whatever else you do in the song, I think I ought to have a close-up" on the line, "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain details

Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s five-decade career as television, film, and theater director has spanned everything from Ready, Steady, Go! to Waiting for Godot. There was also a period, in the mid-1960s, when he made something called promos for a band called the Beatles.

“Promo” was the term for what, in the fullness of time, would become known as the music video. And it’s impossible to imagine a better crash course on the early days of the form than the three new editions of the Beatles’ hits package, 1, coming out this weekend, in time (per long-standing Fab Four tradition) for holiday wish lists. The set includes the deluxe 1+, a whopping package of 50 gorgeously restored videos, with new stereo and 5.1 remixes by Giles (son of George) Martin. Forget the bootleg, third-generation, Betamax versions on YouTube. Frame by frame, new aural and visual wonders are revealed here, from the bristling guitars on “Paperback Writer” to the graffitied “STONES” that can now be clearly seen on a Penny Lane street sign.

Lindsay-Hogg, who shot the Beatles at critical career junctures (including Let It Be, the film that unsuspectingly captured their breakup), remembers what it was l details

Fox News Channel’s Howard Kurtz has whipped up some must-see TV for fans of The Beatles. On tomorrow’s MediaBuzz at 11 a.m. ET, Kurtz has an exclusive interview with a doctor who claims to have operated on Beatles’ music legend John Lennon. He will reveal the inaccuracies that have colored decades of reporting on what really happened on the night he was brought to a New York hospital on Dec. 8, 1980.

I was stunned to learn that after 35 years of reporting, the media narrative of what happened to John Lennon when he got to the hospital on that fateful night was deeply flawed. From medical details to the reaction of Yoko Ono, we will shed new light on a tragedy all of us so vividly remember,” Kurtz told TVNewser.

Kurtz will use interviews with key eyewitnesses who have not spoken out before to examine the embellished accounts that have developed over the years. The program also will touch on how Yoko Ono was depicted in the media following her husband’s death.

By: Brian Flood

Source: TVNewser

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John Lennon's long-lost acoustic Gibson J-160E, used in the recording of the Beatles' Please Please Me and With the Beatles LPs, shattered all estimates Saturday on the Julien's Live auction block, as the instrument sold for $2.41 million, a record for a guitar with music history significance. Lennon purchased the Gibson at Rushworth’s Music House in Liverpool in September 1962 for £161. The guitar, which was lost for over 40 years, sold for three times its $800,000 estimate to an unspecified buyer who asked to remain anonymous. 

t's unclear how Lennon was separated from the instrument, which was also used on the Beatles' first single "Love Me Do" / "P.S. I Love You," but it resurfaced in a San Diego music shop in the summer of 1967; however, the purchaser had no idea the guitar once belonged to Lennon. It wasn't until 2008 that the guitar's provenance was discovered. "Its importance in Beatles history cannot be overstated; this guitar is intimately bound to the early career of The Beatles," Julien's Live said of the guitar. "This is the earliest and most significant John Lennon guitar to be auctioned." 

By comparison, Lennon's Gretsch guitar, used on the Beatles' 1966 single "Paperback Wri details

Giles Martin, son of producer Sir George Martin, talks about working on the new stereo and surround audio mixes of the Beatles, his favourite song of the group and more..

How did you first come across the Beatles' music?

The Beatles had agreed to let their music be used for the Love project. I was interviewed for this by their people and I just thought it would be fun. They told me I had three months. I remember working on Within You, Without You and Tomorrow Never Knows. They liked my approach and fresh attitude towards the music. And since then, I've been working on the Beatles music.

In dealing with their catalogue, did you ever feel overwhelmed? Like working on music that is revered the world over...

Yes and no is the answer. If you ask Paul McCartney whether it's sacred or not, he'll say that he wouldn't want their work to be 'covered in dust'. If there are ways to improve things technically, we should do it. And I think with these new mixes on 1, they just sound more powerful because they are a throwback to the mono mixes. And obviously, we have surround sound we well. It is sacred in the sense that it means so much to so many people and the music is so important to the world. At the same t details