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One name many music fans know around the world is Ringo Starr, but not everyone knows what it means.

The musician, now 84, claimed worldwide fame as the drummer in the Beatles, and their music is still adored by millions today. Even though the band have been in people's lives since the '60s, not all fans know the significance of his name.

In fact, the topic recently came up on Reddit when fans were discussing what he prefers to be called. One social media user wrote: "Does Ringo prefer to be called Ringo Starr or Richard Starkey?

"I just started reading 'You Never Give Me Your Money', and the author calls him Starkey throughout, because of the 2009 ad where he said 'don't call me by my stage name'. Is that accurate? Does he prefer to be called by his birth name?"

It's fair to say fans had all sorts of thoughts, with several offering various suggestions. One simply replied: "Richy/Richard is reserved for his friends and family, and Ringo is for the rest of us."

Another wrote: "I've always called him Ringo Starr, or just Ringo, since I'm not always going to use his last name. I've called him by his stage name since I first knew The Beatles, before I even considered myself a fan of them, and details

In 2028, the world will experience a musical and cinematic event that's never really happened before. Three years from now, in April, Sony Pictures will release four separate (but connected) movies about the Beatles, all directed by Sam Mendes. The four actors playing each Beatle have been revealed, but one person has some thoughts about the other historical figures in the movie. Namely, herself.

George Harrison's first wife, Pattie Boyd, recently took to X and fired off a tweet about how the movie would handle her role in the story of the biggest rock band of all time. "I wonder who will be cast to play me?" she said. "That's assuming that I get to feature in any of the movies..."

An international model in the 1960s, Boyd married Beatles guitarist George Harrison in 1966. They later divorced in 1977. Boyd then married famed guitarist Eric Clapton, a friend of Harrison's. In fact, the famous Clapton song, "Layla," was based on Clapton's romantic feelings for Boyd, while she was still married to Harrison. Clapton and Harrison remained friends, despite the fact that Boyd left Harrison for a different guitarist. To this day, Boyd points out that Harrison frequently cheated on her, which is why she formally left him details

Over the past several years, Paul McCartney has been reintroducing music lovers to his former group, Wings. While the band may not be as iconic as The Beatles, or even quite as talked about as McCartney’s solo efforts, its discography is full of gems that fans have loved since they were new, decades ago.

Wings has been celebrated throughout the past several years with multiple re-releases, deluxe editions, and other special projects that highlight the great material it recorded. The band’s Venus and Mars is enjoying a brand new life across the pond as it returns to the charts, and even manages to debut on several tallies.

Venus and Mars shows up on three charts in the U.K. The album debuts on two of those rankings, marking a real comeback for a title that first dropped almost exactly 50 years ago.

The release opens at No. 6 on the Official Vinyl Albums chart, which ranks the bestselling vinyl releases in the country. The same collection also lands at No. 18 on the Official Albums Sales ranking. That tally measures the top-selling full-lengths across all formats, not just vinyl.

While Wings has appeared on the Official Vinyl Albums chart before, top 10 success is stil details

Mendes was nominated for four Academy Awards and won Best Director in 2000 for his work on American Beauty. More recently, he received critical acclaim for 1917, which earned him his other three Oscar nominations.

Of course, the Beatles are still considered one of the most influential bands in all of music history. They became one of the leading figures in the 1960s counterculture movement and pushed in the "British Invasion" of the US pop market. They racked up 25 Grammy nominations and won eight, including Best New Artist in 1964. From songs like "Here Comes the Sun" to "Come Together" to "Let It Be," the words "music" and "the Beatles" are practically synonymous.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the films are being made with the blessings of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison, who are all offering up the "full life stories and music rights" for the scripted films. Apple Corps, the group's notably selective label, also signed off on the movies.

Source: buzzfeed.com/Nora Dominick

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Sam Mendes confirmed that his long-threatened Beatles biopic quadrilogy would be released in its entirety in April 2028. That’s right, all four Beatles movies want to hold their hands, so Sony is releasing them helter-skelter in theaters in the same month. Based on the logline (“Each man has his own story, but together they are legendary”), we believe the plan is still to do a movie for each Beatle to combine into an interlocking cinematic Voltron.

Sony also made its cast official, too, with Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. All this raises more questions, such as who’s playing Brian Epstein and George Martin? How many years will it cover? Will the Blue Meanies be involved? We simply do not know. All we know is that each man has his own story, but together they are legendary.

Source: yahoo.com/Matt Schimkowitz

Paul McCartney and John Lennon were not only the dynamic duo behind The Beatles' hits, but they also penned tunes for other big names in the 60s, with McCartney also providing the inspiration for the name of an iconic rock band.

The ECHO has delved into how the pair - whose tense relationship is often cited as one of the reasons why the band split up - crafted The Rolling Stones' first smash 'I Wanna Be Your Man,' as well as supplying chart-toppers to groups like Badfinger with 'Come and Get It' and Peter and Gordon with 'A World Without Love.'

Beatles manager Brian Epstein was well aware of the goldmine he had in John and Paul's songwriting genius, with McCartney once writing 'a huge' song for the Beatles but then giving it to another band. He often tasked them with creating hits or passed on their compositions to other acts under his wing.

One such beneficiary was Bootle's own Billy J. Kramer and his band, The Dakotas. Billy soared to stardom in the swinging sixties, thanks to a series of chart-busters from the Lennon-McCartney team, including 'Bad to Me,' which hit the top spot in the UK charts in 1963, reports the Liverpool Echo.

The origins of 'Bad to Me' are somewhat muddled. Billy claimed details

Fans of the legendary songwriter Paul McCartney are calling his work on a movie soundtrack one of the most underrated albums in his discography.

Give My Regards to Broad Street, the film which stars McCartney, along with fellow Beatles member Ringo Starr, was praised by fans who say it is one of the best albums in the Wings frontman’s discography. Though the film did not do much at the box office or for critics at the time, fans of McCartney are suggesting it is one of his most underrated pieces of work and that there are several “great” songs on the album. One user took to the r/PaulMcCartney subreddit and wrote: “The most underrated Macca album is Give My Regards to Broad Street. And I’m not kidding.

“The album is usually maligned more than any other McCartney record (together with Driving Rain and Wild Life). Most songs/versions in Give My Regards to Broad Street are good, and several are just great.” Other users agreed with their assessment of the 1984 album and movie release, but also tipped the Fireman albums as the truly underrated pieces from McCartney’s backlog.

One user wrote: “Technically it’s a Fireman album, but Electric Arguments i details

As the spring season blossoms across the northern hemisphere, music enthusiasts are revisiting legendary compositions, including an extraordinary Beatles gem. George Harrison, often dubbed “the quiet Beatle,” created musical magic with a song written in just three minutes that continues to captivate audiences even in spring 2025.  The three-minute miracle: “It’s all too much”

While George Harrison crafted numerous masterpieces during his career, “It’s All Too Much” stands as the remarkable composition he reportedly wrote in just three minutes. This psychedelic anthem, released on the “Yellow Submarine” album, emerged from a moment of pure inspiration in 1967. Unlike his more celebrated works like Something or Here Comes The Sun, this rapid creation showcases Harrison’s ability to channel spontaneous creativity.

“George had this incredible ability to capture complex emotions in simple melodies. ‘It’s All Too Much’ came to him almost fully formed – a brilliant example of his songwriting efficiency,” notes Dr. Emily Richardson, Professor of Music History at Berkeley School of Music.

As we enjoy the ref details

The music world lost a giant of a talent when George Harrison passed away at the age of 58 in 2001. Even then, Harrison wasn’t finished bestowing his musical grace upon us, thanks to the release of the posthumous Brainwashed album a year later.

For the most part, the album steers clear of details about the health problems that Harrison was enduring. “Stuck Inside A Cloud”, however, stands out as a brave and touching evocation of a man in physical, mental, and emotional distress.

George Harrison scrambled to put together his final album once he received a terminal diagnosis. Luckily, the record was in progress well before that time. Harrison had been compiling material for a while in preparation for a return to his solo career.

It became clear that he might not live to see the album completed. So, Harrison entrusted some musical confidants with a blueprint to finish whatever was still in progress. They included his son Dhani, longtime collaborator and former ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne, and session drummer Jim Keltner. Keltner had worked with Harrison all the way back to All Things Must Pass.

Because the song seems to refer to Harrison’s health issues, you might assume that & details

Whenever a band breaks up, especially one as globally ubiquitous as the Beatles, everyone assumes the reason they broke up must be something salacious or contentious. Our parasocial connections to these groups make it difficult to imagine a reality in which the musicians wouldn’t want to keep going unless something awful happened between bandmates.

But sometimes it’s not that dramatic at all. Sometimes, as John Lennon explained in a 1975 interview on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, the reason a band like the Beatles broke up was as simple as a case of ennui.
John Lennon Had Surprising Reason For Why The Beatles Broke Up

The Beatles were much of the world’s first interaction with a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll band. There was no distinct frontman and backing band lineup, and all four members shared the stage playing their respective instruments and singing harmonies with one another. So, when that seemingly unstoppable team force started to crumble in the late 1960s, people began scrambling for a reason to explain why the Beatles were breaking up. For most fans and critics, they assumed the band simply couldn’t get along anymore.

“We didn’t break up because we wer details

In a new biography out about Yoko Ono by David Sheff, there was insight into the Japanese artist taking her son she shared with John Lennon away in a black bag following John's murder.

Sean Ono Lennon was smuggled in a black bag following the death of his father John Lennon.

This revelation was spoken about in the new biography about Yoko Ono by David Sheff. David's biography is titled Yoko and he details the 92-year-old Japanese avant-garde artist's life through interviews with Yoko, her family, friends and peers. The journalist and Yoko have maintained a friendship since he interviewed her and John Lennon for Playboy in 1980.

He also ended up turning the complete interview and all the unpublished parts into a book in 1982 called The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono and in another called All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 2000. In his upcoming book, David shares how after The Beatles member's assassination, the son that he shares with Yoko, had to be smuggled in a black bag.

Source: themirror.com/Demetria Osei-Tutu

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One of the biggest highlights of Ringo Starr’s recent CBS special filmed at the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville was a star-studded grand-finale performance of the Beatles classic “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Now, a recording of that performance has been released as a digital charity single to aid people affected by the devastating wildfires that swept through the Los Angles area recently.

All proceeds raised by sales of the song through March 27, 2026, will be donated to the American Red Cross and the Habitat for Humanity ReBUILDLA initiative.

The performance of “With a Little Help from My Friends” saw Ringo joined by Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Jack White, Brenda Lee, Mickey Guyton, Billy Strings, Jamey Johnson, Rodney Crowell, Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz, and Larkin Poe. All of the guest artists also had performed earlier in the show.

Starr’s concert special was filmed on January 14 and 15, while the wildfires still raged in the L.A. area. The decision was made then to release the “With a Little Help from My Friends” performance as a charity single.

“I love LA and have lived there for many years, and while we were recording this details

Many celebrity relationships can seem fake and false, though that all comes down to fan speculation. However, one relationship we know didn’t fall under this category was between George Harrison and Paul Simon. Given their shared status, the two appeared publicly and played songs that generally satisfied the public. But that was just the surface of their friendship, and even if the two weren’t famous, they seemingly still would have gotten along swimmingly.

In February of 2023, Rolling Stone compiled numerous stories for a George Harrison birthday tribute article titled “Remembering George“. Many musicians contributed to the article, but Simon’s portion stood out in the sense that it pertained to not just music but also the admirable life George Harrison led before his passing in 2001.
Paul Simon Fondly Remembers George Harrison in His Own Words

In the heartwarming article, Simon wrote about his friendship with Harrison.

“The roots of my friendship with George Harrison go back to 1976 when we performed together on ‘Saturday Night Live’,” said Simon in the article. “Sitting on stools side by side with acoustic guitars, we sang ‘Here Co details

Elvis Presley and The Beatles are two of the biggest names in music history, often seen as representatives of different eras. The Beatles famously idolized Elvis, with Paul McCartney once saying, “When we were kids growing up in Liverpool, all we ever wanted was to be Elvis Presley.”

Elvis wasn’t always vocal about his thoughts on their success, but he did acknowledge their influence - sometimes by putting his own spin on their songs.   Over the years, Presley covered several Beatles tracks, reworking them with his signature sound. Here are five of them, and how he made them his own in different ways:

‘Get Back’

Originally released as a single in April 1969, ‘Get Back’ was later included on Let It Be in 1970. The song was The Beatles’ return to a rawer, live-in-the-studio sound, featuring Billy Preston on keyboards.

Elvis incorporated ‘Get Back’ into a medley with his own song, ‘Little Sister’, during his 1970s Las Vegas residency. This medley was performed frequently during his live shows, with multiple recordings available from the era. Unlike The Beatles’ version, which maintains a steady, bouncing rh details

The stark monochrome sleeve and shit-tier recording quality of the Beatles’ most famous bootleg stands in for a whole era of the band’s history—their un-housebroken Hamburg years, when they wore jeans and leather jackets; when they ate, drank, smoked and swore onstage; when they were a band rather than a fact. George Harrison swears the band was never better than between 1960 and 1962, during the so-called “Hamburg crucible” that forged them into a force ready to take over the world. Yet he fought tooth and nail against the release of Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962, eventually released in 1977.

The recordings were made by Star-Club stage manager Adrian Barber at the behest of Ted “Kingsize” Taylor, a fellow Liverpool musician who’d played a run of shows with the Beatles with his band the Dominoes in late 1962. The Beatles had a foot out the door at this point and were only contracted to play the Star-Club based on a deal made much earlier by their manager, Brian Epstein, who’d molded the boys into pros by the time they played the shows we hear here. They’d already put out “Love Me Do” in October of that year, so it’s not like details

Eric Clapton wrote an album for Pattie Boyd while she was married to George Harrison. Here's how she reacted when she listened to it.

As George Harrison’s marriage to Pattie Boyd grew chillier, Eric Clapton’s feelings for her heated up. Harrison and Clapton were friends, but this did little to stop Clapton from pursuing his wife. While she was still with Harrison, Clapton wrote an album about her, and then invited her over to listen to it. He later admitted that this was not one of his best ideas.
Eric Clapton said his method of pursuing Pattie Boyd didn’t go over well

After Clapton and Harrison became friends, the former began to develop feelings for Boyd. The way he felt for her flamed into what he described as obsession, and he wrote the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs about her. He hoped that when she heard it, she would admit to feeling the same way about him.

“I had convinced myself that when she heard the completed Layla album, with all its references to our situation, she would be so overcome by my cry of love that she would finally leave George and come away with me for good,” he wrote in Clapton: The Autobiography. “So I called her up one after details

The best creative inspiration often comes from observing the world around us, and these Beatles songs about real-life events are certainly no exception. And indeed, the Fab Four had plenty going on in their respective realities, personally and globally, from which they could draw inspiration for lyrics, song titles, and more. From the changes happening in their own lives to the tumultuous air of change that permeated the 1960s, the Beatles took these events and transformed them into great music.

 Here’s some of the best.
“Hey Jude”

For most of the Beatles’ tenure, John Lennon was with his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, with whom he had his first son, Julian. By the late 1960s, John divorced Cynthia, married Yoko Ono in March 1969, and had his second son, Sean. Paul McCartney, who had been like an uncle to Julian, wrote “Hey Jude” while driving to visit Julian and Cynthia.

“I thought, as a friend of the family, I would motor out to Weybridge. Tell them that everything was all right,” McCartney recalled in Anthology. “To try and cheer them up, basically, and see how they were. I would always turn the radio off and try and make up songs, just in c details

The death of John Lennon remains incomprehensible some 45 years after it occurred. You can imagine how dumbfounded people were in the immediate wake of that tragedy. Still, some artists were able to rise up from their sadness and deliver fitting tributes to him.

The four artists included on this list include two who were in the same band as Lennon and another who collaborated with him on a No. 1 single. As for the fourth, he, like everybody else, was just trying to make sense of it all.

Harrison was able to get his tribute to Lennon out the fastest of this bunch because he already had much of the framework of the song in place, right down to the title. He had written it originally for Ringo Starr to record, but Starr struggled with the vocals and decided against recording it. Upon Lennon’s death, Harrison adjusted the lyrics to pay tribute to his friend. Starr plays drums, while Paul and Linda McCartney sing backing vocals, making this a semi-reunion. But the observations of Harrison take center stage. His candor is balanced out by his genuine emotion: Living with good and bad / I always looked up to you. “All Those Years Ago” gave Harrison a comeback hit, although he’d quickl details

After John Lennon left The Beatles, his life took a drastic turn to a dark place. One historically prominent period that displays how his behavior changed is when he went on an 18-month bender in Los Angeles. This is known as the “Lost Weekend,” and it transpired because he and Yoko had separated and started having an affair with their mutual assistant, Molly Pang.

This period is when he met Joni Mitchell for the first time. Lennon had always been a fan of the folk world, and he admired Bob Dylan in particular. However, he didn’t really admire his female counterparts such as Joan Baez and, ultimately, Joni Mitchell. Despite their many similarities, Joni Mitchell and John Lennon did not hit it off. Consequently, the two wouldn’t really go on to have much of a professional or friendly relationship.   John Lennon Thought Mitchell’s Music Was Over-Educated

When Mitchell was recording and cutting her infamous album, Court and Spark, Lennon was right across the hall cutting and creating one of his own projects. That being so, Mitchell wanted to get Lennon’s opinion on her work. This decision would lead down a bad road and a not-so-kind conversation. A conversation that wou details

Paul McCartney is concerned Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) could steal from artists if the U.K. government approves changes to its copyright law. A new proposal would permit A.I. developers to use creators’ content on the internet to assist in developing A.I. models unless the holder of the rights “opts out.” For instance, an A.I. developer could not use a songwriter’s song if the songwriter notifies the A.I. service providers that they do not give permission for A.I. companies to use the songwriter’s music.

As some opponents of the proposed bill have claimed, the “opt out” provision is not reasonable since it is not possible for a rights holder to notify thousands of A.I. companies to inform them that they do not give permission to use their creative content.

Another question that arises is, how would individual creators monitor all the A.I. service providers to see if their creative content is being used by A.I. companies without their permission?

Source: musicconnection.com/Glenn Litwak

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Paul McCartney recently reissued his band Wings’ album Venus and Mars for its 50th anniversary, and he’s giving fans a way to enjoy the music together.

The rocker just announced a new global Venus and Mars listening party Friday at 1 p.m. ET. Those taking part are asked to share their favorite Venus and Mars songs, lyrics and memories.

Meanwhile, in a Q&A on his website, McCartney answered some questions about what it was like touring with Wings after the release of Venus and Mars, which saw the band going from clubs to stadiums.

“After The Beatles, we had this tiny little band that didn’t have any hits and didn’t even know each other, except for me and (wife) Linda (McCartney) obviously. And Denny Laine, who I knew a little,” McCartney shares. “We were almost an amateur outfit, but we knew we would work at it and we did. We built it brick-by-brick.”

“In 1976 we did the big American tour and it was like, ‘Wow, this is it!’ That was the payoff, after all that work,” he explains. “This crazy idea of just getting a few friends together and doing little clubs and building it and learning how to be a group – it wor details

Eric Clapton thought he'd help out George Harrison by promoting a Beatles album. Harrison was not happy with his friend's actions.

George Harrison and Eric Clapton had a friendship that survived some unbearably rocky periods. Clapton, for example, actively pursued Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, while they were still married. Before this, though, he infuriated Harrison with what he thought was helpful behavior. Here’s why his way of promoting a Beatles album didn’t go over well with the band.

In 1968, Clapton recorded a guitar solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” a song Harrison wrote. Because of this, Harrison gave him an advance copy of The White Album. He took it upon himself to do a bit of promotion for the album.

“When I left the following month to go to America on Cream’s farewell tour, I took these [acetates] with me,” he wrote in Clapton: The Autobiography. “While I was in LA, I had been playing some of the songs on the album to various friends when I got a phone call from George.”

Source: cheatsheet.com/Emma McKee

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The piano was the last instrument John Lennon is known to have played before his death in 1980. The last piano ever used by John Lennon before he died is set to be played for the first time in 30 years.  The New England Piano Company upright has been at the Beatles Story museum in Liverpool since 2015.

The former Beatle used it at the Record Plant studios in New York for his last album, Double Fantasy, released shortly before his death in 1980.   Brad Kella, winner of Channel 4's The Piano, will be at the museum to play his own arrangement of the famous Lennon hit Imagine later.

Kella, 24, told the BBC he had been a Beatles fan since childhood, growing up in the Merseyside town of Bootle and later Fazakerley in north Liverpool.  He said: "It's just something that's embedded into anyone that's in the city. It's just an honour to be able to say I've touched the same instrument.

"I think it's the last instrument he touched before he died, as well, so it's just an honour to be able to follow in those footsteps."  Brad Kella, in a grey hoodie and baseball cap, plays the piano.

Source: bbc.com/Marc Waddington

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John Lennon and Paul McCartney met and fell for each other in the summer of 1957. John was 16, Paul 14. Paul came to see John play with his skiffle group, the Quarry Men, at a village fete. Introduced afterwards, they almost immediately formed a connection that went beyond the bounds of normal male friendship.

Lennon and McCartney were not sexual partners, as far as we know. But in every other sense, their relationship was a romance: intoxicating, tender and bittersweet. Passionate male friendships like this are rare, but not unique, and a remarkable number of them have changed the world, transforming our ideas about music, art, poetry and human nature. John and Paul were, without knowing it, part of an extraordinary lineage.

After impressing John with his guitar-playing and his ability to remember all the words to a song, Paul accepted John’s invitation to join the Quarry Men. The pair began sharing the front of the stage; this was no longer just John’s group. They were fascinated by each other. Paul admired John’s coruscating wit and teddy boy swagger. John admired Paul’s musical abilities and pop star good looks. They made each other laugh more than anyone else they knew.

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Yoko Ono’s family have shared how the artist is spending her final days after the death of her husband John Lennon. Now aged 92, Yoko’s family says she is “in a happy place”, and is “listening to the wind and watching the sky” after losing Beatles star John in 1980 when he was only 40 years old.

Yoko – best known for her activism and for helping Lennon write his hit song Imagine – has been profiled in a new book releasing this week, which paints her as a reclusive figure in her early nineties. She lives alone in upstate New York on a farm, but is thankfully visited by her son Sean and daughter Kyoko. Kyoko wrote of her mother: “She believed she could change the world, and she did… now she is able to be quiet – listen to the wind and watch the sky.” She added: “She is very happy, in a happy place. This is well deserved and genuine peacefulness.”

Source: express.co.uk/Jess Phillips

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