Beatles News

There are few musicians who can claim the kind of rollercoaster career that Paul McCartney has had.

He’s been lauded as a genius for his work with The Beatles, dismissed as a lightweight during portions of his Wings phase and solo career, and in a 60-odd year career has released some of the most durable and tuneful pop music ever recorded. McCartney has turned his hand to experimental music, electronica, and classical, and continues to influence other musicians well into his mid-70s, including a large number of Edmonton musicians spanning age and genres.

Source: edmontonjournal.com

Read More<<<

In the aftermath of The Beatles’ break-up, and still in the first bloom of his love affair with Yoko Ono, John Lennon threw himself into a new life. The couple moved to Tittenhurst Park, a 26-room Georgian mansion in Berkshire, and in the summer of 1971 Lennon started his second solo album, Imagine, having installed a state-of-the-art recording studio in the grounds.

The couple’s everyday existence quickly came to resemble a never-ending art project, as Lennon recorded with producer Phil Spector and Beatles colleagues George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and the couple embarked on an accompanying film.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Read More<<<

The Beatles have announced they will release a suite of lavishly presented The White Album packages to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Released November 22nd 1968, The Beatles (soon to be better known as The White Album) was that year's most anticipated music event with millions of double LPs shipped to record stores worldwide.

Entering the British chart at number one and remaining there for eight of the 22 weeks it was listed, The White Album also debuted at number one on the U.S. chart, holding the top spot for nine weeks of its initial 65 week chart run.

Source: Will Lavin/joe.co.uk

Read More<<<

When three teenage girls decided they wanted to see the Beatles at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia in August 1966, few understood what their true intentions were.

Much of the miracle remains indelibly etched in her mind: the friends; the scheme; the date; the venue; the room; the band. A dream come true that seems like yesterday. Other memories are not so vivid. The passing of more than a half-century can often cast a translucence over details once assumed unforgettable.

Christine Nesteruk Gerber says the four greatest events in her 69 years of life were getting married, having children, getting grandchildren, and meeting the Beatles.

She’s not certain of the order.

Source: Phil Gianficaro/burlingtoncountytimes.com

Read More

In times of trouble and grief, there is one song that millions of people turn to for inspiration and solace: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘Imagine’.

Leading musicians often reach for the song in moments of need. When Stevie Wonder was told of the death of Senator John McCain in August 2018, during a concert in Atlanta, he broke into a beautiful version of Lennon’s masterpiece, released as a single on 11 October 1971. Though the song was banned from radio in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Neil Young recognised its potency, singing it at a memorial concert, America: Tribute To Heroes. Coldplay performed a version after the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015. Following discord around North Korea in 2018, ‘Imagine’ was the natural choice for a group of Korean musicians to perform at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.

Source: Martin Chilton/udiscovermusic.com

It wasn’t until 1965 when John Lennon of The Beatles was dosed with LSD without his knowledge at a dinner party. A year later, Revolver was released.

There were less love songs. Acoustic guitars were strangely absent. The piano and trumpets gave the album an electric cerebral feel when accompanied by the rifts of electric power coming from amps and pedals. It was revolutionary both in regard to the new sound of The Beatles in general. Any healthy minded individual who has taken LSD before knows that it’s not about how you feel while dosed, but how you feel in the days to months after coming down. The influence it leaves is not short-lived, and any masterful musician will find their own artistic limits and capabilities greatly altered for better or for worse. It’s nearly impossible to be exposed to such an agent and to not be powerfully affected by it.

Source: milesdavidoconnor21/ultimate-guitar.com

Read More<<<

Just about the whole world wanted the Beatles to stay together; we adored them too much to want the love affair to end. But Ray Connolly’s brisk and eminently readable biography of John Lennon reminds us of the irresistible forces driving the Fab Four apart. Yoko Ono was painted as the villain at the time, and in this book too, she comes across as an unwelcome guest at the party. Yet when you consider the unremitting psychological pressure, the constant media intrusion and, most importantly, exactly how much creativity John, George, Paul and Ringo crammed into less than a decade, we should perhaps give thanks for the fact that they lasted as long as they did.

Source: Clive Davis/thetimes.co.uk

Read More<<<

Riding high with his first No. 1 solo album since 1982, rocker Paul McCartney was spotted celebrating his daughter Mary McCartney’s new book “The White Horse” at a VIP dinner at the Mark. We hear that the former Beatle was meant to be on the road this week — but when his plans changed, he attended a dinner for Mary thrown by Izak and Sarah Senbahar, and Macca even insisted on picking up the tab for the swanky affair.

Guests included McCartney’s wife Nancy Shevell as well as many members of the Eastman clan from Linda McCartney’s side of the family.

Source: Ian Mohr/pagesix.com

Read More<<<

Barbash’s novel The Dakota Winters (Ecco, Dec.) is about a family living in the storied Dakota building in the days leading up to the assassination of John Lennon.

Why a novel about a talk show host living in the Dakota in 1980?

I grew up five blocks from the Dakota at a time when the Upper West Side was still pretty dicey. We had a welfare hotel on my block where a serial killer murdered seven women. We also had Philip Roth living a few buildings away. I wanted also to explore the year leading up to the assassination—1980—when so much happened. A talk show host like the novel’s protagonist, Buddy Winter, seemed like the right lens through which to do that.

Source: By Ken Salikof /publishersweekly.com

Read More<<<

Drew Harrison, John Lennon in the Sun Kings, will celebrate what would have been Lennon’s 78th birthday with a fundraising show at the Empress Theatre.

The event will start at 7 p.m. Oct. 9 at 330 Virginia St.

Harrison promises a loving, emotionally charged retrospective of the life and career of one of the most popular artists of all time, told through songs, stories and images from The Beatles through the final recordings of his life.

Harrison has been performing John Lennon’s songs and telling the stories and anecdotes that go along with them for well over a decade. The show is his tribute to Lennon and interpretation of his music.

Source: Daily Republic Staff

Read More<<<

Paul McCartney and John Lennon were such bitter rivals during their tenure in The Beatles that McCartney claims Lennon only ever complimented him one time.   “Once. Once John gave me a compliment,” McCartney, 76, recalled on “60 Minutes” in a segment airing Sunday. “It was only once the whole time.”

“It was ‘Here, There and Everywhere,'” the Wings singer revealed. “John says just as it finishes, ‘That’s a really good song, lad. I love that song.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes! He likes it!’ ” McCartney and Lennon were famously competitive, which gave the late “Imagine” singer’s kind words even more weight.

“I’ve remembered it to this day. It’s pathetic, really.” “We were competitive … not openly,” he added. “But we later admitted [we were]. He’d have written ‘Strawberry Fields,’ I’d write ‘Penny Lane.’ He remembered his old area in Liverpool, so I’ll remember mine.”

Source: Jessica Sager/pagesix.com

details

Paul McCartney announced he has written a kid's book, inspired by his grandchildren.

The rock legend unveiled the book on This Morning, in a video link sent to Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield which they revealed on the show. But he told the story of the naming of the book, saying the name came from his grandchildren, but hardcore Beatles fans would not help but notice the name seemed to hark back to one of the band's most popular anthems.

Paul said: "I'm announcing the fact have written a new children’s picture book called 'Hey Grandude.' And why is it called that? "I have eight grandchildren and they are all beautiful. And one day one of them said, 'Hey! Grandude!'"And I said, 'What?' but I kind of liked that, so from now on I’ve been called Grandude."

Source: Jenny Desborough/mirror.co.uk

If anyone still needed a primer on Paul McCartney 60 years after he, John, and George laid down their first tracks, this month’s Egypt Station, the 18th and latest studio album of McCartney’s solo career, wouldn’t be a bad pick for a first listen. At 76, McCartney has finally let himself go gray, but he’s never needed dye to seem younger than his years; more than a decade after recording his own elegy, he’s active, vital, and viral, flitting from Fallon to Maron and selling out a stadium somewhere near you. On his first studio release in five years, and his first ever to debut at no. 1 on the Billboard chart, he’s similarly restless and, worn voice aside, resisting senescence: Except for his classical records and his collaborations with Youth, it’s his second-longest non-soundtrack album (after 2001’s Driving Rain), and it features two tracks that fall somewhere on the thirstiness scale between “Press” and “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?,” which could have been embarrassing if both the songs and the singer weren’t so silly and infectiously fun.If anyone still needed a primer on Paul McCartney 60 years after he, John, and George laid down their details

Courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/ UMeOn Wednesday at New York City's legendary Power Station recording studio, reporters got a first listen to the upcoming reissue of The Beatles' self-titled 1968 double album, a.k.a. The White Album.

Giles Martin, late Beatles producer George Martin's son, headed up the project with the blessing of, and input from, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison.

Martin was on hand to play selected tracks for the intimate crowd, and while John Lennon once famously said the album was the sound of The Beatles breaking up, Giles believes nothing could be further from the truth.

According to Giles, both Ringo and Paul agree that the recording sessions revealed the sound of a band working together collectively as a unit to push themselves artistically, and doing pretty much whatever they wanted -- much to his father's chagrin.

Source: abcnewsradioonline.com

Read More<<<

It took 50 years, but fans will find it well worth the wait. Sir Paul McCartney appears in his first 60 Minutes profile, a report containing surprisingly intimate moments in which he shares rare details from the Beatles years and his subsequent decades as the most successful musician in popular music history. Sharyn Alfonsi's interview with McCartney will be broadcast on the 51st season premiere of 60 Minutes, Sunday, September 30 at 7:30 p.m. ET and 7:00 p.m. PT on CBS.

Alfonsi interviewed McCartney as he prepared to tour for his new album, "Egypt Station." It's also a few weeks away from the 50th anniversary of the band's classic album, "The Beatles," known as "The White Album." The 76-year-old music legend, who is credited with 29 number-one songs, was candid when she asked him if he and John Lennon ever complimented each other on their songwriting skills.

Source: cbsnews.com

Read More<<<