Beatles News

George’s first full solo tour following the breakup of The Beatles began in November 1974, prior to the release of his fifth studio album. This was also the first tour of North America by any of the four Beatles and, like his Concert For Bangladesh, this 1974 tour, which began in Canada on 2 November 1974, included Ravi Shankar the Indian master-musician.

Other musicians from the Bangladesh concert that also appeared on the 1974 tour included Billy Preston who had a couple of solo numbers and was prominently featured on keyboards, drummers Jim Keltner and Andy Newmark, and trumpeter Chuck Findlay. The rest of the band for the ’74 tour was made up of saxophonists, Tom Scott and Jim Horn, guitarist, Robben Ford, who all played with Scott in the LA Express, and who all featured on George’s Dark Horse album.

The tour became known as the ‘Dark Horse’ tour. George had signed Ravi to his new label of the same name and he played several songs from the album that was released towards the end of the 26-date run of gigs. However, it was not an easy time for George. He struggled throughout the tour with laryngitis and gargled nightly with a mixture of honey, vinegar and warm water to try and re details

On this day 60 years ago, the first ever Albums Chart was published in the UK - and we're marking the occasion by honouring a true chart diamond.

The Official Albums Chart represents the most trusted and longest established measure of album popularity in Britain, and to celebrate today’s landmark birthday, the Official Charts Company is honoured to announce Paul McCartney as the UK’s most successful albums artist of all time.

Paul becomes the latest recipient of the new Official Chart Record Breaker Award - a prestigious new accolade presented to a selected elite of artists achieving the greatest feats on the Official Chart.

The music icon’s impact on the Official Albums Chart across the past six decades is something most artists can only dream of; racking up an astonishing 22 Number 1 albums across his illustrious career. Paul has scored 15 Number 1s as a member of The Beatles, two with Wings, four via his solo projects and one with Linda McCartney to become the most prolific chart topper in history.

Reacting to the news, Paul told OfficialCharts.com: “Okay, you know how it really feels? It feels unbelievable, because when you write your songs you don't count how well the details

Surviving Beatles members Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney have performed together only sporadically since their famous group broke up in 1970, but Starr says he now would love to hit the road with his former band mate. At a recent event in Los Angeles celebrating his 76th birthday, the drummer told Closer Weekly, “I would tour with Paul McCartney tomorrow!”

Having said that Ringo noted, “I’m doing my own tours right now so we’d have to work it out.”

As for how he felt about reaching the ripe old age of 76, Starr quipped, “It would be nice to be 70 again! But you get up in the morning and you try to have the best day you can. And be in the best spirit that you can be!”

Speaking about good spirits, the rock legend is known for encouraging people to spread the message of peace and love around the world, as he did at his public birthday celebration in L.A.

At the event, he told Closer Weekly, “I think it is important with all the violence that there is peace and love! And maybe we can have more as the years go on!”

Source: ABC News Radio

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George Harrison's estate gently weeps over Donald Trump's use of his music. A representative from the late Beatles' estate quickly slammed the use of "Here Comes the Sun" during the final night of the Republican National Convention on Thursday. The beloved classic song played as Ivanka Trump emerged on stage to deliver her highly anticipated speech. "The unauthorized use of #HereComestheSun at the #RNCunCLE is offensive & against the wishes of the George Harrison estate," they wrote.

Many seemed to agree with the sentiment as the post was retweeted more than 7,000 times. They even suggested an alternative. "If it had been Beware of Darkness, then we may have approved it! #TrumpYourself," they continued.

The unauthorized use of the 1969 Harrison-penned track isn't the only liberty the Trump campaign has taken during the convention. Earlier in the day, The O'Jays decried their music being played at the Cleveland, Ohio convention. Their 1973 hit "Love Train" was used and even changed to "Trump Train."

By: Melanie Dostis

Source: NY Daily News

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He was gunned down outside his luxury New York apartment having left Britain after the break-up of The Beatles. But before he became a global star John Lennon vowed he would never live in the US, it has been revealed. Lennon made the comments in a previously lost interview with The Beatles from 1964 which has been discovered in a house in Doncaster, Yorkshire. 

The original reel-to-reel tape recording could now sell for £10,000. During the audio recording, interviewer Alistair McDougall asks the band if they would ever ‘consider taking up residence in America or even record over there’. Lennon replies: ‘You’re joking! Wouldn’t live there, wouldn’t mind recording there.’

The interview for the British Forces Broadcasting Network was recorded in Paris in January 1964 while The Beatles were on tour in France. Although they were a huge success in Britain at the time, Beatlemania had yet to take over the world. 

The audio tape was discovered in the home of Mr McDougall, who died in 2007, by friends during a clear-out of his home. Lennon moved permanently to New York from London with wife Yoko Ono in 1971 to escape the intense media spotlight on the coup details

Late July and early August 1968, one of the most iconic songs ever was recorded at Apple Studios London. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, The Beatles “Hey Jude” is still as popular today as it was then. It all started during the break-up of John’s marriage to Cynthia, and Paul thought young Julian was taking it all pretty badly.

On his way to visit Cynthia at their home in Weybridge a line kept singing in his mind “Hey Jules, don’t make it bad, take I sad song and make it better” it was, he hoped an optimistic and hopeful message to Julian. Cynthia recalled “Paul turned up at the door wearing a red nose saying ‘sorry Cyn this isn’t right I don’t know what’s come over him’, he was the only member of the Beatles family who had the courage to stand up to John, in fact musically and personally they were both beginning to go in separate directions”. Paul finished the song at his home in Cavendish Avenue, London, and he changed Jules to Jude and John actually thought the song was about him. Paul wanted to change the line “The movement you need is on your shoulder” but John insisted he kept it in stating “That’s the details

A new, remastered live album containing the Beatles' performances at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964 and 1965 will be released this fall. The album, Live at the Hollywood Bowl, coincides with a new documentary by Ron Howard about the band's early career, dubbed Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years.

The album contains recordings from three different concerts, which took place on August 23rd, 1964 and August 29th and 30th, 1965, and the repertoire covers many of their early hits, including "Twist and Shout," "Ticket to Ride" and "A Hard Days Night," among others.

Although the group put out the platinum-selling The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl in 1977, the new record contains a different track list with four previously unreleased songs. The recordings were sourced directly from the three-track tapes of the concerts and were remixed and mastered at Abbey Road by George Martin's son, Giles, and engineer Sam Okell.

"Technology has moved on since my father worked on the material all those years ago," Giles said in a statement. "Now there's improved clarity, and so the immediacy and visceral excitement can be heard like never before. ... What we hear now is the raw energy of four lads playing together to a cr details

An inveterate patron of junk stores and flea markets, Dave Seabury was rummaging through a box at a garage sale in San Pablo in 1986 when he came across an old photographic contact sheet with 72 images of the Beatles in performance.

“I knew it was a find,” recalls Seabury, a Bay Area musician, painter and sculptor of salvaged material who performs with a piquant array of local bands — among them Psychotic Pineapple, the Rock & Roll Adventure Kids and the Chuckleberries — while working days at the Presidio Trust running the recycling and refuse disposal operation.

Seabury bought that unsigned contact sheet, which had previously been purchased at the Berkeley Flea Market, for $1. He tucked it in his collection of photographs and posters and didn’t think much about it, other than it was cool. Some time later, he was looking at Jim Marshall’s famous pictures from the Beatles’ last live concert, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on Aug. 29, 1966, when he realized they were wearing the same patterned shirts they have on in the tiny images on the contact sheet.

“It’s definitely from that last show,” says the 63-year-old Beatles lover and co details

A long lost Beatles demo disc sent to Cilla Black has been rediscovered 52 years later.

Black had a UK Top 10 hit with the Lennon-McCartney penned It's for You in 1964 which was produced by George Martin at Abbey Road Studios. The song peaked at number 7 in the charts but Paul McCartney had earlier that year recorded his own version, clocking in at just under two minutes, on a 7 inch Dick James demo disc and wanted Black to listen to it. The acetate was delivered to the London Palladium where Black was performing at the time but its whereabouts since then had been unclear, with it thought to have been lost or destroyed.

The disc has now re-emerged after a relative of Black, who died last year, came across a brown envelope which had the words "It's For You" hand-written on the front and Cilla Black's name underneath. They assumed that it was a copy of her hit record and brought it in with other items to be valued at The Beatles Shop in Mathew Street, Liverpool.

Stephen Bailey, who has managed the shop for 31 years, said they decided to play what they thought were 21 demo discs by Black.

Mr Bailey said: "We got to the last one and as soon as I heard it I thought 'Oh God, that's not Cilla Black it's details

In 1964, the year of the Beatles’ first Toronto concert, the band was playing the peppy ’60s pop of A Hard Day’s Night. By their last local gig, just two years later, they’d evolved to the stranger, more psychedelic sounds of Revolver. Toronto had changed, too: it had a new City Hall, a second subway line, freshly built expressways and all matter of upward and outward growth.

This year, Wayne Reeves, Toronto’s chief curator of museums and heritage services, set out to mark the 50th anniversary of that final show. He didn’t want to just tell the story of a band; he wanted to throw back to the spirit of the city when it last hosted the Fab Four. He asked three photographers—Boris Spremo, John Rowlands and Lynn Ball—to dive into their personal archives, and he combed through thousands of negatives in search of never-seen images. The resulting exhibit, When the Beatles Rocked Toronto (on now through Nov. 12 at the Market Gallery), features three rooms of pictures, posters and other memorabilia. We asked Reeves to share the stories behind some of the shots he unearthed.

“Photographer Lynn Ball worked out of Ottawa, so he captured a lot of Canada’s political details