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Beatles News
A prized set of Beatles’ autographs from their famous Royal Variety Performance appearance will go on sale later this month.
The night is best remembered for when John Lennon said to the crowd ahead of the group’s last song: “For our last number I’d like to ask your help. To the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands, and the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewellery.”
The remark brought peals of laughter, but it was also a special evening for Fiona James, whose father, actor Gerald James, also performed for the Queen Mother on November 4 1963.
She wanted the signatures of the Fab Four, and the moment her father passed a pen to John Lennon was captured on camera, with fellow band member Ringo Starr in the foreground.
Source: Kim Pilling/independent.co.uk
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George Harrison initially started writing one of The Traveling Wilburys’ hit songs, “End of the Line,” like a Bob Dylan song. The former Beatle thought of his bandmate’s music a lot.
In a 1988 joint interview for MTV (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters) with his fellow Traveling Wilburys, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne, George explained how he wrote the band’s song “End of the Line.”
The interviewer pointed out, “There’s all these questions about who wrote what on the album, and you can kind of tell because who’s singing, but everybody is singing this song.”
Petty added, “You can’t tell, they’re all wrong.” George said, “… some of them we said, ‘OK, we need somebody to sing this one; why don’t you do it, because it suited you.’ So you can’t really tell.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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On August 8, 1969, on a street in north-west London and almost directly outside a celebrated recording studio, one of the most famous ever album covers was shot. Photographer Iain MacMillan took the image that would adorn the cover of the brilliant new record named after the street where he stood, Abbey Road. The zebra crossing, almost exactly in front of the studio where The Beatles had created the vast majority of their body of work, was about to become one of the most recognized sites in London.
Source: Paul Sexton
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As Oasis exploded into the mainstream comparisons were naturally made between them and the Fab Four.
Because they were a young British band hailing from a northern city (Manchester), the press figured this could be the second coming of The Beatles. But Harrison disagreed. He said of Oasis: "The music lacks depth, and the singer Liam [Gallagher] is a pain, the rest of the band don’t need him."
And McCartney agreed with the star. He said: "They’re derivative and they think too much of themselves. They mean nothing to me."
Things then got worse for Oasis. As if it wasn't bad enough to have two members of The Beatles slamming their band, The Rolling Stones joined in.
Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was quizzed over the most popular band in the country at the time. And he wasn't going to sugarcoat his opinions.
He replied: "You can’t dance to it, the new album’s impossible."
Guitarist Keith Richards had a similar opinion of Oasis. He simply branded the band: "They’re crap."
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
Multiple legendary rock bands have undergone lineup changes over the past 60 years since the genre hit the mainstream. Van Halen has had more than one lead singer since the 1970s and Fleetwood Mac once existed without Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, to name a couple of examples. Previous lineups of The Beatles might not be so widely known, as the changes occurred before Beatlemania took the world by storm.Paul McCartney and John Lennon began performing together in 1957 as teenagers. George Harrison was a friend of McCartney's from school who later joined the group. Stuart Sutcliffe joined, but only for a few months. Pete Best rounded out the group as the drummer. The quintet spent time performing in Liverpool and in Hamburg, Germany in the early 1960s. Future manager Brian Epstein discovered them as a four-piece without Sutcliffe in Liverpool and led them toward a record deal with Parlophone, an EMI company led by George Martin. Martin suggested a better drummer. The band chose Richard Starkey, also known as Ringo Starr (per Britannica).
Source: Anna Robinson/grunge.com
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When George Harrison and The Beatles first came to America, the press gave them “tags” based on their apparent personalities. John Lennon was the witty Beatle, Paul McCartney was the cute one, George the quiet one, and Ringo Starr was, well, Ringo Starr.
No labels could’ve been farther from the truth.
In 1965, George spoke with Larry Kane about the “tags” the press gave him and The Beatles when they first came to the U.S. George thought they were silly.
“On your first U.S. visit, George, you were known as the quiet Beatle, the somber, thoughtful, and pensive one, and suddenly here in 1965 you’ve kind of, according to most people’s way of thinking, opened up,” Kane said. “You’re talking a lot at the press conferences, a lot of questions are directed at you. What’s the reason for all of that?”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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George Harrison said the rumors in Beatles fan magazines drove him up a wall. However, the rumors the press and some authors concocted were even worse.
George had a hard enough time being a Beatle and struggled with fame. So those tall tales only aggravated him even more.
In the early 1960s, Larry Kane spoke with George about Beatles fan magazines (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters). The radio DJ asked if the rumors bugged him. They did.
“It drives you up a wall sometimes,” George replied. “Since we’ve been over here they’ve been asking us, ‘Is John leaving?’ Well, the new one today is it’s me leaving. You know, that’s just because some idiot in Hollywood has written in the papers that I’m leaving, so now I will have for weeks people coming up time after time and asking, ‘Is it true you are leaving?'”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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George Harrison and Paul McCartney were bandmates for over 10 years, but George never understood where Paul got his melodies. He couldn’t replicate them.
In a 1969 radio interview, George spoke with David Wigg about The Beatles’ newest album, Abbey Road. He talked about his favorite songs on the new album, including “Because” and two of Paul’s songs, “You Never Give Me Your Money” and “Golden Slumbers.”
Despite what was going on in The Beatles at the time and George and Paul’s tense relationship, George still had compliments about his soon-to-be ex-bandmate.
“You know, Paul always writes nice melodies,” George said. “In fact, I don’t know where he finds them half the time. He’s amazing for doing that.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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George Harrison‘s “Here Comes The Sun” is about sitting in an English garden, specifically Eric Clapton’s. However, the famous Beatles song is a little more complicated than that. George might not have written it if he didn’t play hooky. Thankfully, he did.
By the time The Beatles started work on Abbey Road, they were barely speaking to one another, let alone working together. Crack by crack, they were slowly breaking up. Plus, there were endless meetings about the band’s legal problems.
One day, George, sick of it all, decided not to show up and drove to his friend Eric Clapton’s house instead. If he hadn’t, he might not have written “Here Comes The Sun.”
In an interview for BBC Radio’s Scene and Heard (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), David Wigg asked George, “You must have been inspired by the sun, but where were you?”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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George Harrison loved his mother dearly, but they disagreed on some things, including her answering fan mail. From the day that George came home and asked for his first guitar, Louise Harrison supported her son. She encouraged him musically and let him leave school to travel to Hamburg, Germany, with The Beatles.
When the band played at The Cavern Club, she always cheered them on in the front row. After The Beatles became famous and Beatlemania exploded, the only way she could support her son was to support his fans. So, she answered fan mail. All fans deserved a personal answer for loving him so much.
Source: cheatsheet.com
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An important piece of Beatles history is up for grabs -- John Lennon's nasty response to a Paul McCartney interview, and it provides tons of insight into the writing duo's complicated relationship.
John fired off a letter to Paul days after an interview critical of him and The Beatles appeared in a November 1971 issue of British music magazine Melody Maker, and John's reply is mostly scathing ... but also thoughtful and pleading.
From the jump, John's frustration with Paul is clear ... telling Paul he's ungrateful for all the money he's getting from The Beatles. As the 3-page letter rambles on, John takes issue with Paul dismissing his song "Imagine" and berates Paul for being indecisive over the band's breakup.
The Beatles had been broken up for more than a year at that point, and were haggling over money. In the letter, John pleads with Paul to meet him without any lawyers ... then turns around and accuses Paul of buying up shares of another record company behind his back.
Source: tmz.com
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If you want to learn how much someone doesn't know about music, engage them in a conversation that weighs in on the importance of Ringo Starr to the Beatles. If the person casts Ringo as the bit player in the Beatles, you know he is missing the big picture and only assessing the vocal and songwriting prowess of the other three against "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden."
And there's always that business about how Ringo couldn't play drums (we'll address that later).
People love to ape tired argument gambits like "He's the luckiest guy in show business," "He was the guy who was along for the ride," or "Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles," that nasty quote attributed to John Lennon that everyone from Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn to Snopes has proved was uttered by a forgotten British comedian in 1983, three years after John ceased to exist.
Source: Serene Dominic/phoenixnewtimes.com
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Before George Harrison started any part of his 11th studio album, Cloud Nine, he needed a producer, and the first person that came to mind was Jeff Lynne, ironically. George once called Lynne a Beatles copycat. However, he realized how wrong he was and contacted Lynne.
After meeting, the former Beatle wanted to get to know the ELO frontman and producer before they started work. George had to make sure they’d be good songwriting partners. Lynne passed the test, and the pair began Cloud Nine. Once they started, George realized why he and Lynne worked well together.
Initially, George knew it was ironic that he wanted Lynne to produce Cloud Nine. However, that was the reason why George wanted the producer. If Lynne was a Beatles copycat, that was OK with George. He wanted someone who made music like him.
Source: cheatsheet.com
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It would truly be a pity if you didn’t give this George Harrison song a listen.
“Isn’t It A Pity” is a song everyone should know, and here’s why: It’s a song about how we tend to take our loved ones for granted, but it’s also a reminder that we have the ability to change that behavior. We have the ability to give back.
Tensions were running high amongst The Beatles in their final days together. Harrison, in particular, felt smothered by the band in the late 1960s. He had been sitting on a mountain of songs that he wrote but didn’t make the cut for a Beatles record. So, once The Beatles officially broke up in 1970, Harrison unleashed an avalanche of music onto listeners. His 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass had 23 new songs on it, two of which were “Isn’t It A Pity (Version 1)” and “Isn’t It A Pity (Version 2).”
Source: americansongwriter.com
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In all the nooks and crannies of Beatles Scholarship, the Fabs’ relationship to and time spent in India is one of the most interesting. In fact, it could be argued that no group did more to open Western ears, eyes, and minds to Indian music, culture, and spirituality than the Beatles did in the mid/late 1960s.
The connection is told in the fascinating 2021 documentary The Beatles and India (available on DVD & Blu-Ray June 21 from MVD Entertainment). It’s co-directed by Ajoy Bose (based on his book, Across the Universe—The Beatles in India) and Pete Compton.
Source: Bob Ruggiero/houstonpress.com
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