Beatles News

George Harrison and John Lennon grew used to dealing with Beatles fans. During one early concert, though, they decided to leave in the middle of performing.

In The Beatles’ touring years, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr dealt with screaming fans, natural disasters, and political unrest. The band felt exhausted and worn out by 1966, when they agreed to stop touring. This exhaustion came through during one early show, though. Harrison and Lennon were so fed up that they tried to leave in the middle of their performance.
In 1963, The Beatles played a show at the Wimbledon Palais for their Southern Area Fan Club Convention. Beatlemania was not yet at its peak, but the band got a hint of how their future shows would go. They had mentioned liking the candy Jelly Babies, and fans began pelting them at the band during their performance. They felt boxed in, and Starr said they all began to get nervous.“I remember we were in a cage at that gig, because it got so crazy,” he said in The Beatles Anthology. “It was like being in a zoo, on stage! It felt dangerous. The kids were out of hand. It was the first time I felt that if they got near us we would be ripped apart.” details

Even the Beatles didn’t quite comprehend what awaited them in New York on Feb. 7, 1964.

Six days after “I Want to Hold Your Hold” broke through as their first No. 1 hit in the U.S., Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison braced for a warm welcome as Pan Am Flight 101 out of London neared its destination in Queens.

Never, however, did they expect the spectacle they found when they disembarked.
Some 3,000 fans, many of them smiling, shrieking, hysterical girls who skipped school on a Friday, ambushed JFK Airport, congregating along the rooftop and pushing past police barricades to catch a glimpse of the mop-topped British heartthrobs.

Delighted screams from overwhelmed teens served as the soundtrack as the grinning, waving Beatles stepped off of a Boeing 707 and onto American soil for the first time.

Those screams became a staple of McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison’s two-week trip, during which they made history on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” played back-to-back concerts at Carnegie Hall and journeyed down to Washington, D.C., and Miami Beach.

“No one will understand the emotion of us landing in America,” Starr told details

Former Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney has revealed how his bandmate John Lennon hated wearing glasses until he discovered singer Buddy Holly's iconic specs-on lookSir Paul McCartney has revealed that John Lennon only started wearing his glasses when Buddy Holly made them cool.Macca said: “John had these horn-rimmed glasses at the time. If ever there would be a girl coming round, John would whip his glasses off... and squint. “But when Buddy came along, the glasses stayed on.” John changed to smaller, round NHS-style frames in 1966, for his role in the film How I Won the War. Sir Paul was speaking on a Radio 2 show marking 65 years since Holly’s death, aged 22, in an air crash, which is aired tomorrow. He also told host Bob Harris the Beatles were in awe of Holly, as he sang and played guitar at the same time. He said: “We thought, this is what we have to do.”

Source: Nicola Methven/mirror.co.uk

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Sir Paul McCartney feared he'd be "finished off" when he was robbed at knifepoint.

The 81-year-old musician has recalled the terrifying moment when he and wife Linda were recording Wings' 1973 album 'Band on the Run' in Lagos, Nigeria, and were ambushed with all their “cameras, tape recorders, cassettes in a bag, and Linda’s photographic equipment”.

In an interview for his record label, seen first by The Sun newspaper, he said: “We’d been visiting some of our crew at their house and someone said, ‘Do you want a lift home?’ We said, ‘It’s such a beautiful night, we’ll walk.’”

Adopting a "desperado" spirit, the couple wandered into a no-go area and thought they were being offered a lift when a car stopped and the driver wound down his window.

Paul recalled: “I just say, ‘No, listen man, very nice of you but we don’t need a lift.’”

The vehicle, which contained 2five or six local guys" drove off but then suddenly stopped again.

Source: crowrivermedia.com

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John Lennon didn't think it was a bad thing that The Beatles' fans screamed during their concerts. He was protective over the group's fans.

When John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr took the stage during Beatles concerts, they could hardly hear themselves play. Their audience began screaming before they saw the band and rarely stopped until after the band had departed. Members of the band found this frustrating, but Lennon defended their fans. While he seems like the most unlikely defender, his wife said he felt a great deal of gratitude for Beatles fans.

Footage of The Beatles running to take the stage during their concerts almost always includes shots of people covering their ears. The sound of screaming was so loud that the music could hardly reach the audience. Even the band couldn’t hear what they were doing.

“Screaming had just become the thing to do,” Starr said in The Beatles Anthology. “We didn’t say, ‘OK, don’t forget, at this concert — everybody scream!’ Everybody just screamed.”

While this bothered some members of the band, Lennon didn’t have a problem with it.

“We played for four details

It was the summer of 1966.

The Beatles were in the middle of a tour that had them play five shows in just three days at Japan’s famed Nippon Budokan arena — but when they weren’t performing, they were holed up in the presidential suite of the Tokyo Hilton creating a work of art that came to be known as "Images of a Woman."

That painting, believed by some experts to be the only artwork jointly made by all four Beatles (or at least signed by all four), was sold at Christie’s auction house in New York on Feb. 1.

"Images of a Woman" was estimated to fetch somewhere in the realm of US$400,000 to US$600,000 and “crystallizes a magic moment in Beatles history,” said Christie's specialist Casey Rogers during a phone interview. Its final sale price was nearly three times the high end of that estimate — US$1,744,000.

“It’s such a rarity to have a work on paper outside of their music catalog that is (a) physical relic, this tangible object with contributions from all four of The Beatles,” Rogers said of the 21.5- by 31-inch painting.

“It’s memorabilia, it’s a work of art, it appeals to probably a much larger cross-section details

In 2023, Paul McCartney set the internet ablaze when he somewhat casually mentioned that he was working on a new song from The Beatles. Fans of the group were initially worried, as he mentioned he was using artificial intelligence to do so, but their fears were mostly assuaged after it was revealed how exactly the tech was being utilized. Months after the single, titled “Now and Then,” dropped, the track’s producer has stated that the legendary musician was just as respectful as one might hope during the delicate recording process.

“What was really exciting for me was watching Paul’s total respect for his band members in the process of doing this,” said Giles Martin, the producer behind “Now and Then.” He partnered with McCartney and Ringo Starr, the only two remaining members of The Beatles, on their surprise new single.

Martin told Louder Sound that while he and McCartney were working on “Now and Then,” the superstar went out of his way to ensure that the four members of the band were all represented and heard on the tune. When asked about the late musician George Harrison’s role on the track–which was recorded decades ago–Martin exp details

Millions, if not billions of people across the world have heard of The Beatles, or at least heard the names John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. One name that often gets lost when combing through the history of The Beatles, however, is May Pang.

Pang, at the age of 73 was recently featured in the documentary “Lost Weekend.” In the film, Pang paints an intimate picture of her life and goes into detail regarding the ups, the downs, truths and lies regarding her relationship with John Lennon. What started as a magical weekend getaway, turned into a whirlwind romance between the two.

Over the years, Pang amassed a collection of rare photos she was able to capture throughout her time with John and his son Julian. The photographs themselves show a different side of John that is both humorous and beautiful. Some of the photographs have significance to them regarding The Beatles to include the last photograph of Lennon and McCartney together.

Pang has a story to tell, one that resembles a rock ‘n’ roll fairytale. When approached to do the documentary, Pang was hesitant. “People were asking me all the time about doing something like this, but I wasn’t r details

Yoko Ono gave the handwritten lyrics of a song from The Beatles' 'Rubber Soul' to a composer. The piece later fell into different hands.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon put so much extra work into their music sometimes that it’s remarkable. For example, they once turned the handwritten lyrics of a song from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul into a work of art. The piece soon fell into the possession of a famous musician.

On the surface, The Beatles’ “The Word” isn’t much of a psychedelic song. It has more in common with the Motown music of the 1960s than Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Despite this, “The Word” has hippie vibes. It proclaims the importance of love, which The Beatles would later do in their most popular psychedelic song, “All You Need Is Love.” “The Word” also paved the way for John’s high-minded solo songs like “Imagine” and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).”

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul recalled creating a psychedelic manuscript of the tune’s lyrics with John. “We smoked a bit of pot, then we wrote out a multi-colored lyric sheet, the first time we&r details

After debuting last year at London's National Portrait Gallery, Paul McCartney's unseen photos of The Beatles as they became international icons will be shown in New York. Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm takes us into the frenzy that was Beatlemania as the Fab Four toured six cities and touched down in America for the first time. On view at the Brooklyn Museum from May 3, 2024, the exhibition will present a fascinating look at this special moment in music history.

Taken on McCartney's 35 mm camera, the mostly black and white photos follow the band in Liverpool, London, and Paris before they hop stateside to tour. It was also during this time that they gave their iconic performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which skyrocketed them to fame. Given McCartney's place in the group, he was uniquely positioned to take these images, which serve both as a historical archive and as an affectionate photo album of four close friends.

“Since first arriving in New York in February 1964, Paul McCartney has built a strong, everlasting connection to the city. His vibrant photographs from The Beatles’ first visit capture the energy of the city, the excitement of the American fans, and the frenzy of details

Paul McCartney said The Beatles' "Drive My Car" contains a joke derived from a common theme in blues music. John Lennon barely had anything to say about the song.

The Beatles were just full of surprises. Paul McCartney said The Beatles’ “Drive My Car” (1965) contains a joke derived from a common theme in blues music. On the other hand, John Lennon barely had anything to say about the song.

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul recalled the writing of “Drive My Car.” “It was wonderful because this nice tongue-in-cheek idea came and suddenly there was a girl there, the heroine of the story, and the story developed and had a little sting in the tail like ‘Norwegian Wood’ had, which was ‘I actually haven’t got a car, but when I get one you’ll be a terrific chauffeur,'” he said. “So to me, it was LA chicks, ‘You can be my chauffeur,’ and it also meant ‘You can be my lover.’

“‘Drive my car’ was an old blues euphemism for sex, so in the end all is revealed,” he continued. “Black humor crept in and saved the day. It wrote itself then. I find that very often, onc details

Previously unseen footage from the iconic 1965 Beatles movie Help!, is to go up for auction.

This footage was captured on 8mm film, and shows a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the band during filming for this movie.

On the item itself, RR Auction have said that it came from a Dublin based collector, who purchased it via eBay. The auction house also believe that the film could fetch for “7.8k ($10k) or more”.

The film also captures the Beatles in a number of authentic off-camera moments, chatting with the movie’s cast and crew, playing with instruments, and sharing some wholesome moments.

Speaking about this film, RR Auction had this to say.

“The original black-and-white silent film, captured on May 3, 1965, during the filming of ‘Help!’, is a treasure trove from the personal archive of a member of the production crew or a possible friend of the Beatles”, they said.

“The original black-and-white silent film, captured on May 3, 1965,
during the filming of ‘Help!’, is a treasure trove from the personal archive of a member of the production crew or a possible friend of the Beatles”.

Source: Dalton Mac Namee/no details

A Hard Day’s Night began a new era for The Beatles. They were evolving into a whole new band. In the early days, they covered Chuck Berry and Little Richard songs. The gigantic success of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” shook up the world. The soundtrack of their first feature-length movie called for new material from John Lennon and Paul McCartney. This was when the band was evolving past “yeah, yeah, yeah,” but not yet moving into the experimental directions they would travel. This acoustic phase produced “If I Fell,” “No Reply,” and “I’ll Follow The Sun.” They still covered early rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm ‘n’ blues, and rockabilly songs but were finding their footing. Let’s look at the meaning behind the crushingly beautiful “And I Love Her” by The Beatles.

I give her all my love
That’s all I do
And if you saw my love
You’d love her too
I love her
A Love Song
The Title Says it All

The verses are all just a set-up to deliver the big payoff. And I Love Her is almost an aside, an “oh, by the way” kind of thing. But that line details

An unfinished novel about The Beatles' John Lennon written by his close friend and former bandmate Stuart Sutcliffe is among a treasured archive of poems, photos and artwork being put up for sale.

According to Artnet, the late artist's estate is seeking a buyer for Sutcliffe's complete art and artefact collection, which it describes as "an exceptional collectors opportunity."

In a detailed listing of the collection, the estate says, "This comprehensive archive comprises over 400 poetic artworks, several amid prior exhibits in prestigious galleries and museums. Complimenting the art includes 200 documents: letters, poems, essays, and an incomplete novel about John Lennon. It weaves a captivating visual narrative, featuring 37 original photographs chronicling the band’s formative days in England and Germany. Within these treasures lie poignant letters exchanged between Sutcliffe, Lennon, and their inner circle, unveiling the depth of their relationships and the fervent creativity igniting their iconic artistic journey."

Sutcliffe met John Lennon when the two were students at the Liverpool College of Art, and he is credited, alongside Lennon, for coming up with the name The Beatles for their new band details

Not long after Ringo Starr joined The Beatles, the band skyrocketed to success. By 1964, they were the biggest band in the world. Starr said that many celebrities and musicians were among their fans. At least one public figure had no interest in the band, though. He shared how the band handled the negative feedback.

Ringo Starr recalled 1 person who disliked The Beatles

By the mid-1960s, The Beatles were the most sought-after band in the world. Even other celebrities wanted to be close to them.

“A lot of established stars loved us; they really did,” Starr said in The Beatles Anthology. “Shirley Bassey was a big star in those days and she was always at the gigs. Alma Cogan was always throwing parties and inviting us.”

He said that the only celebrity he could remember disliking them was playwright, actor, and singer Noel Coward. He reportedly told a friend that...

Source: imdb.com

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