Beatles News

At the height of Beatlemania in the 1960s, fans were desperate to get their hands on anything related to the Fab Four.

Today, of course, pop stars’ most devoted tribes of followers—Beliebers and Directioners, Swifties and Sheerios—can access thousands of candid photos and news updates about their idols with the swipe of a smartphone screen.

But in the pre-internet era, celebrities—even megastars like the Beatles—had much more control over the images and information they released to the public, which made every candid photo and gossipy tidbit that much more precious.

Music publisher Sean O’Mahony understood this from the earliest days of Beatlemania. In August 1963, he launched The Beatles Book, the only fanzine ever authorized by the Fab Four. The magazine, chock full of the latest Beatles news and photos, served as an exclusive portal into the private lives of John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The magazine’s photographer, Leslie Bryce, traveled with the group throughout the 1960s, giving him unparalleled access to the band. He took plenty of concert photos, but he also snapped hundreds of intimate shots of the Fab Four killing time in their dressing rooms, r details

Paul Minett got three of the Fab Four to sign the inside cover of the famous album after spending hours waiting outside their Abbey Road recording studio in 1967. Unfortunately drummer Ringo was not there and so his name remained absent from the LP. But patient Paul finally completed the set when he was able to get Ringo to sign it in 1997.

It is thought there are just 10 Sgt. Pepper albums signed by all four Beatles that exist in the world. Paul's album has been valued by auctioneers at a whopping £40,000. It is believed that without the crucial fourth signature it would fetch just £15,000.

Had Ringo been in attendance that night in 1967 and signed alongside his band mates, the record would now be worth up to £80,000. Paul, a 68-year-old semi-retired scriptwriter from Aylsham, Norfolk, has had the LP gathering dust in a draw for a number of years and has now decided that now is the time to sell up. He said: "I had always thought it was a shame that I didn't get Ringo's autograph all those years ago and knew that it would be of great value with him in addition.

"They were great to interact with, as long as you were polite they were very easy going." The album remained more or less untou details

In his introduction to the George Harrison The Apple Years box set, Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers says, “The record…hangs on the wall of my studio, just next to my own Moog modular, beaming inspiration straight to my brain.” Rowlands had bought a second hand copy of the LP from a Japanese record shop in the mid 1990s and was amazed by what he heard.

Recorded in November 1968 and February 1969 George’s Electronic Sound was released in May 1969, it was the second, and final, record released on The Beatles’ Apple Records subsidiary label, Zapple Records. It was yet more proof that George was ahead of his time and in many respects the most musically enquiring of the four Beatles.

Electronic Sound is made up of two long pieces of music, originally one on each side of the LP, that are performed on the Moog synthesizer; the Moog IIIc modular system was purchased by George from its inventor, Robert Moog. The record was made against a background of musical exploration that characterised London and Los Angeles in 1968 …Avant-garde was everywhere.

Side 2 of the album ‘No Time or Space’ was the first to be recorded and was done in Los Angeles in November 1968 details

A shirt stained with John Lennon's blood from the night he was murdered has emerged for sale 36 years later.

Concierge Jay Hastings was wearing the white shirt as part of his uniform at the Dakota building in New York when Lennon was shot by deranged fan Mark Chapman. As the former Beatle stumbled through the door and collapsed Mr Hastings rushed to help him.

While he tried to give him aid some of Lennon's blood soaked into his shirt which is still visible today on the chest and sleeves. Mr Hastings covered Lennon's chest with his uniform jacket, took off the star's glasses and called the police. The macabre piece of memorabilia is still owned by the former porter and is now being sold at auction for an estimated £7,000. Mr Hastings had a good working relationship with the Lennon and Yoko Ono and also included in the sale is a copy of the album Double Fantasy signed 'To Jay, Love John Lennon Yoko Ono'.

There is also a Thanksgiving card from the family dated 1978 with a printed message, doodle and signatures from John, Yoko and Sean, and a typed letter from Yoko Ono two weeks after her husband's death thanking the staff for their support, in its original envelope with 'Jay Hastings' written on details

The Ludwig drum kit used for the recording of the Beatles’ first American single “Love Me Do,” will be auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auctions on June 30. Interested bidders may participate in the auction online, Art Daily said.

Andy White, known as the “Fifth Beatle,” replaced Ringo Starr on drums during the recording of the Beatles’ first single “Love Me Do” for their first album, “Please Please Me.” The album was released on March 22, 1963. Ron Richards, an assistant to British record producer George Martin, who continued to work with the Beatles for decades, asked White to re-record the song with Ringo Starr shifting over to the tambourine.

“Love Me Do,” with White on the drums being auctioned, was the #1 song in the United States when it was released and prompted the Beatles into superstardom. The album “Please Please Me” gave the Beatles a national audience in the United Kingdom that launched Beatlemania.

Three renditions of “Love Me Do” were recorded at EMI in London in 1962. Each rendition featured a different drummer. The first rendition on June 6, 1962 featured Pete Best on drums; it is featured on the details

More than 180 members of the music industry are voicing support for the Democrats' efforts in Congress to pass gun control measures, courtesy of Billboard magazine. The editors of the publication reached out to the people they covered asking them to sign an open letter to Congress asking for two measures – expanded background checks and banning people on the no fly list from buying guns – to be passed.

Joan Jett was the first to sign the letter, quickly followed by Lady Gaga. Soon, the remaining members of the Beatles – Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr – had signed on, along with Hillary Clinton supporters Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry and Demi Lovato and pop princesses Shakira and Britney Spears. 

The group Everytown for Gun Safety aided the effort. 'As leading artists and executives in the music industry, we are adding our voices to the chorus of Americans demanding change,' the letter began. 'Music always has been celebrated communally, on dancefloors and at concert halls. But this life-affirming ritual, like so many other daily experiences – going to school or church or work – now is threatened, because of gun violence in this country,' it continued. 'The details

THE promising artist and so-called fifth Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe would have been 76 today and to mark the occasion, a damning school report card has gone on show in Liverpool, denouncing his future abilities.

The Prescot School, where Sutcliffe was a pupil from 1951-1956, has loaned the recently discovered archive document to The Beatles Story. In it, teachers doubt Sutcliffe's academic abilities describing him as an average boy possessing "some imagination but little evidence of future distinction".

Sutcliffe, who died of a brain haemorhage at the age of 21, spent the last months of his life studying under renowned sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi at Hamburg Art College. In a somewhat contrasting "school report" Paolozzi wrote: "Sutcliffe is very gifted and very intelligent. In the meantime he has become one of my best students"

Sutcliffe was born in Edinburgh on 23rd June 1940 before the family relocated to Liverpool when he was three. He attended Park View Primary School before moving on to Prescot Grammar School, which is now The Prescot School academy.

At the age of 16, Sutcliffe was accepted into Liverpool College of Art, where he met John Lennon. Lennon encouraged him to purchase a Hofner bass gu details

It was 50 years ago today -- more or less. In late June 1966, the Beatles landed in Tokyo to play five concerts at the Budokan, the home of Japanese martial arts. Two months later, they stopped touring entirely. That November, they recorded the groundbreaking "Strawberry Fields Forever."

If the Beatles were moving fast, so was Japan. Like China today, it was at the tail end of a turbocharged period of economic growth that had generated massive urbanization and a vibrant consumer culture. The population was young and thirsty for the latest overseas trends, while the student movement was becoming increasingly militant.

Into this maelstrom came the Beatles, a symbol of youthful hedonism and the crumbling of traditional values. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato objected to their presence on the hallowed ground of the Budokan. On TV talk shows, the kimono-clad Ryugen Hosokawa, a former Asahi Shimbun journalist, dismissed the Fab Four as "beggarly entertainers."

At the time, terrorist threats from the extreme right were still a reality. Six years earlier, the head of the Japan Socialist Party had been murdered by a fanatical rightist. In 1970, famed novelist Yukio Mishima was to commit seppuku during a theatrical att details

Beatles autographs come to the market quite frequently; but not often are they accompanied by three handwritten letters to one of their fans from George Harrison's mother and sister. 

The pair would often reply to Beatles fans letters and when the vendor of a set of autographs brought them in to be sold at Cottees Auctions in Poole, she also included three handwritten letters which show an interesting insight into the Beatles lives at the beginning of their careers. 

One letter, written by Louise Harrison, George's sister, described how "the boys are very busy with the film" and that she had "Just returned from 3 weeks in Jamaica and boy it was lovely (George's idea and birthday present to me). Returned to 4000 letters. Ugh!"

Another from George's mother, also called Louise, is addressed from Mackets Lane in Liverpool: "The usual system of the boy's when they are going to play anywhere is to practice in the afternoon prior to the show", she writes.

"Dear Sal", says Louise in another letter. "George is a very happy and kind person, I think he is kind of interested in Patti (Boyd, George's wife between 1966-1977) as she is also quite a jolly person."

By: Tracey R

Source: B details

Rock and roll arrived in Canada, and was received, much the way it was across white North America. “This music works on a man’s emotions like the music of the heathen in Africa,” Rev. W.G. McPherson of Toronto’s Evangel Temple warned Maclean’s magazine in 1956.

When the Beatles came along, however, The Man was more bemused than concerned. “34,000 Beatles fans pay $100,000 to hear themselves,” a Toronto Daily Star headline wryly observed of their first shows in the city: matinee and evening performances on Labour Day 1964, when no one in Maple Leaf Gardens reported hearing a note over the screaming.

To someone born 12 years later, who is still in awe of the band, it’s astonishing how quickly the mania faded. The Beatles’ 1965 shows barely made the front page of the Star. In 1966, the paper declared Beatlemania eradicated.

It’s all relative of course. Mayor John Tory, who was 12 in 1966, recalls “complete chaos” in the floor seats and barely hearing anything above the screaming. “As we left, there was a long row of chairs along the wall of MLG, each … occupied by a fan who had been brought out in a completely overwhelmed s details