John Lennon’s ‘Walls and Bridges’ album clocked up its 50th anniversary this week. ‘Walls and Bridges’ was released on 4 October 1974 in the UK and a week earlier in the USA.

Work on ‘Walls and Bridges’ began in June 1974 at Record Plant East New York at 321 W 44th St. It was the same studio Bruce Springsteen recorded ‘Born To Run’, Eagles made ‘Hotel California’ and ‘Fleetwood Mac recorded ‘Rumours’.

The core players for ‘Walls and Bridges’ with John were included Jim Keltner on drums, Klaus Voormann on bass guitar, Jesse Ed Davison guitar and Arthur Jenkins on percussion.

The first single off the album was Lennon’s now classic ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night’, featuring Elton John on piano and harmony vocals. The second and final single off the album ‘#9 Dream’ features John’s personal assistant and girlfriend during the 18 month break-up with Yoko called The Long Weekend, May Pang on backing vocals.

Harry Nilsson is credited as Backing Vocals and co-writers on ‘Old Dirt Road’.

There has not been an announcement of the anniversary release at t details

At the 2024 Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift made history—in more ways than one. The singer-songwriter’s single “Anti-Hero” competed for Song of the Year, and though it didn’t win, the nod was enough to make it a special bit of recognition for the superstar.

With one more chance to win the prize awarded to the “best” written song of the year, Swift broke out of a tie with several other musicians for the most nominations ever in that vertical. The chart-topper currently stands alone thanks to that feat, but that may not be the case for very long.

Before “Anti-Hero,” Swift was matched with both Paul McCartney and Lionel Richie for the most Song of the Year nominations, with six apiece. Both male songwriters have won the award once—McCartney for “Michelle” by the Beatles and Richie for “We Are the World”—while Swift is still waiting to earn the honor, even though she now claims the most nods of all time.

McCartney is a possible nominee once again this year. The Beatles’ comeback and “final” single “Now and Then” is eligible for prizes at the 2025 Grammys, including Song of the Year. While nothi details

The artist Yoko Ono, the widow of the late former Beatle John Lennon, was admitted to a New York City hospital on Friday after complaining of severe flu-like symptoms, her West Coast-based spokesman said.

Spokesman Elliot Mintz denied U.S. media reports that Ono, 83, had suffered a possible stroke or heart attack, and said he understood she would be released from the hospital on Saturday.

Ono had called her doctor, who said her symptoms sounded like the flu, and advised her to go to the hospital as a precaution, Mintz said. He did not know if she admitted herself or was taken by ambulance.

Her career as an artist has spanned more than five decades. Last year, the Museum of Modern Art in New York marked her achievements with an exhibition of her early works showing how her ideas influenced the development of art in the city in the 1960s.

Ono, also an experimental musician and film-maker, was once described by Lennon as "the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name but nobody knows what she does."

She and Lennon were married on March 20, 1969, and their son, Sean, was born in 1975. Lennon was shot to death on Dec. 8, 1980, outside the famed Dakota apartment building just details

One of Paul McCartney’s most enduring songs is “Hey Jude,” but he was never convinced that would be the case. McCartney wrote the song shortly after John Lennon’s divorce from his wife, Cynthia Lennon. He ultimately came to think fondly of the song, but he did not always feel this way. McCartney admitted he was quite nervous to release “Hey Jude” because he wasn’t sure it was good.

Paul McCartney said he worried about how people would react to ‘Hey Jude’. In 1970, The Beatles had recently split up, and McCartney prepared to release his first solo album, McCartney. A journalist for Rolling Stone asked the bassist if the new album would have any ballads that were as strong as “Let It Be” or “Hey Jude.”

“Yeah, I think so,” he responded. “I can never tell.”

McCartney explained that he had difficulty discerning which of his songs were good. 

Source: Emma McKee/Showbiz Cheat Sheet

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Paul McCartney said The Beatles were surrounded by people, but they couldn't necessarily count them as friends. He shared why things were complicated.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr endured unprecedented levels of fame while they were in The Beatles. They became the biggest band in the world, ripping any shred of normalcy from the Fab Four’s lives. McCartney said that while they were constantly surrounded by people, it was difficult to tell who their real friends were. He said Starr struggled to count his genuine friends on one hand.  Paul McCartney said Ringo Starr and the rest of the Beatles struggled to find real friends

When The Beatles became famous, they found themselves feeling isolated despite being constantly surrounded by people.

“I remember Ringo saying at the time ‘How many friends have I got?’ and he couldn’t count them on one hand,” McCartney told Rolling Stone. “And that’s what it boils down to, really. You can have millions of friends, but when someone asks you how many friends you’ve got, it depends on how honestly you’re going to answer. Because I don’t think I have that many.”
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Most music fans agree: George Harrison was under-appreciated as a songwriter during his time with the Beatles. Between 1962 and 1970, the Fab Four released a little over 200 songs, only a small fraction of which were penned by Harrison.

It would not be until the latter portion of the band's tenure and into the early years of Harrison's solo career that his talent earned more recognition — 1970's All Things Must Pass, for example, was one of the best-selling albums of the '70s and is consistently cited today as a landmark singer-songwriter release. Or you can look at it this way: two of the most-streamed Beatles songs ever were written by Harrison, "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something."

Appearing on 1969's Abbey Road, "Something" was Harrison's very first A-side Beatles single — seven years after the band began releasing music. It was a No. 1 hit in the U.S., as well as No. 4 in the U.K., and almost immediately, fellow musicians recognized its strength and starting covering the song both live and on their own records.

"I realize that the sign of a good song is when it has lots of cover versions," Harrison would say in The Beatles Anthology. We agree. Below, in no particular order, are the 10 Be details

New York musician David Peel rings up the Greenwich Village apartment of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. She answers. After exchanging standard greetings, Ono seems to crumble.

Yoko Ono: People are saying that I’m the one who broke up the Beatles, you know? When I was pregnant, I got letters that said, “I hope your baby dies.” And they sent me a rag doll with a bunch of needles stuck in it, in its eyes, in its mouth, in its nose. When I walk down the street with John, they come up to me and say, “you’re ugly.” They pull my hair and hit me in the head.

David Peel: That happened in England?

Yoko Ono: Yes, yes, in England. I had three spontaneous abortions during that time.

David Peel: Oh my God, Yoko, I can’t believe it.

That 1971 conversation was never made public, until being included in the documentary One to One: John & Yoko, which debuted at the recent Venice Film Festival, will be shown at the BFI London Film Festival in mid-October and is awaiting a commercial release date. What is striking about the movie, which addresses a well-known subject (the English press enthusiastically piled onto the public lynching of Ono at the time, as per details

Paul is dad to five children: Heather, Mary, Stella, Beatrice and James, and it’s a title the rock legend clearly treasures. “As far as being a dad is concerned, I've always just tried to give my kids a bit of guidance if they seem to need it — but that was mainly when they were younger,” he said in an interview published on his website in February 2023. “Now that they are older, they're guiding me.”

The Beatles star continued, elaborating on how his fatherhood role has changed now that his kids are all adults. “They don't need so much guidance these days, but if there's ever a problem, I'm very happy to be the guy they come to,” he wrote. “So, that's largely the thing of being a dad. You're just there to help, and I suppose have fun with — we do have a lot of fun.”

Paul became a father in 1969 after he married his first wife, photographer Linda McCartney (née Eastman), and adopted her daughter Heather from a previous relationship. That same year, the pair welcomed their first child together, daughter Mary. They went on to have two more kids together: Stella in 1971 and James in 1977.

Following Linda’s tragic death in 1998, Pa details

Few artists have left as indelible a mark on music history as Paul McCartney. After the phenomenal success of The Beatles, McCartney didn’t miss a beat in continuing his legacy through his next great venture: Wings. Formed in 1971, the band was McCartney’s creative outlet during the 1970s, producing a string of chart-topping hits that cemented his post-Beatles career. Wings wasn’t just a side project—it became one of the most successful bands of the decade, blending McCartney’s genius for melody with rock, folk, and even orchestral influences. With his wife Linda McCartney on keyboards and a rotating lineup of talented musicians, Wings soared to international fame with some of the most memorable tracks in rock history.

In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the top 10 most popular Paul McCartney and Wings songs of all time. From heart-pounding rock anthems to tender ballads, these tracks showcase the extraordinary versatility and timeless appeal of McCartney’s songwriting. Whether you’re a long-time fan or new to their music, these songs are bound to transport you back to an era where McCartney and Wings ruled the airwaves. So, buckle up and get ready to rediscover s details

Ringo Starr has always been a health nut, but even his obsessive rituals for clean and environmentally conscious living are no longer doing everything they did as he advances in years, a source exclusively tells Closer.

The aging Beatle, 84, recently sparked health fears after canceling the remaining shows in his U.S. tour on Wednesday, September 25, which included a widely anticipated return performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The drummer made the decision following a doctor consultation for a nasty cold, during which he was advised to take it easy for a while.

“He’s still keeping up with the all-organic vegan diet and hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in 36 years, but even an obsession with health and avoiding germs isn’t enough to keep the flu bug away, at least not anymore,” the source says.

“For a guy who never got the sniffles, this is worrying.”

Before kicking off his fall tour with his All Starr Band in San Diego on Saturday, September 7, the Beatles alum opened up about how he stays healthy.

Speaking about his habits to The San Diego Union-Tribune in May 2023, the rocker said, “I watch what I eat. I’ve been v details

Morgan Neville has long been in the business of telling stories about real people. While so many filmmakers lean into the fictional or dramatized world, Neville turns his focus over and over again to the sometimes stranger-than-fiction lives of household names. With his next project, Man on the Run, the Academy and Grammy Award-winning documentarian will tune-up to the life of famed musician, Paul McCartney. But before you think this is just another documentary focused on the Beatles, think again, because Neville is shifting his focus to the legendary songwriter’s life and career following the band’s breakup.

During a recent chat with Collider’s Steve Weintraub for his unique Pharrell Williams doc Piece by Piece, Neville gave plenty of updates on the upcoming production, including when audiences can expect to see it and what pieces of McCartney’s incredible life it will include. Sharing the status of Man on the Run, Neville revealed that it was well on its way to audiences, saying, “I’m very far in the project. It’s gonna come out next year.” While he’s still not sure if it’s festival-bound, he added, “The film’s almost done, and I’m really ex details

Already one of history's greatest rock bands, The Beatles were even more than the sum of their parts. In the wake of the band's legendary 1960s run came a number of high-profile solo releases from each individual member. That includes Ringo, whose eponymous 1973 album peaked at #2 on the U.S. charts and yielded two #1 singles … with a little help from his friends, of course.

What's no less striking than the substantial output of each respective Beatle is the evolution of their signature sounds and styles. From George Harrison's idiosyncratic slide guitar to John Lennon's raw candor, certain albums were nearly as groundbreaking as the group efforts that preceded them. Acclaimed releases such as "All Things Must Pass" and "Plastic Ono Band" also helped redefine the personas of their creators.

Then there's Paul McCartney, or Macca, which is his English nickname, who arguably carried the torch of Beatles-style melodies into each of the subsequent decades. At the same time, he tirelessly explored an assortment of production styles and peripheral genres, including classical and electronic. As a solo artist or with Wings, Macca has released over 20 top 10 singles to date, putting his post-Beatles career in the s details

The Beatles have announced a brand new reissue of their album ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in celebration of its 60th anniversary.

The reissue is also in celebration of National Album Day and will come in the form of a limited edition 180g white pressing of the 1964 LP. The ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ 60th anniversary reissue is set for release on October 19.

Released as their third studio album, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ was penned solely by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, highlighting the development of their songwriting partnership. The LP also served as a partial soundtrack to the band’s first film of the same name and includes its titular track and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ which both became transatlantic Number One singles for the group.

‘A Hard Day’s Night’ 60th anniversary reissue tracklist is:

Side one:
1.’A Hard Day’s Night’
2. ‘I Should Have Known Better’
3. ‘If I Fell’
4. ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’
5. ‘And I Love Her’
6. ‘Tell Me Why’
7. ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’

Sourc details

Apple Corps Limited released Yellow Submarine in the UK on July 17, 1968. The Beatles had enjoyed the success of their first two cinematic releases, A Hard Day’s Night and Help! but Magical Mystery Tour had been the band’s first misstep. Broadcast on BBC1 on December 26, 1967, it was filmed in color but shown in black and white. Although the band was quick to use that as an excuse, the film had other failings, and it was the first Beatles project to be considered a critical failure.

The early press release for Yellow Submarine announced an animated feature with The Beatles providing their own character’s voices. Ultimately, other actors supplied the voices for the Fab Four’s speaking parts, except for a cameo appearance by the band at the end of the movie. The Beatles supplied four new songs for the soundtrack, and the film also used older existing songs. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Hey Bulldog” by The Beatles.

Sheepdog, standing in the rain
Bullfrog doing it again
Some kind of happiness is
Measured out in miles
What makes you think you’re
Something special when you smile
One of Their Final Group Efforts

The Beatles details

John, Paul, George and Ringo: time and time again, these four boys from Liverpool have been called the greatest rock 'n' roll band in history. They spawned Beatlemania and launched the British invasion of America so its little wonder that The Beatles are the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed act in the rock music era. For this list, we start at the beginning and go through the moments in The Beatles' career that we felt specifically related to their music or that impacted their music making.

These four boys from Liverpool spawned Beatlemania. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re taking a look at the Beatles’ top 10 musical moments.

For this list, we start at the beginning and go through the moments in The Beatles’ career that we felt specifically related to their music or that impacted their music making.

Source: watchmojo.com

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George Harrison’s historic Futurama – which he played extensively across more than 324 Beatles performances – is going up for auction for a second time.

Julien’s Auctions announced the sale during an official unveiling event today (Thursday 3 October) in Liverpool, during which it called the oddball electric guitar “one of the holy grails of historic Beatles guitars”.

Source: Matt Owen/guitarworld.com

Sir Paul McCartney has teased that he will play new Beatles song Now And Then on his upcoming Got Back 24 tour in new footage of him and his band rehearsing.

In the video, the 82-year-old singer can be seen performing in front of a screen showing a clip from the song’s music video, which was released in November 2023.

The song was created from a home demo of a ballad that John Lennon had recorded in 1977 but left unfinished, with surviving bandmates Sir Paul and Sir Ringo Starr finishing the track using overdubs and guitar tracks from George Harrison, who died in 2001.

The pair also used AI technology to separate the vocals from the home demo on the song which has never been performed live by Sir Paul. Along with the new song, Sir Paul can also be heard tearing through other classics from the Fab Four including Helter Skelter from 1968’s The Beatles (commonly known as The White Album), I’ve Got A Feeling from 1970’s Let It Be, and Carry That Weight from 1969’s Abbey Road.

Source: uk.news.yahoo.com

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Seth Rogovoy’s "Within You Without You" sheds new light on George Harrison’s pivotal contributions to The Beatles

George Harrison of English rock and pop group The Beatles, wearing sunglasses and a denim jacket, takes part in filming of the television musical film 'Magical Mystery Tour' at Newquay in Cornwall on 13th September 1967. (David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images)

When it comes to the so-called Quiet Beatle, author Seth Rogovoy’s "Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison" accomplishes a rare feat. In a sea of ineffectual biographies devoted to the Beatles’ guitarist, Rogovoy makes a case for Harrison’s most important contribution: the music itself.

A self-described amateur guitarist, Rogovoy draws upon his musical skills to deliver a powerful new reading of Harrison’s role in fueling one Lennon-McCartney classic after another. Rogovoy offers a careful delineation of the mottos, riffs, and licks via which Harrison left a distinctive imprint upon the Beatles’ sound, from early hits such as “Please Please Me” and “She Loves You” through "Abbey Road" and the group’s twilight years.

As Rogovoy astutely writ details

After The Beatles broke up, Paul McCartney began touring for the first time in years with his band Wings. The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, so many people hoped to hear McCartney perform them live with Wings. He shared why he decided not to do that on their first tour, even though it complicated things for him.

Paul McCartney didn’t want to play Beatles songs on his 1st tour with Wings

McCartney went years without touring, so he admitted he was “very nervous” ahead of his first concert dates with Wings.

“The main thing I didn’t want to face was the torment of five rows of press people with little pads all looking and saying, ‘Oh, well, he’s not as good as he was.’ So we decided to go out on that university tour, which made me less nervous because it was less of a big deal,” he told Rolling Stone.

Source: imdb.com

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 A recording of a "long-lost" interview given by The Beatles for a feature in Playboy magazine is set to be auctioned.

The two hour interview, carried out by American journalist and radio host Jean Shepherd, took place in October 1964 after a concert at the Exeter ABC.

The cassette tapes are said to include "unfiltered moments" such as Paul McCartney swearing about a hostile journalist and 15 minutes of live concert recordings.

The tapes will be auctioned by Merseyside based Omega Auctions on 15 October, with a price-tag starting at £10,000.

The recordings include "heartfelt anecdotes" from John Lennon and McCartney about their families, as well as "playful banter".

Omega said that while the interview provided the basis of a feature that appeared in Playboy in February 1965, the full tapes had never been published.

The recording begins with a spoken introduction by Shepherd while the band play songs including Can't Buy Me Love and I Wanna Be Your Man.

Shepherd then carries out an in-depth interview at a Torquay hotel where the band stayed after the concert.

Omega auction manager Dan Muscatelli-Hampson said: "Unearthing gems like these is always exciting details

The Paul McCartney catalog is dotted with many classic albums he’s released over a long stretch of time. And he’s done it by knowing how to sequence those records so they often start off with a bang.

In terms of his finest album-opening songs, it’s not surprising many of them coincide with some of the best LPs of his career. Here are our picks for the five finest Side 1, Track 1 songs in Paul McCartney’s illustrious career.
5. “Tug of War” from Tug of War (1982)

The pressure on McCartney to deliver with the Tug of War album was heightened. On the one hand, it marked his definitive return to a solo career after his decision to scuttle Wings. And it was also the first album after the death of John Lennon, which ensured that all eyes and ears would be on Macca. He rose to the occasion in a big way on this record, and it starts with the title track, a stately look at the differences that unnecessarily keep people and nations apart. McCartney reunited with Beatles’ producer George Martin on this album, and Martin’s firm hand guiding the tiller can be felt on his track.
4. “My Brave Face” from Flowers in the Dirt (1989)

This was another poin details

Paul McCartney did not play the Concert for Bangladesh when George Harrison asked. Here's why.

In 1971, George Harrison reached out across the rift separating the former members of The Beatles by inviting Paul McCartney to play in his Concert for Bangladesh. The benefit concert was among the first of its kind and raised money for refugees. McCartney admitted that when Harrison asked him to participate, he felt irritated.

After The Beatles broke up, Harrison and John Lennon publicly aired their grievances with McCartney. Still, Harrison asked him to take part in the benefit concert. McCartney declined, not wanting to reunite the band so soon after breaking up.

“George invited me, and I must say [my reason for declining] was more than just visa problems,” McCartney told Rolling Stone. “At the time there was the whole Apple thing. When the Beatles broke up, at first I thought, ‘Right, broken up, no more messing with any of that.’ George came up and asked if I wanted to play Bangla Desh and I thought, blimey, what’s the point? We’re just broken up and we’re joining up again? It just seemed a bit crazy.”

He admitted he felt irritated th details

The Beatles were driven forwards by the partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, two souls were often in sync, but could sometimes drive each other crazy. Take ‘Across The Universe’ – often lauded as one of the band’s finest moments, it’s beatific paean was given an arrangement that sparked John Lennon to call it “subconscious sabotage”.

The lyric itself is one of Lennon’s most beautiful. The opening phrase of “words spilling out into a paper cup” was sparked by unease in his marriage, the image itself coming to mind after an uncomfortable conversation with his first wife, Cynthia.

“I was lying next to my first wife in bed, you know, and I was irritated, and I was thinking. She must have been going on and on about something and she’d gone to sleep and I kept hearing these words over and over, flowing like an endless stream. I went downstairs and it turned into a sort of cosmic song rather than an irritated song… [The words] were purely inspirational and were given to me as boom! I don’t own it you know; it came through like that.”

The song was first recorded at Abbey Road in 1968, with the high notes famously details

Across the Fab Four’s entire extensive discography, only one Beatles song featured a female lead vocalist. Interestingly, the John Lennon composition was also inspired by a woman. However, the conversation that sparked the song certainly didn’t paint the woman, who was described by another witness as a “self-important, middle-aged American woman,” in the most flattering light.

Nevertheless, inspiration can come in the unlikeliest of places, and the Beatles’ 1968 track “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill,” from the group’s iconic white album, is certainly no exception.   The Beatles were no strangers to bending the rules of gender, perspective, and even reality in general. From “She Said She Said” to “Octopus’ Garden,” the Fab Four proved how adept they were at adopting unique points of view for their compositions. But in “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill,” they outsourced their character perspectives to a woman already present in the studio: Yoko Ono.

John Lennon’s second wife sang one line alone before the late musician joined her to finish the rest of the verse. Maureen Starkey, drummer Ringo Starr details

Paul McCartney Once Agreed With John Lennon's Belief That The Beatles Were 'Crap'.

After The Beatles broke up, Paul McCartney and John Lennon didn’t have much to agree on. Lennon insulted McCartney’s solo music and they clashed endlessly over the band’s contractual agreements. Ultimately, these constant clashes made them agree on one thing. McCartney admitted that the bitterness in the aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup tainted his view of the band for a time.

Paul McCartney said he felt as negatively about The Beatles as John Lennon for a time.

After The Beatles broke up, Lennon often spoke derisively about the work they did together as a band. He dismissed some of the songs they released and said they were con artists. McCartney admitted that navigating the messy band dynamics after their breakup made him feel the same way, at least for a time.

Source: IMBD

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