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Beatles News
Each week, I'll present a new album for your consideration—a means for passing these uncertain times in musical bliss. For some readers, hearing about the latest selection might offer a chance reacquaintance with an old friend. For others, the series might provide an unexpected avenue for making a new one.
Classic rock has marked one 50th anniversary after another in recent years. When it comes to the Beatles, the bandmates' post-break-up solo work in 1970 is the most poignant of the bunch, especially when it comes to George Harrison. Having languished in the shadows of the world-breaking Lennon-McCartney songwriting juggernaut for nigh on a decade, the Beatles' lead guitarist was poised for a breakout release to define his own considerable talents apart from the group. As Harrison later recalled, "That was the great thing about [the Beatles] splitting up: to be able to go off and make my own record. . . . And also to be able to record with all these new people, which was like a breath of fresh air."
Source: salon.com
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How old is Paul McCartney?
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool on June 14, 1942 and is 77-years-old.
His mother, Mary, was a nurse, his father, James, a firefighter and Paul had a little brother called Michael and a stepsister, Ruth.
The singer, songwriter and producer found worldwide success as a vocalist and bassist for The Beatles and his songwriting collaboration with John Lennon is widely acknowledged as the most successful in musical history.
What are Paul McCartney's most famous songs?
During his songwriting partnership with John Lennon, from October 1962 to May 1970, Paul and John published 180 joint songs, which became the majority of The Beatles' catalogue of work.
Source: Smooth Radio
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In 1973 Paul McCartney was beginning to truly forge his solo career. The Beatles were at the back of his mind and his path to solo stardom was laid out in front of him. But that didn’t mean the Fab Four weren’t still looming over everything he did.
One such presence was that of Sir Lew Grade, owner of the ATV television Network and, by extension, the Beatles’ Northern Songs catalogue. The singer had been crediting his wife Linda as his co-writer since 1971 and Grade was not happy about the inclusion.
Sir Lew Grade and Paul McCartney were deeply embroiled in a legal battle over the issue. Linda’s inclusion as the second composer of the song meant that Grade’s company were missing out on the royalties that would otherwise be due to them. Grade cited Linda’s lack of professional experience as a songwriter or musician as proof of McCartney’s clever switch to keep the PRS cheques in the family.
Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk
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It was 50 years ago today that Paul McCartney’s solo debut album was released, taking some of the shine off the impending release of The Beatles’ final album Let It Be. The previous week McCartney had previewed a promotional copy of McCartney containing a press release interpreted by the media as McCartney announcing that The Beatles were no more. The split had been brewing for years and would become official in due course, although, at the time, McCartney took the flak and was typecast as the man who broke up the beloved Fab Four. Accordingly, McCartney was roundly slated by the critics.
The five decades since have witnessed over 60 studio albums from the four solo Beatles and to say that they are a bit of a mixed bag is an understatement. A handful have attained classic status, however, so here is my choice of the 10 best solo Beatles albums.
Source: bioreports.net
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The day John Lennon was murdered, “(Just Like) Starting Over” was on a steady climb up the Billboard charts. That day, “Starting Over,” the last single that Lennon would release during his lifetime, was at #6 and rising. There’s no reason to think it wouldn’t have eventually hit #1. As the first John Lennon single in five years, “(Just Like) Starting Over” certainly had public curiosity working for it. It’s a modest shrug of a song, but plenty of modestly shrugging Paul McCartney songs had ascended to the top of the charts after the Beatles’ breakup.
To plenty of people, “(Just Like) Starting Over” probably sounded like a pleasantly breezy love song from a guy whose voice they knew and loved. But then Mark David Chapman pumped four bullets into Lennon’s back, inflicting a generational trauma and altering the course of popular music. “(Just Like) Starting Over” probably sounded pretty different after that.
Source: Tom Breihan/stereogum.com
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John Lennon, one of the frontmen of the Beatles, is renowned for his musical career, which spanned decades despite his early death. However, he was also known for his marriage to Yoko Ono, the artist who some suggest broke up the Beatles when she began dating Lennon. The couple had a son, Sean, but who is he and what does he do now?
Sean Ono Lennon was born in New York City on October 9, 1975, which was his father’s 35th birthday.
The young child had a great deal of contact with his father, as John chose to become a house husband and look after his son while Sean’s mother, Yoko Ono, pursued her artistic career.
Sadly, this changed when John was murdered outside his house on December 8, 1980.
Source: Jenny Desborough/express.co.uk
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Although the Beatles came to an end in 1970, the band's breakup is still a hotly debated topic among fans, including Howard Stern. In 2018, the radio host got Paul McCartney to state, once and for all, that John Lennon's relationship with Yoko Ono led to the band's breakup.
On Tuesday, during his Sirius XM show, he probed the musician on another element of the breakup, suggesting McCartney didn't keep the group going with its remaining members — George Harrison and Ringo Starr — because he underestimated Harrison's abilities.
While McCartney didn't deny he overlooked his late bandmate, who died in 2001, he attributed the group's demise to more personal reasons.
"I hear what you're saying, but the thing is Howard, that's like a family. When families break up, it's to do with the emotion and the emotional pain," he responded. "You're hurting too much, and so it wasn't going to happen. We'd been through too much and I think we were just fed up with the whole thing."
Source: Rachel Yang /Explore Entertainment
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Paul McCartney was in too much pain after John Lennon’s left to continue with The Beatles
Sir Paul McCartney has said he was ‘hurting too much’ and too ‘fed up with the whole thing’ to continue with The Beatles after John Lennon left the band.
The Yellow Submarine musician and band members George Harrison and Ringo Starr went through an enormous emotional upheaval after their friend and colleague decided to leave in 1969, he said.
Appearing on Sirius XM, host Howard Stern took the opportunity to ask the musician why they did not continue after John’s departure and further elements of the break-up, suggesting that it was partly to do with his underestimation of George, who died in 2001.
The 77-year-old said: ‘The thing is Howard, that’s like a family. When families break up, it’s to do with the emotion and the emotional pain.
Source: Zara WoodcockWednesday/metro.co.uk
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Sir Paul McCartney has insisted there was too much "emotional pain" to carry on The Beatles without John Lennon.
The group went their separate ways in 1970 after the singer - who was shot dead in 1980 - decided to quit but his former bandmate insisted he, Ringo Starr and the late George Harrison never considered continuing as a three-piece because they felt so "fed up".
Speaking to Howard Stern on SiriusXM, Paul said: "It's like a family, when families break up it's to do with the emotion and the emotional pain, you can't think of a smart idea like that at the time, you're hurting too much, it wasn't going to happen.
"We'd been through too much and I think we were just fed up of the whole thing."
When the DJ discussed the songwriting partnership Paul and George could have enjoyed, the 77-year-old superstar admitted the 'My Sweet Lord' hitmaker's writing abilities had often been underestimated because he was a "late bloomer" when it came to penning lyrics.
Source: missoulian.com
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THERE is nobody from Northwich who got closer to the Beatles that the late Gwili Lewis.
In the 1960s, when the band played their gigs before packed out audiences, he was the manager of Northwich Memorial Hall.
On Sunday mornings, I used to sit down with Gwili for a cup of tea and chat after the service at Castle Community Church in Northwich.
Sadly, that all came to an end after Gwili passed away peacefully after a long and successful life in June last year, aged 98.
One Sunday morning, in his usual charming and entertaining manner, Gwili told me more about what went on behind the scenes on Carnival Day 1963, which saw The Beatles perform in Verdin Park.
The band had arrived early that day and they were awaiting Gwili at the old police station.
Gwili said: “My job was to drive them around the Northwich suburbs for a couple of hours in a van to conceal them from the crowds.
Source: By John Hulme/northwichguardian.co.uk
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On a late summer afternoon more than half a century ago, Chris and Monty Field, teenage brothers, found a spot on the courthouse square in Harrisburg, Illinois, to watch a Shriners parade. By some accounts, 12,000 people had gathered for the festivities, even though the population of this farm town was only about 9,000. As 40 marching units, some in their characteristic fezzes, came down the street, Chris and Monty engaged in conversation with a striking blonde in her early 30s who spoke with an English accent. Her name, she said, was Louise. She was there with her children and two brothers. Louise did most of the talking, but the younger of the two brothers, whose name was George, made an impression all the same. “He had a funny haircut, kind of long and stringy,” Monty recalls. “Most of the boys at that time had flattops.” George was wearing jeans, he noticed, with a hole at the knee.
Source: Ackerman + Gruber,Alan Pell Crawford/smithsonianmag.com
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George Harrison was the Beatles' acknowledged lead guitarist, but others subbed for him as far back as 1964's "You Can't Do That." There was also the trio approach employed on 1969's "The End," as first Paul McCartney, then Harrison and finally John Lennon traded two-bar solos three times.
In between, Lennon and McCartney would occasionally take over, even if Harrison continued to mime their guitar solos onscreen for "Another Girl" from the Help! movie and the promo clip for "Paperback Writer" – both of which were actually performed by McCartney.
This created some confusion, sometimes even within the group. "I don't think I was playing the guitar feedback" on 1967's "It's All Too Much," Harrison told Billboard in 1999. "As I say, I was playing the organ, so I think that was probably Paul that did that."
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
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Paul McCartney has called Chinese wet markets “medieval” and blamed them for the spread of coronavirus, using a comparison with the abolition of the slave trade when calling for them to be banned.
So-called “wet markets” in Asia trade in fresh meat and produce, and sometimes feature live animals. (They take their name from the frequently hosed-down floors.) A common theory – though far from confirmed – is that Covid-19 originated in a live animal market in Wuhan, with the disease being transmitted from illegally traded bat or pangolin meat.
Speaking to US radio host Howard Stern about the coronavirus crisis, McCartney said: “I really hope that this will mean the Chinese government says, ‘OK guys, we have really got to get super hygienic around here.’ Let’s face it, it is a little bit medieval eating bats.”
Source: Ben Beaumont-Thomas/theguardian.com
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Rare footage of late sitar player Ravi Shankar has surfaced that sees him teaching Beatles guitarist George Harrison the instrument.
The footage has been shared by The Ravi Shankar Foundation with the BBC to commemorate what would’ve been the icon’s 100th birthday (April 11).
Shankar was described as the “godfather of world music” by Harrison, and a number of celebrations in London and New York were planned to celebrate his centenary, but have been cancelled due to the coronavirus.
Instead, a new video of rare footage has been shared to mark the occasion, which features footage from a number of Shankar’s gigs, and him teaching Harrison the sitar. Watch it here via the BBC.
Source: Will Richards/nme.com
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Fifty years since their dissolution in April 1970 the Beatles live on. The band’s music, their significance and their individual personalities exert a hold on the cultural consciousness that seems to tighten as their heyday recedes. But is there anything new to say? Craig Brown’s One Two Three Four, the latest to enter the crowded library of Beatles books, is not a biography so much as a group portrait in vignettes, a rearrangement of stories and legends whose trick is to make them gleam anew.
The subtitle, The Beatles in Time, marks out the book’s difference from the rest. Brown goes on Beatles jaunts around Liverpool and Hamburg, visits fan festivals, tests the strength of the industry that has agglomerated around them. So many of the clubs where they played are now lost or changed beyond recognition – “a memory of a memory” – and the fans who do the pilgrimages are simply chasing shadows.
Source: Anthony Quinn/theguardian.com
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