Paul McCartney gave the world many great albums with his band Wings. Despite this, critics weren’t always receptive to the band. Paul himself once thought one of Wings’ albums was a disaster. He later softened his stance on the album while spending time with David Bowie.
During an interview with Reverb.com, Paul said lots of listeners compared Wings to The Beatles. Paul admitted The Beatles were a difficult act to follow. Despite this, he said Wings is an underrated band.
“The interesting thing is that, looking back on some of the work, some of the stuff, it’s better than you think it was, but because it got such harsh criticism … from me,” he said. “The critics gave us a hard run, but I was particularly hard on us. I remember looking at a book, there was an album we did, I think it was Back to the Egg, which didn’t do well, and I remember thinking, ‘God, complete disaster.'”
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsGeorge Harrison was known as the quiet Beatle, and sometimes also wanted to be invisible.
“Beatle George Harrison, above, is due in court here today to answer assault charges,” John Lennon reads from a newspaper in a scene in Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back. “Harrison is accused of assaulting a photographer last May as he and Beatle Ringo Starr left a nightclub.”
The accused looks fairly bewildered, as did much of the audience. The story intermittently creeps back into the documentary, making its presence known while Harrison largely ignores it and moves on.
In The Beatles: Get Back, Jackson shows how news items about The Beatles have a tendency to take on lives of their own. Paul McCartney improvises his version of Michael Housego’s article “The End of a Beautiful Friendship,” about Harrison quitting the band, while the rest of the group rolls through old time rock and roll.
Source: Tony Sokol/denofgeek.com
detailsMusical superstar Phil Collins plays the drums but he doesn’t take stick from anyone. One person who discovered that to their detriment was none other than Sir Paul McCartney.
A passing remark led to bitterness years later and the opening of old wounds. How did it all go down? Take this story at Face Value…
What did Paul McCartney say to annoy Phil Collins?
The year was 2002. Collins and McCartney were attending “Party at the Palace.” This prestigious event celebrated the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. It was a time for smart suits, canapés and (we’re guessing) extreme politeness.
Collins mentioned the encounter during a 2016 interview with the Sunday Times. He had in his hand a first edition copy of The Beatles authorized biography by Hunter Davies (1968). Why not ask the Liverpudlian legend to sign it? Paper grew on trees. Opportunities like that didn’t.
Source: Steve Palace/thevintagenews.com
detailsGeorge Harrison and Michael Jackson discussed one of Van Morrison’s songs during a radio interview. George and Jackson had different opinions of the track. Listeners in the United States and the United Kingdom had essentially the same reaction to the song.
According to the book George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters, the quiet Beatle appeared on a radio show called Roundtable alongside Jackson in 1979. Guests on the show discussed their opinions of new songs. One of the songs George and Michael discussed was Morrison’s then-new single “Natalia.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsHardcore fans of The Beatles like to think they know everything about the band. Most have bootlegs of recording sessions, live shows, and bookshelves full of books documenting—sometimes to the hour—what any of them were doing personally and creatively during the group’s 10-year run.
Yet even those fans are hailing Peter’s Jackson’s new Disney+ exclusive docuseries, The Beatles: Get Back, which curates and culls down 50+ hours of footage from the Get Back sessions that reveals, from a fly on the wall perspective, when the creative magic was coming to a close in early 1969.
Even with anecdotal stories or their voices captured in the recording sessions bootlegs, the docuseries is the most contextual and revealing artifact to exist that expresses, in their own words and deeds, what was going wrong amongst the Fab Four. And because of that, the new knowledge gleaned for fans and music historians is nothing less than legendary.
Source: Garrett Martin and Paste Staff
detailsDuring Thanksgiving weekend, Disney + released a new three-part documentary after the last Beatles recording sessions before their disbandment, titled simply The Beatles: Get Back.
The three-part documentary shows rare behind-the-scenes footage of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr recording their last songs together as a band in 1969.
And it also sheds a whole new light on the troubled narrative that has been around since 1970: Yoko Ono breaking up with the Beatles. There are several moments throughout the 7.8 hours of footage that deconstructs this misogynistic theory and instead proves that it is unpopular – the Beatles were actually responsible for the dissolution of the Beatles.
Source: creatorsempire.com
detailsThe Beatles may have been in their own little world for much of their time together, but they did know about other artists’ music. We saw that clear as day in Peter Jackson’s new three-part documentary, The Beatles: Get Back. While the group was supposed to be writing 14 original songs for their new album and a TV special, they often found themselves jamming out to songs penned by their idols, past and present. In other scenes, The Beatles even praised those idols.In Part 2 of Jackson’s documentary, John Lennon asked the rest of the group if they’d seen Fleetwood Mac on Late Night Live the night before. This was, of course, before Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had joined the band. Then, Fleetwood Mac consisted of founder and frontman Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, guitarist Danny Kirwan, the occasional keyboardist Christine Perfect (later Christine McVie), and slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer.
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsRichard Starkey, better known by his moniker, Ringo Starr, is one of the most famous and highest-earning drummers in the entire world. The musician’s life was forever changed in 1962 when he joined the British rock band The Beatles. From then on, Ringo has earned a staggering net worth thanks to the group’s global success.
Ringo has an estimated net worth of $350 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Born in 1940, the musician grew up in Liverpool and fell ill with tuberculosis when he was 14. To help pass the time during his recovery, the nurses in the hospital gave the patients tambourines and drums to play. It was then that he had a major revelation about his future career.
Source: closerweekly.com
detailsThe Beatles: Get Back, the three-part Disney+ docuseries that embeds viewers with the Beatles during their famously contentious recording sessions in January 1969, is long. Like, long long.
Collectively, the three episodes add up to 470 minutes, or nearly eight hours of viewing time. That’s more than three House of Guccis, more than three Dunes, and in the ballpark of the entire third season of Succession. It is not, however, nearly as long as the original or extended versions of The Lord of the Rings (558 and 686 minutes, respectively), which, like Get Back, were directed by Peter Jackson, a man who clearly loves to tell sprawling stories in three parts without much concern for keeping things tight.
Source: Jen Chaney/vulture.com
detailsThe former Beatles each shared a thoughtful message and photo of Harrison to social media on Monday, 20 years after the man known as the "Quiet Beatle" died of lung cancer at 58 years old.
"Hard to believe that we lost George 20 years ago," McCartney wrote. "I miss my friend so much. Love Paul."
The 79-year-old musician also shared a black-and-white photo of him and Harrison that was taken by his late wife, Linda McCartney.
Starr, meanwhile, shared an image that featured him and Harrison smiling with cigars hanging out of their mouths.
Source: Rachel DeSantis/people.com
detailsGEORGE HARRISON died 20 years ago today. But even at his end, the musician was caring, funny, and eager to help his friend Ringo Starr.
The Beatles' lead guitarist, George Harrison, died on this day, November 29, 20 years ago in 2001. The star had been suffering from a brain tumour and had been treated at a clinic in Switzerland in July 2001. During this time, Ringo Starr visited the former member of the Fab Four.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
detailsToday marks the 20th anniversary of the death of George Harrison, who passed away from complications from lung cancer at age 58.
Harrison, of course, first came to fame as the lead guitarist of The Beatles, then had a long and successful career as a solo artist.
While the Fab Four was dominated by the talented and prolific songwriting team of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Harrison eventually made major contributions to the band with his own compositions, including “Taxman,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Here Comes the Sun” and the #1 hit ballad “Something.”
George also helped introduce Indian music to the pop world thanks to sitar-driven tunes like “Love You Too” and “Within You Without You.”
Source: Matt Friedlander/1430wcmy.com
The Beatles‘ rooftop concert is one of the most famous concerts in the history of classic rock. During an interview, Paul McCartney revealed the concert was designed to anger a certain type of listener. Notably, The Beatles played “Don’t Let Me Down” during the concert. The song garnered a different reaction at the concert than it did on the pop charts.The Guardian reports several businessmen were in the vicinity of The Beatles when they performed their rooftop concert. One of these businessmen said The Beatles’ concert disrupted his work. Paul compared this man to a character in A Hard Days’ Night who got upset at the Fab Four and commented that he fought in World War II for “your lot.” Ringo Starr retorted “I bet you’re sorry you won!”
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsCops and Krishnas, mad inventors and comic geniuses. The Beatles had gathered a colourful crew around them by 1969, many of whom drop by the ‘Let It Be’ sessions to hang, hustle or play along, thereby ending up in the background of Peter Jackson’s mammoth new documentary The Beatles: Get Back. Here’s a full who’s who of the supporting players (aka anyone who isn’t John, Paul, George or Ringo).
Dennis O’Dell – producer
Producer of the Let It Be film, who loaned The Beatles Twickenham Studios for the duration of January 1969 in order to rehearse and record their planned TV special while preparations were underway for his next movie project The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr.
Source: Mark Beaumont/nme.com
detailsSunday’s on the phone to Monday, but last Tuesday feels like years ago. Thanksgiving weekend was an epic journey for Beatles fans, thanks to Get Back. Peter Jackson’s docuseries finally arrived on Disney+, dropping surprise after surprise on our heads. So much to process. So much to argue about. Any random 10-minute stretch of this movie is crammed with too many quotable quotes and musical details to catch the first few times. Rest assured this isn’t just a one-time bombshell event. Get Back is an instant classic that fans will keep watching and re-watching for years to come.
Source: Rob Sheffield
details