Beatles News

"The Lost Weekend: The Photography of May Pang" features candid photos of John Lennon by his former lover and confidant, May Pang. The exhibit will be on view at Gallery 42 in Mason on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Pang will be in attendance.

John Lennon appears in candid form in a series of photographs on display in Mason this week.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, "The Lost Weekend: The Photography of May Pang" will be on view at Gallery 42 in Mason. The photos were taken between 1973 and 1975 during a highly creative time during Lennon's life.

May Pang will be in attendance at the free exhibition that details an 18-month period of the Beatles singer's life in which she was his lover and companion. She took photos in a comfortable, relaxed environment, so his personality shines through.

That 1½-year period during which the photos were taken was known as the "Lost Weekend." During this period, he produced many independent songs post-Beatles, partnering with the likes of David Bowie, Nilsson, Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr and others. That period also brought about his albums "Mind Games" and "Walls and Bridges."

The exhibit also includes the only photograph that exists of John Lennon signing the details

There are few people as well-connected in rock as Alice Cooper. The man born Vincent Furnier has tales for days. You name them, Alice Cooper has hung out with them, recorded with them, got drunk with them, got sober with them, played golf with them. Cooper already had enough stories to last a hundred lifetimes when he formed his rock supergroup the Hollywood Vampires in 2015 and now he’s got a ton more. Speaking to this writer for Classic Rock a few years ago, he said the new band – named after the drinking crew he was part of in the 70s with Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, John Lennon and more – has provided him a series of late-career highs.

“The idea was to play songs for all of our dead drunk friends, the Jimi Hendrixs, the Jim Morrisons,” he explained of the group he formed with Johnny Depp, Joe Perry and Tommy Hendriksen. “People had no idea that Johnny Depp was a great guitar player. They think he’s a movie star trying to be a guitar player. Well, he’s playing with Jeff Beck, playing with the Stones. You don’t play with those guys unless you know what you’re doing. You get in that room and you’ve got Duff McKagan on bass and Joe Perry on gu details

Fans of The Beatles will never “let it be.”

Tomorrow night, the movie of that name – restored with added footage — will be screened in New York. Disney Plus starts airing it at the end of the week on their streaming platform. (A Los Angeles screening is planned for later in the week.)

Who’s coming to this last round up? Paul McCartney might be in town. His exhibition of photographs opens later this week at the Brooklyn Museum.

Ringo Starr has just dropped “Crooked Boy,” an excellent EP written and produced by Linda Perry. His tour doesn’t start for a month, so maybe he’d come into New York.

No word yet on Olivia or Dhani Harrison, or Sean Ono Lennon. Yoko Ono is not going out much these days, which is no surprise at age 91. She can watch it at home!

Peter Jackson restored the film made by Michael Lindsay Hogg, which was a hit in 1970 but then not seen for years. (It floated around the internet.) Jackson used all of L-H’s footage to make his “Get Back” series a few years ago, which expanded on the original film. Lindsay-Hogg will be on hand for the screening and Q&A afterwards. Hopefully someone will tape the event details

The Beatles succeeded in large part due to the chemistry evident whenever the four men plugged into play. They honed that chemistry via years of playing live shows, as they learned how to complement each other on both their original songs and choice covers.

But there were a few times during their amazing run where individual members would go sort of solo, even though those songs were released on Beatles albums. Let’s rank the best six of these Beatles/solo tracks.

6. “Good Night”

The White Album is the source for many of these recordings featuring just one of The Beatles. After all, it was a time when the group was churning out a ton of material and weren’t always waiting on the others to do it. “Good Night” is the only one of these songs, however, where the lone member appearing didn’t write the track. Ringo Starr was given the opportunity to close out the double album with this lullaby, credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney (although by all accounts Lennon did most of the writing). And Starr does a charming job with it, even if the song isn’t too substantial.

5. “Julia”

Many folks know how John Lennon addressed details

Paul McCartney said The Beatles faced a major problem at the start of their careers. He shared how they decided to handle it.

Before Ringo Starr joined The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison worked with a different drummer. Pete Best traveled to Germany with The Beatles when they played in Hamburg. Best never reaped the prolific benefits of the band’s success, though. They fired him just before hitting it big, which McCartney described as one of the most difficult things they ever had to do.

In 1962, The Beatles auditioned for producer George Martin. While Martin saw potential in the band, he didn’t see a path forward for them with Best. He asked them to consider finding a new drummer.

“He agreed to audition us, and we had a not-very powerful audition in which he was not very pleased with Pete Best,” McCartney said in The Beatles Anthology. “George Martin was used to drummers being very ‘in time,’ because all the big-band session drummers he used had a great sense of time. Now, our Liverpool drummers had a sense of spirit, emotion, economy even, but not a deadly sense of time. This would bother producers making a record. George took us to o details

  Harrison bought the sitar from a Oxford Street shop called Indiacraft in 1965. He wrote the iconic Beatles hits 'While my guitar gently weeps' and 'Something'.

A traditional Indian instrument used by George Harrison to record a Beatles song has sold for over £53,000.

Harrison bought the 4ft long sitar from a small Oxford Street shop named Indiacraft between August and October 1965.

He later used the instrument to record the song, Norwegian Wood, in October 1965, launching 'the Great Sitar Explosion' in rock music.

Harrison took the sitar to Barbados on his and Pattie Boyd's January 1966 honeymoon and then gifted it as a thank you to his friend, George de Vere Drummond, after he let them stay at his house on the island.

Harrison is to be thanked for writing some of the Beatles most iconic songs, including 'While my guitar gently weeps', the highly acclaimed 'Here comes the sun' and 'Something'.

Source: Lettice Bromovsky/dailymail.co.uk

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Number 1 record held by Beatles for almost 50 years finally toppled.

The Beatles nearly five decade old record has finally been broken. It’s been a long time coming but The Beatles have been defeated after almost five decades for the fastest accumulation of 12 chart topping albums in the UK.

It took John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr 14 years to land 12 number one albums, completing the feat in 1977 with a live album.

This had secured a record lasting 47 years which had a reputation for being unbeatable – until now.

Unsurprisingly, megastar Taylor Swift, 34, has achieved the same incredible feat in just 11 years and six months with The Tortured Poets Department.

This makes the ME! hitmaker the only artist to have 12 consecutive albums reach the coveted top spot in as many years.

Her latest album has truly caused a stir and while everyone paternity tested her song lyrics, TTPD broke records left right and centre.

Source: Danni Scott/metro.co.uk

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The Beatles' greatest b-side was ahead of its time, but it also exposed a difference of perspective between Lennon and McCartney.

Day Tripper, I Feel Fine, Revolution, Lady Madonna, Hey Jude, We Can Work It Out, She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Don't Let Me Down… just some of The Beatles' classics that never made a studio album. That's how good the Paul, John, George and Ringo were in their seven years, seven months and 24 days together as a band. But there's a true Beatles b-side that fascinates even more than those songs, and it found them and their studio geniuses at the point of accelerated evolution.

“This is a song I wrote about people who are always moaning about the weather all the time,” John Lennon once said of the Revolver-era Rain. The word 'I' there suggesting the Lennon / McCartney credit the song carries needn't apply.

This is in contrast to Lennon's memory of the genesis of Rain's A-side, Paperback Writer's. "I think I might have helped with some of the lyrics," he told Hit Parader Magazine in 1972. "Yes, I did. But it was mainly Paul's tune." But he clearly saw Rain as his song. Indeed, in the same interview, it was one of a number of Beatles songs he listed details

Packed cinemas, sky-high record sales, and screaming hordes of teenage girls seem to be the collective memories of the peak of mid-sixties Beatlemania. The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night and its accompanying feature film, which celebrate their 60th anniversary this year, are an embodiment of the British Invasion of the 1960s. Featuring effortlessly crafted melodies with charming, albeit simplistic, lyrics, this album is packed with abundant charm and has contributed vastly to the band’s impact on modern pop. It seems that this album has always been in the background of my life – whether it be the opening track as a demo on our old Yamaha keyboard or the countless showings of the film on TV, Sunday after Sunday. Having reached number one in the UK and USA upon its release, there is no doubt that this album is truly beloved and deserves to be celebrated.

The opening track of the album has one of the most iconic opening bars of all time. George Harrison’s signature 12-string Rickenbacker punches the album open with its striking dissonance. This track works perfectly as the opening of this iconic album, and you’d be hard pressed to find a single person who doesn’t at least recognise th details

Ringo Starr was very proud of one Beatles song. He liked it so much that he borrowed from it while working on a solo hit.

In 1969, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr recorded The Beatles song “Get Back.” In 1972, Ringo Starr released a solo song that had some strikingly similar elements to The Beatles’ hit. He admitted he copied part of the song.
Ringo Starr took inspiration from a Beatles song in his career as a solo artist

Much of The Beatles’ experience recording Let It Be was agonizing. Beatles producer George Martin said the album was such an “unhappy” one that he was surprised the band reunited to record Abbey Road (per The Beatles Anthology). Still, there were some bright spots in the recording process. Starr said they enjoyed working together when they felt they were recording a good track.

“‘Get Back’ was a good track. I felt, ‘This is a kick-a** track.’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ also,” Starr said. “They were two fine tracks. Quite simple and raw — back to basics.”

He liked “Get Back” so much that he borrowed part of it for his own 1972 song, & details

A rare Cartier silver engraved box commissioned by John Lennon and Yoko Ono for their close friends is set to go on sale as a piece of music history.

The pair’s “Double Fantasy” box was crafted as a Christmas gift which Ono personally gave to the Beatles star’s bank manager at the Bank of Tokyo shortly after his death in December 1980. The cedar-encased box includes original accessories such as a blue pouch, outer case and paper wrapping, and reads inside “Double Fantasy Christmas 1980, NYC, John & Yoko”.

It is believed that only 12 of these exclusive boxes were ever made, making this piece an exceedingly rare find

The piece is to be auctioned at Catherine Southon Auctioneers & Valuers, in Kent, on May 15, with an estimated value of £3,000 to £5,000.

A spokesperson said: “It is believed that only 12 of these exclusive boxes were ever made, making this piece an exceedingly rare find. “Despite Lennon’s untimely demise, Yoko Ono fulfilled his wishes by distributing the gifts after Christmas, ensuring that his spirit of generosity and love continued to resonate.

“This unique example, bestowed upon the bank manager details

John Lennon could have made it easy on himself with his first solo album by sticking close to what he had done with The Beatles. Instead, he delivered a searing opus called John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band that stunned fans with its confessional intimacy and unpretty musical presentation.

Behind the Meaning of “Purple Rain” by Prince

This was not in any way some kind of premeditated move by Lennon, but rather a case of him releasing this music because he had to do it if he wanted to retain his sanity. Let’s take a look back at the circumstances surrounding this fierce, brave LP.

The rest of the world knew about The Beatles’ breakup in spring of 1970, but the group themselves found out in late ’69 when John Lennon announced at a meeting he was flying the coop. When that reality started to set in during the early part of 1970, Lennon was in a somewhat raw state. He was still struggling to kick his addictions, while also processing what his life would be outside the cocoon of the Fab Four.

Around that time, he was sent a book by Dr. Arthur Janov, who was gaining notoriety for a new kind of therapy known as “primal scream.” It intrigued Lennon and wife Yoko Ono s details

When it comes to popular music, there is one fact more than any other that is universally agreed upon and that’s that the British-born band The Beatles is rock music’s best ever. Pop stars, innovators, masterful songwriters—the Mop Tops, Fab Four or whatever else you want to call them are just the cream of the musical crop.

Behind the Meaning of “Purple Rain” by Prince

One of the reasons why this is so is because the band, despite being together for just a decade, boast some of the most memorable musical compositions of all time. While not every song garnered them an A+ grade, many do. And some songs from the band can even be thought of as eternal. Here below, are three songs from the Beatles that fit the criteria, three that are simply forever.

“Hey Jude”

Released in 1968, this standalone single was written by frontman Paul McCartney, inspired by John Lennon’s son Julian in the wake of the split between Lennon and Julian’s mother when Lennon then began dating Yoko Ono. The Billboard 100 No. 1 hit was the first single released on the band’s Apple Records label. It’s a song of encouragement, to see the silver lining, to let the bad details

In the latest episode of iHeartPodcast series McCartney: A Life In Lyrics, The Beatles' grand finale to the Abbey Road album is under the microscope with the songwriter and host, poet Paul Muldoon. The closing medley of the 1969 album's mini-suite with Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End of captured the ambition and inventiveness of the band, but Paul McCartney's songwriting is its centre. And he explained the roots of Golden Slumbers especially actually go back to discovering a piece of sheet music his step-sister Ruth had.

"I always look in a piano bench seat because people always have sheet music in there – they always used to, definitely," remembered McCartney in the podcast interview. "Now, sometimes they can be empty, but I always look to see. This time it was either in the piano seat or it might have been up on the music stand, it was this song Golden Slumbers."

The original Golden Slumbers is a Victorian lullaby by Peter Warlock in 1918, written to accompany a 17th poem called Cradle Song by Thomas Dekker from the 1603 comedy Patient Grissel. Dekker's poem would directly inspire McCartney.

"Golden slumbers fill your eyes / Smiles await you when you rise / Sleep, pretty baby, do n details

A Japanese tea service bought by George Harrison when Beatlemania confined him to a hotel room has gone on display. It is one of three bought by Harrison when the band was on tour in Japan in 1966.

Roag Best, who runs the Liverpool Beatles Museum, said: "Beatlemania had truly hit Japan [and] they couldn't go out." The tea service is on display at the museum, in Liverpool's Mathew Street. Mr Best, the half-brother of the band's original drummer Pete Best, and son of tour manager Neil Aspinall, said: "The Beatles had gone to play the Budokan.

"They played five shows in a three-day period and were playing to in excess of 10,000 people a show." He said his and John Lennon had had to leave their Tokyo hotel in disguise, and Paul McCartney had done the same. But Ringo Starr and Harrison stayed confined to their rooms.

"They liked buying stuff when they were touring but because they couldn't go out they were having people bringing their wares up to their rooms to sell," Mr Best said."George bought three really ornate Japanese tea services, which he then had shipped back to England."He kept one and gave my dad the choice of the other two, then the third he gave to his mother."

The crockery made its way b details