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Beatles News
As 1999 was rolling to a close, George Harrison should have been ringing in the new year with his family at his Friar Park Estate in Henley-on-Thames, England.
Instead, the former Beatle was lying in a hospital with 40 stab wounds after an intruder broke into his home on December 30 and left him fighting for his life.
British comedian Eric Idle recalls the incident on the latest episode of the Adam Buxton Podcast. A founding member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Idle was both Harrison's friend and associate. Harrison appeared in Idles' satirical Beatles take-off All You Need Is Cash and even re-mortgaged his home to help finance Monty Python's 1979 film Life of Brian.
The attacker was Michael Abram, a 34-year-old suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. After breaking in, Abram encountered Harrison, leading to a prolonged fight in which the guitarist suffered a punctured lung and multiple head injuries.
As Idle tells Buxton, the incident shook Harrison to his core. “He was very disturbed,” he says. “I have never, ever seen him more disturbed. It was really shocking, because they fought for 20 minutes.” Idle adds that he had been attacked “with a butch details
Decades after The Beatles made their debut, they're still impacting the landscape of music as we know it today. A big part of their influence was the final album the group would make together: Abbey Road, which was released on September 26, 1969 — 56 years ago today.
In a post on Facebook, Classic Rock Magazine shared a look back at the iconic album in honor of its anniversary, pointing out that it was Paul McCartney who convinced John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr to join him in the studio one more time so they could record together "like the old days."
"Deep down, everyone involved knew that Abbey Road was the last stand, which explains the nothing-to-lose attitude that pervades the material," Classic Rock's Henry Yates wrote. "Side One of the original vinyl holds most of the big-hitting moments, from the swampy judder of 'Come Together' to Harrison’s untouchable 'Something.'"
Yates continued, "And while 'Here Comes The Sun' is a no-brainer, cherrypicking the medley from Side Two was just as rewarding, with 'Golden Slumbers' and 'Carry That Weight.' standing amongst their most lump-in-throat moments."
Not only was Abbey Road significant because it marked the end of the ba details
A firm favourite topic for Beatles obsessives to kick around during those long-into-the night deliberations is just which of their eleven (we don’t count Magical Mystery Tour or Yellow Submarine, okay!) studio LPs was their singular best.
Whether you’re a Revolver man, an Abbey Road girl or your softest spot is reserved for their 1963 debut Please Please Me (we know there’s a few of you out there), what really isn't a matter of opinion is that on the wider cultural stage, it remains 1967’s Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band that is the most synonymous with the Beatles at the peak of their powers.
For many, it remains the greatest album in pop’s storied history. It’s certainly one of the most interesting from a technical and band narrative point of view, being the first of the Beatles' studio-based career.
In fact, it was this vivid cauldron of a record that solidified the very idea of ‘the album’ in popular culture, and underlined its status in devotees as the most crucial component of an artist's canon.
“The pop revolution was driven by 45s - an LP ‘the prize’ for success and even then comprising two hits and a lot of fill details
While the Fab Four were responsible for some of the best albums in history, the Empty Glass songwriter was left unmoved by one of The Beatles‘ biggest releases. A trick in the studio, where the vocals were coming out of one side of the stereo and the backing track from the other, would define The Beatles’ sound. It would feature on some of their biggest tracks, but it did little for Townshend, who called it “flippin’ lousy.” He and The Who bass guitarist John Entwistle had been listening to an album by The Beatles shortly before Townshend gave an interview. The interview was seemingly given around the time of Rubber Soul‘s release, an album which changed the future for The Beatles.
An interviewer asked The Who guitarist: “But wouldn’t you say The Beatles and people like that have a certain musical quality?” Townshend replied: “Ooh, that’s a tough question. Actually, this afternoon, John [Entwistle] and I were listening to a stereo LP of The Beatles — in which the voices come out of the one side and the backing track comes out of the other.
“When you actually hear the backing tracks of The Beatles without their voices, they’re fli details
As of now, it’s hard to theorize when the relevance of The Beatles will fade. It’s quite trivial to assume when that will be, as there is truly no way to know. Though, as of now, this will not happen anytime soon. However, in terms of a few of their songs, that has already seemingly begun to happen.
“Hey Jude”, “Let It Be”, “Twist And Shout”, and “Get Back” are just a few of The Beatles’ songs that will always stay popular so long as The Beatles stay popular. Although that is not the case for these three Beatles songs, because as time has passed, so has the popularity of these tracks.
“Rocky Raccoon”
Released in 1968 on The Beatles’ self-titled album, better known as The White Album, “Rocky Raccoon” is one of the few songs in which The Beatles dabble in country music. One might argue that sonically speaking, it is one of the more unique tracks released by the Fab Four.
Uniqueness doesn’t lead to longevity, and that is the case for this phenomenal Beatles track. While steadfast and staunch Beatles fans certainly know this song. It seems fans who merely dabble in The Beatles don’t, which is incr details
Even if the rest of the world was none the wiser in early fall of 1969, The Beatles were well aware that their band was on the outs—a disintegration that would come that much more swiftly and divisively, thanks to a controversial John Lennon single he released in October of that year.
The subject matter of Lennon’s single was certainly sensitive. But it was nothing that The Beatles hadn’t covered already in songs like “Happiness is a Warm Gun”. Interestingly, Lennon’s actions following the release of his Plastic Ono Band track drummed up more drama than anything else.
Lennon’s response? “They’re so stupid about drugs.”
Whispers of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s worsening h***** addiction had already made their way into The Beatles discography by the late 1960s. “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” and “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” from the band’s 1968 eponymous “White Album” both touched on Lennon’s substance abuse. But “Cold Turkey” did more than touch—it prodded, pushed, and screamed the entire experience out onto vinyl. It’s a brash, intense, fr details
When it was over, George Harrison rarely got too sentimental about his time with The Beatles. But he also didn’t shy away from commenting on it in his songs, even if he did so ever so subtly at times.
“The Light That Has Lighted The World” stands out as one of the most moving songs from Harrison’s 1973 album Living In The Material World. It reflects his feelings on how people viewed the changes that he underwent upon entering the world of fortune and fame.
Heading for the “Light”
Because All Things Must Pass was such a powerhouse of an album, the LPs that followed it in the George Harrison catalog sometimes didn’t get the respect they deserved. This is especially true about Living In The Material World. It’s a far more muted record than its predecessor. But it’s no less compelling.
Harrison included “The Light That Has Lighted The World” on that album. He had originally written it as part of a series of songs that he intended for Cilla Black. Black was a recording star in Great Britain who came from the same environs as The Beatles, which led to a long association between the acts.
Since he had earmarked the song “When T details
A new documentary produced by Martin Scorsese will celebrate Beatlemania's diamond jubilee. Beatles '64, which will debut on Disney+ on Nov. 29, will feature new interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the Beatlemaniacs who followed them, paired with footage of the band's first U.S. concert and Ed Sullivan Show appearance. All of the archival footage has been restored in 4K, and the audio for the live footage was demixed by WingNut Films and remixed by Giles Martin, who was the music supervisor for Peter Jackson's Get Back docuseries.
Filmmaker David Tedeschi, who co-directed a doc on the New York Dolls' David Johansen and was nominated for Emmys recognizing docs he worked on about George Harrison and Bob Dylan, directed the picture. It includes footage by documentarians Albert and David Maysles and traces the group's heroes' welcome at New York's JFK airport on Feb. 7, 1964, and the crowds that followed them. On Feb. 9, they performed three songs on The Ed Sullivan Sh details
On the morning of July 18 when Indio resident Linda Harger logged on to buy tickets for Paul McCartney's Sept. 29 concert at Acrisure Arena, the number of people ahead of her in the queue was crushing.
"I have to be in that building," the superfan recalled thinking. "He's coming to town and there's no way I'm going to miss it."
All the seats she wanted were gone when Harger got to the front of the digital line, so she purchased resale tickets. Skipping the concert was not an option. The event is a meaningful next step in a lifelong relationship with the music of The Beatles — and especially McCartney.
So when did that relationship begin? The 73-year-old got teary when she described watching the Fab Four make their U.S. debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9, 1964.
"I just watched them and life changed," Harger said. "They were just so amazing. So amazing. You know, there's a lot of articles that I see now that said ... one of the things that made The Beatles so popular at that time was it came so close after the (President John F.) Kennedy assassination. And so I think it changed a lot of the attitude. It was something to be happy about. Something that was pleasant and fun."
Harg details
John Lennon and Yoko Ono temporarily separated in 1973. She told him that she had begun to feel suffocated by their constant togetherness, and asked him to move out. At first, Lennon appeared thrilled. He was single for the first time in his adult life.
John Lennon didn’t seem concerned when Yoko Ono asked him to move out
Amid growing tension in their marriage, Ono told Lennon that she wanted a break. She suggested that he move to Los Angeles to give them some much-needed space. Ono asked the couple’s friend, Elliot Mintz, to keep an eye on her estranged husband. At first, however, Lennon seemed perfectly fine to Mintz.
“For the first few months, John appeared entirely content in Los Angeles — one might even say gleeful,” Mintz wrote in his book We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me. “He seemed to consider his expulsion from the Dakota and banishment to the West Coast as something of a bachelor’s holiday.”
Mintz believed that Lennon was excited to experience what it was like to be single for the first time in his adult life.
“Remember, he was twenty-one when he married Cynthia; he was twenty-eight when he married Yoko. Now, at the cus details
Actor Richard E Grant has praised Barry Keoghan, his Saltburn co-star, saying he will be a “fantastic Ringo Starr” in the new Beatles biopics.
Sony Pictures has announced a collection of four films about the band members, with Keoghan cast as drummer Sir Ringo Starr.
Speaking on The One Show, Grant praised the 32-year-old Irish actor who he worked with in the 2023 Emerald Fennell thriller.
Grant said: “He’s an extraordinary actor. He’s unlike anybody else I’ve ever, ever worked with before, so completely untrained, instinctive and brilliant.
Directed by Sir Sam Mendes, each of the movies will showcase one of the members of the Fab Four: John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Sir Ringo.
Keoghan is best known for his roles in The Killing Of A Sacred Deer and The Banshees Of Inisherin, the latter winning his the Bafta for best supporting actor in 2023.
A scene from Saltburn showing his character – an Oxford University student who gets wrapped up in the charming and aristocratic world of his classmate – dancing naked around a country manor to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder On The Dancefloor went viral.
The details
The Beatles decided to stop touring in 1966, tired after years on the road, playing to huge crowds of screaming fans. Their final tour, which was across the United States and Canada that summer, was marred by controversy around John Lennon's comment that the band was "more popular than Jesus".
John had made the comment in an interview with the Evening Standard in July 1966 and it didn't even cause a stir in the UK. However, when it was reproduced by US magazine Datebook later that month, there was outrage directed toward The Beatles from American Christians.
The band had grown tired of the media attention, heavy security and the demands that Beatlemania brought with it. They knew that the tour's final night - at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, would be their final gig.
About the decision to stop playing live, George Harrison later said: "We'd been through every race riot, and every city we went to there was some kind of a jam going on, and police control, and people threatening to do this and that... and (us) being confined to a little room or a plane or a car.
"We all had each other to dilute the stress, and the sense of humour was very important... But the details
“About three in the morning, there's a knock on the door. And John was there and he had Paul with him." David Bowie on how he almost got former Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney back together in 1974.
While Beatles fans dreamed of the group reuniting in the 1970s, David Bowie once revealed that he nearly managed to get John Lennon and Paul McCartney back together in 1974 to form a supergroup with him.
It was the year Bowie moved to New York City, just three years after Lennon himself had emigrated there. Shortly after Bowie’s arrival, he met Lennon at a party hosted by Elizabeth Taylor. Of all the Beatles, Lennon was his favorite.
“He was one of the major influences on my musical life,” Bowie said in an interview recorded in the 1980s. “I mean, I just thought he was the very best of what could be done with rock and roll, and also ideas.
Although he was nervous when the two met privately, they quickly formed a bond that led to Lennon visiting Bowie one night, with McCartney in tow.
As Bowie explained to BBC 6 Music with Marc Riley, he was lodging at the time at the Pierre Hotel. “I’d taken over a suite virtually for months and month details
For all of their promise, the Beatles' journey as solo acts was dotted with potholes.
George Harrison came roaring into the '70s, quickly releasing two chart-topping post-breakup albums and three Top singles – topped by the No. 1 smash "My Sweet Lord." Ringo Starr struck platinum with 1973's Ringo and reeled off four straight Top 10 songs, including a pair of No. 1 hits.
Meanwhile, former bandmate Paul McCartney was already experiencing the kind of ups (1971's Ram) and downs (Wild Life, also from 1971) that would define his career away from the Beatles. Similarly, John Lennon followed up his biggest-selling solo LP (1971's Imagine) with one of his most poorly received albums.
McCartney would ultimately outsell them all, while Starr suffered the most dramatic solo career setbacks. Lennon's and then Harrison's careers were cut short when they died too early.
At one point, Starr was actually without a label after being dropped by RCA following a string of duds in the late '70s. But he ended up becoming the most productive of all of his former bandmates, regularly issuing albums and EPs after the turn of the century.
When they were together, the Beatles seemed to metronomically release details
Paul McCartney says he remembers the exact moment The Beatles had “changed the world.”
In his Q&A session, You Gave Me the Answer, the Wings frontman would confirm he can still remember the feeling in the air when the Fab Four became the biggest band on the planet. McCartney shared the “first big success” of The Beatles and what it meant for its members. While he would note a specific stop-off on a tour of the United States, suggesting there was a change in the air, it was not until the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band that The Beatles could consider themselves a “worldwide” movement. McCartney claimed it was this album with the band that made him think he, along with John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, were truly changing the world.
He said: “I suppose it was our first big success in America. I started to realise that the attention was not just local, and it was around the time of Sgt Pepper when we started seeing our clothes and the music we were making getting copied on an international level.
“Although this had happened before at home, with people getting the Beatle haircut and all dressing in a similar fashion, it w details