Beatles News

Acclaimed writer Kenneth Womack will release his latest book on The Beatles when Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles arrives this October. The book will look to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band’s Abbey Road studio album in 2019.According to the book’s announcement via press release, Solid State will look to offer the most definitive account yet of the writing, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road, which was initially released in September 1969. The 288-page hardcover book will be Womack’s latest publication on the famous British rock band. Previous books penned by Womack include The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four (2014), The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles (2009), Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles (2007), and Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four (2006), just to name a few.

Source: Tom Shackleford/liveforlivemusic.com

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There were no dispensable Beatles. That has been the case since the group decided to fire Pete Best and hire Ringo to join the band full-time in 1962. In the late years, the band would test the theory that they could do without one member.

The first chance came when a dejected Ringo left town while The Beatles slogged though the recording of The White Album. After a few weeks, the band realized it couldn’t go on without him and begged him to come back from Italy. (He returned with “Octopus’s Garden” in his songbook.)

Early the following year, George Harrison became the second man to take leave of the group. After considering replacements for their lead guitarist, The Beatles brought George back within 10 days.

Both those incidents suggested major problems for the band, but the day had yet to come when John Lennon or Paul McCartney decided he’d had it. When that happened in late ’69, The Beatles’ end was clearly in sight.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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Long-lost footage of a legendary performance by The Beatles is to be shown for the first time in more than 50 years after it was recently unearthed and restored.
The Fab Four's only live appearance on the BBC TV music show "Top of the Pops," on June 16, 1966, was believed to be lost forever -- except for an 11-second, silent clip discovered by a collector in Mexico in April this year.
But then David Chandler, another collector and music enthusiast, contacted Kaleidoscope, an organization that recovers video and TV shows, and handed it a series of 8 mm film reels.
The footage, which includes a 92-second performance by The Beatles playing "Paperback Writer," lasts 9 minutes in total and also shows Dusty Springfield singing "Goin' Back," Tom Jones singing "Green, Green Grass of Home," The Hollies performing "Bus Stop," and other performances by The Spencer Davis Group, Ike and Tina Turner, and Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

"Kaleidoscope thought finding 11 seconds of Paperback Writer was incredible, but to then be donated 92 seconds -- and nine minutes of other 1966 Top of the Pops footage -- was phenomenal," said Kaleidoscope CEO Chris Perry in a statement.

Source: Gianluca Mezzofiore, CNN 

September 2019 marks the golden anniversary of the Beatles' multi-platinum album Abbey Road - the last work they recorded before their seismic breakup. Released in September 1969, it was the end of both the Sixties and the biggest and greatest band of all time.

To explore this anniversary, the world's leading Beatles historian, Mark Lewisohn - whose highly-acclaimed Tune In is the first part of the band's definitive biography - will embark on a 21-date UK tour with his newly-created Abbey Road show HORNSEY ROAD.

This two-hour live theatre presentation - full of surprises, delights, humour and excitement - will be a swift and smart illustrated history of our forever national-heroes the Beatles and their biggest album Abbey Road, providing a unique insight into the band who changed the course of culture and whose influence is still substantial.

Source: broadwayworld.com

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A few weeks shy of his 77th birthday, Paul McCartney has nothing left to prove to anyone. He’s been in the public eye for more than five decades and is obviously accustomed to adulation.

Monday night at a packed-to-the-rafters PNC Arena, he was even cheered for taking off his coat at one point.

“That was the big wardrobe change of the whole evening,” he said.

But it is to McCartney’s credit that he still works hard to earn that adulation. He puts a surpassing amount of effort into songs he’s sung 1,000 times, and none of Monday night’s show felt the least bit rote.

McCartney’s first Raleigh performance since 2002 clocked in at just under three hours, with 38 songs spanning his career before, during and after the Beatles (even including the first tune he ever recorded, “In Spite of All the Danger” by the pre-Beatles group The Quarrymen). And yet some of his best-known songs weren’t even in the set list – “Yesterday,” “Hello, Goodbye” and “Penny Lane” among them.

For most acts, an enduring landmark like “Let It Be” would be the obvious closing number. But McCartney has written a details

A GUITAR played by George Harrison while The Beatles were in Hamburg before they were famous is set to fetch £300,000 at auction.

The Czech-made Futurama Resonet has been unseen since 1964 when it was first prize in a magazine competition. The winner, AJ Thompson, of Saltdean, Sussex, chose cash because he didn’t play and the magazine kept it.

Harrison, who died in 2001, recalled going, aged 16, with Paul McCartney to buy the guitar in Liverpool in 1959. His mother had to sign the purchase agreement which was later paid off by Beatles manager Brian Epstein.

‘Huge interest’ is expected by auctioneers Bonhams at the sale in London on June 12.

Source: Metro

There was a time when practically everyone in the world knew about The Beatles. In fact, the band affectionately called ‘the fab four’ is still considered to be the most influential musical collaboration in modern history. Today, two of The Beatles are gone, but their children are making sure the names John, Paul, George, and Ringo are never forgotten. What are the Beatles’ kids up to these days? Here’s what we found out:

The children of John Lennon

Julian Lennon

The only child of John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia Powell Lennon, John Charles Julian ‘Jules’ Lennon is an accomplished musician and author in his own right.

Born April 8, 1963, in Liverpool, England, Julian is the eldest of the Beatles’ children. Named in honor of his paternal grandmother, Julian was the inspiration for the songs, “Hey Jude” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” After his parents divorced in 1968, young Lennon saw very little of his dad who remarried and started a new family with conceptual artist Yoko Ono in 1969.

In 1998, Lennon told a reporter at The Telegraph UK that his relationship with his dad remained ‘distant’ and uneasy details

Jimi Hendrix was never shy to hide his admiration for The Beatles and, back in 1967, the iconic guitarist took things to the next level.

The night was June 4, 1967, Hendrix was stepping out on stage for his headline show at the Saville Theatre in London and, knowing that both Paul McCartney and George Harrison were in the audience, Hendrix decided to open the show with his rendition of Sgt. Pepper‘s title song.

While opening your own show with a cover song was a ballsy move, it was the sheer fact that The Beatles had only released the song three days prior to that moment which caused the greatest shock. With the record being made available on the Thursday, Hendrix had learnt the song and performed it live at his headline show by the Sunday.

“Jimi was a sweetie, a very nice guy. I remember him opening at the Saville on a Sunday night, 4th June 1967,” McCartney once recalled. “Brian Epstein used to rent it when it was usually dark on the Sunday. Jimi opened, the curtains flew back and he came walking forward, playing ‘Sgt. Pepper’, and it had only been released on the Thursday so that was like the ultimate compliment.”

Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk

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You may not recognize Ron Campbell’s name, but it’s very likely that you’ve seen his work.

The Emmy and Peabody award-winning animator has worked on some of the most iconic cartoons ever made, including “Scooby-Doo,” “The Jetsons,” “Rugrats” and The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” feature film. Residents of east Idaho can get a closer look at Campbell’s art when he brings Beatles Cartoon Art Show to the Willowtree Gallery in Idaho Falls on May 28 and 29.

The show features original paintings based on the characters Campbell animated while working on “The Beatles” animated series and “Yellow Submarine.” Animation fans can also see paintings based on other beloved characters Campbell helped bring to life throughout his five-decade long career, as well as chat with the animator himself about all things cartoons. They can even purchase pieces they like and take Campell’s work home with them.

Campbell’s interest in cartoons was sparked watching “Tom & Jerry” animated shorts in his local movie theater as a boy growing up in Australia.

Source: Adam Forsgren, EastIdahoNews.com

It wasn’t easy being the youngest member of a band that happened to include John Lennon and Paul McCartney. If you wanted respect, you had to play a mean lead guitar and deliver high-quality work when you got the chance to include a song on an album.

That’s exactly what George Harrison did for most of his time with The Beatles. As his songwriting powers grew in the late ’60s, George had to withhold some material and save it for his excellent debut solo album.

That eventually worked out fine for him. And, before everyone went their separate ways, he dropped “Something,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and “Here Comes the Sun,” songs which most consider his best Beatles work.

Otherwise, George found himself writing tunes for albums like Sgt. Pepper’s only to see them bumped and/or rejected. In retrospect, that treatment didn’t do the Beatles lead-guitar player justice. Here are five songs Harrison wrote and recorded with the band that never got their due.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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For better and – mostly – for worse, John Lennon essentially invented the phenomena of the ‘Rock Star’ as social-political activist. Having broken free of the perceived restraints put upon him whilst in The Beatles, Lennon’s early solo works are marked by an earnest, and in many cases naïve, search for integrity and meaning. Or as he put it in 1970: “I remember what it’s all about now you f**kers! F**k you all!” It was a pursuit which took Lennon to musical, political and personal extremes: from musique concrete back to blues-infused rock ‘n’ roll; from the bed-ins for peace to flirtations with Maoism; from heroin to primal scream therapy.

Yet in spite of the drama and energy of his private and public life, Lennon’s solo-music spectacularly failed to recapture the emotional weight and expression of his work with The Beatles. Neither ‘Mother’ nor ‘My Mummy’s Dead’ from Plastic Ono Band come close to channeling Lennon’s pain and feelings of parental abandonment in the same way that ‘Julia’ from the White Album does. Similarly, the two and a half minutes of ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ contains mo details

None of the Beatles' solo catalogs is flawless. But John Lennon's may be the most frustrating of the four, as you'll see in our list of the Best Song From Every John Lennon Album.

Like his bandmates, the earliest records under Lennon's name were conscious attempts to break from his past. But we've excluded the three experimental albums he made with Yoko Ono before he launched his solo career in earnest with 1970's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, because, seriously, how does one choose between "Two Virgins Side One" and "Two Virgins Side Two"?

Still, things don't get any less complicated after those bumpy starts. Plastic Ono Band, for all of its critical acclaim and significance, is a cathartic soul-cleansing for the former Beatle, who pretty much worked through every issue that burdened his mind during the first three decades of his life. Not exactly what his old fans wanted to hear.

Source: ultimateclassicrock.com

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Following the kick-off of this year's North American leg of his record-breaking FRESHEN UP Tour, PAUL McCARTNEY adds to his Summer of LIVE: Paul has confirmed updated releases of four albums capturing performances spanning from his 1975-1976 return to U.S. arenas with Wings to his intimate 2007 set at Amoeba records in Los Angeles. The albums — Amoeba Gig, Paul Is Live, Choba B CCCP, Wings Over America — will be released July 12, 2019 via MPL/Capitol/UMe digitally, on CD and on both black and limited-edition color vinyl.PAUL McCARTNEY DECADES-SPANNING “LIVE” ALBUM MILESTONE REISSUES - Paul has confirmed updated releases of four albums capturing performances spanning from his 1975-1976 return to U.S. arenas with Wings to his intimate 2007 set at Amoeba records in Los Angeles. The albums — Amoeba Gig, Paul Is Live, Choba B CCCP, Wings Over America — will be released July 12, 2019 via MPL/Capitol/UMe digitally, on CD and on both black and limited-edition color vinyl.

Source: prnewswire.com

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Paul McCartney picked New Orleans, one of his favorite cities, to open the US leg of his Freshen Up tour.

On Thursday, May 23, seven songs into a 38-song show, McCartney told his adoring audience at the sold-out Smoothie King Center that he couldn’t think of “a better place to start it off than right here.”

Following his 2002 and 2014 concerts at the Smoothie King Center, McCartney launched his third appearance in the former New Orleans Arena with a pair of Beatles’ classics, 1964’s “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and the 1974 Wings hit, “Junior’s Farm.”

Vintage film footage of McCartney with his fellow Beatles accompanied “Can’t Buy Me Love” on a giant video screen. After the aptly raucous “Can’t Buy Me Love,” the former Beatle paused to gaze at his fans. “This is so cool,” he said.

McCartney, who’ll be 77 on June 18, obviously doesn’t need the money his tours generate. Hugely successful for 56 years, he still loves performing. After Thursday’s two-and-a-half-hour plus concert in New Orleans, he said, “We’ll see you next t details

If I reach the age of 76, I hope I still have the stamina to attend a three-hour rock concert, never mind performing a demanding three-hour show like Paul McCartney did at the Smoothie King Center on Thursday night (May 23). McCartney is a superstar’s superstar. He would be one of the great singer-songwriters of the last half century, even if he had not been half of one of the greatest songwriting duos in the history of popular music.

The former British invader -- who co-composed much of The Beatles songbook with John Lennon -- is reputed to be a billionaire. His artistic legacy is assured. He could easily be sleeping like a log on some picturesque estate somewhere. Instead, he was working like a dog on the Smoothie King stage until 11 p.m., energetically recreating almost 40 classics from “A Hard Day’s Night” to “Maybe I’m Amazed” to “Hey Jude,” plus a few newer tunes just to prove he hasn’t lost his composer chops.

Source: nola.com

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