Beatles News

Much before The Beatles, there was Ravi Shankar, and long before him, there was Indian classical music. But for the six billion people of this planet who happen not to be Indian, the three seemed to magically appear together in a moment of celestial, psychedelic epiphany in the 1960s. This reading is rubbish, of course, but perceptions have a way of edging out facts.

There are many more players in the sequence of events that was to culminate with Indian classical music bursting on to the world stage with Western pop: the “quiet Beatle” George Harrison, American folk rocker David Crosby (of The Byrds and, later, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), the musicians of the Asian Music Circuit in the UK and what Harrison would no doubt call destiny.

Harrison’s interest in Indian music began accidentally, in April 1965, on the sets of The Beatles’ film Help! , which had a sequence filmed in an Indian restaurant in London with Indian musicians playing Indian instruments, including a sitar. “George was looking at them,” according to John Lennon in the documentary The Beatles Anthology. The film’s music composer, Ken Thorne, used an Indian ensemble of sitar, flute, tabla, ghunghroo, t details

The narrow path leading to the main hall of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ashram—or the Chaurasi Kutia Ashram as the locals refer to it—in Rishikesh is slippery even when not wet. What was once a paved thoroughfare, used by hundreds of disciples of the globe-trotting Indian ascetic, is today covered with moss that requires visitors to mind every step.

Even as the impressive architecture of the buildings along the main walkway is hidden with foliage of plants splitting through the concrete, the giant hall inside, where the Maharishi gave his sermons, is a burst of colour. The hall is airy and spacious with a large platform at one end. Graffiti in all sizes adorn the walls, lending a colourful character to what fans have christened the “Beatles Cathedral”. While not much signage or information is provided at the ashram, the graffiti has been painted over the years by those who managed to sneak in with cans of spray paint and their love and loyalty for the British band from the small city of Liverpool who won over the world.

Source: Live Mint

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Paris Jackson is the daughter of pop royalty, but her heart beats for rock ‘n’ roll. She previously referred to her father Michael’s sometime duet partner, Paul McCartney, as “the love of her life,” and Tuesday night she achieved her life’s dream of meeting her hero.

The long-awaited summit went down Tuesday night in Los Angeles at a star-studded party thrown by Sir Paul’s daughter, megastar fashion designer Stella McCartney. Dubbed “Stella-chella,” the Coachella-inspired festival featured some of the fashonista’s famous friends, including Katy Perry, Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn, and new couple Dakota Johnson and Chris Martin.

It was there that Jackson, rocking a striped sweater dress and oversized red fanny pack, managed to snag a picture with the 75-year-old Beatles legend. Clearly, it was a moment she would never forget. “I cried like a goddamn baby,” she captioned the photo when she shared it to Instagram. In an interview with Teen Vogue last May, Jackson, 19, admitted that she doesn’t have a strong desire to be a public figure, but would like “just to get better at writing.” Specifically, she’d like to write a song details

For Christmas I gave my two grandchildren (ages 3 and 5) a set of DVDs of the Beatles singing 40 of their top hits. I asked my daughter how the kids liked them, and she said, "It is amazing, they know all the lyrics!"

Which gave me the idea for this article.

The obvious answer as to why the music of the Beatles has endured is that the group wrote fabulous songs and sang them well. They were also together for a relatively short time as compared to groups like the Rolling Stones, so they have not been subjected to the oldies circuit. Their body of work is all the more precious for that. The group in a sense never aged and will forever be associated with youth, including our own youths if you are a baby boomer. The Beatles' songs provided us with the soundtrack for our years of idealism and disillusionment.

When I was in Prague a few years ago , I asked our woman guide, who was about my own age (then 66), whether she and her friends knew about western music during the repressive Communist years. She said, "We had some smuggled albums, and we had secret listening parties, and, of course, the Beatles' records were especially prized." She said the music gave them a sense of freedom and hope in midst of Communi details

Paul Goresh, who famously snapped the only photo of John Lennon with his killer — one of the last pictures of the legendary Beatle — has died. He was 58. Goresh, from North Arlington, N.J., had been sick for some time, his cousin Rosanne Taylor wrote on a John Lennon Facebook fan page that he maintained. She confirmed his death to the Daily News on the phone Tuesday. Goresh died Jan. 9, she said.

“It is with much sadness and a heavy heart that I need to let you know of Paul’s passing. Paul had been sick for awhile . . . We spoke every few days and he was touched by the outpouring of love and good wishes that were sent to him,” she wrote. “Every one of you touched his life in a unique and special way, and he wanted me to let you know that that meant the world to him,” she added. Taylor said Goresh had requested that no service be held for his death and the family is honoring his wishes. “Everyone knows his love of The Beatles and especially John Lennon. I hope they are together and happy now,” she wrote. Goresh was forever haunted by the photo he took on Dec. 8, 1980 outside the Dakota apartment building at Central Park West and 72nd St. on the Upper West Side.

They make up one half of one of the most renowned pop groups of all time.

And it was just like all times when Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were reunited on the red carpet of Paul's daughter Stella's latest fashion event, in Los Angeles. The iconic musicians were seen sharing a catch up and speaking to press as they attended the event. Paul, 75, and Ringo, 77, chatted to one another like the old pals that they are with their respective wives on their arms.

Nancy Shevell joined husband Paul in a tropical leaf print dress, while Barbara Bach stood beside spouse Ringo in a sleek black ensemble. Nancy, 58, married the rocker in 2011, three years after his divorce from Heather Mills. She is his third wife - his first, Linda, died in 1998 from breast cancer. She was the mother to Stella and other siblings Mary, Heather and James. Barbara, 71, married Ringo in 1981 - she is his second wife, having divorced from Maureen Starkey Tigrett in 1975. Paul and Ringo are the remaining Beatles stars - having lost George Harrison to lung cancer in 2001 and John Lennon prior to that in 1980. John was murdered in New York by gunman Mark David Chapman.

Source: Andrew Bullock and Rachel Mcgrath For Mailonline

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In honor of George Harrison's 75th birthday (February 25), the Grammy®-winning, 8-times platinum release CONCERT FOR GEORGE, will be available for the first time on vinyl, released as a 4-LP Box Set, as well as a Limited Edition Deluxe 10-disc Box Set via Concord Music. Says Olivia Harrison, "We will always celebrate George's birthday and this year we are releasing Concert for George in a very special package in memory of a special man."

The Deluxe Box Set (limited to 1,000 pieces worldwide) features the complete sound and film recordings from the concert (on 4 180-gram audiophile LPs, 2 CDs, 2 DVDs and 2 Blu-rays), a 12"x12" hard-bound 60-page book, plus an opportunity to own a piece of the historic event, by way of a cutting from the original hand-painted on-stage tapestry used as the backdrop at the Royal Albert Hall on November 29, 2002. The package is housed in a gold-colored, fabric-wrapped box with a die-cut mandala window to display the unique stage fabric (which is mounted on an individually numbered card, suitable for framing). Includes a note from Olivia Harrison, explaining the story behind the tapestry. 

Source: BWW News Desk/broadwayworld.com

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For Beatles fans – or at least this lifelong one – the thought of traveling back in time to see the band in its early days at The Star Club in Hamburg or, better yet, the legendary subterranean Cavern Club in Liverpool is alluring.

The Star Club closed in 1969 and burned 18 years later. The Cavern – at which the Beatles played nearly 300 times, including their earliest appearance as the Quarrymen in 1957 – was demolished in 1973, its underground arches filled with the rubble from the building above. A replica version was built on the site in 1984 using some of the bricks from its predecessor.
Milwaukeeans might not realize it, but in an unassuming low-slung office building at 510 Hartbrook Dr., adjacent to a strip mall in Hartland, 25 miles west of Brew City, local technology entrepreneur and veterans' rights activist Dave Meister has built his own replica of The Cavern Club, using whatever specifications he could muster.

Source: Bobby Tanzilo/onmilwaukee.com

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Although the Beatles were only together for a decade, their musical legacy has endured for almost 60 years, as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr continued to find success in their subsequent solo careers. Now, YouTube user Angel Nene has created a video which tracks the musical journey of the Beatles (together and apart), and that also features the band aging before our eyes with a 3D morphing effect.

We first spotted this video at Laughing Squid, and it really is fascinating to see the Beatles physically change with the passage of years as their songs from each era play in the background. According to Angel Nene, the photos were assembled from studio portraits, interviews, documentaries, live concert performances, and other events. Sadly, two of the Beatles have passed away in the ensuing decades. The video marks the absences of Lennon and Harrison by replacing their images with candles in 1980 and 2001, respectively.

Source: nerdist.com

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In the 1980s, engineers transferred the Beatles' albums from their analogue master tapes to digital recordings so they could be put on the new compact-disc format. For many of us who had only heard those beloved songs on the radio, low-quality cassette tapes or on scratched and worn vinyl albums, the result was amazing.

Suddenly, we had crystal-clear recordings of some of the best rock music ever recorded, in a format that would never wear out or degrade and could even be played on portable devices. It was a revelation.

In 2009, the process happened all over again. Technology had improved so much that those crystal-clear CDs sounded more like a cassette tape by comparison to modern recordings.

But both of those had a major weakness: They were pulled from the original master tapes recorded and mixed in the 1960s. That sounds like a strength, not a weakness, until you understand how the recordings were made.

While today's technology can accommodate almost any number of tracks — one track for each instrument or microphone — in the recording studio in the late 1960s, a four-track tape recorder was state of the art. When the Beatles recorded "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in 1967, details

Driving down Vauxhall Street in Waterford at dawn, Sirius radio’s Classic Vinyl played the Beatles tune “I Feel Fine” from 1964.

My mind wandered to those young lives on the verge of unimaginable mega-stardom.

Never mind Yoko Ono, I thought, what about Cynthia Lennon, the quiet Beatle wife who stood by her husband for 10 years as their world was transformed by wealth, fame and LSD?

I picked up Cynthia Lennon’s 2005 autobiography titled “John” to hear her tale of Beatlemania and finally, bullets.

Cynthia Powell Lennon was a reserved English girl who married a complicated man whom she describes as “a creative genius who sang movingly about love while often wounding those closest to him.”

They fell in love while attending the Liverpool College of Art in 1958 and, with Cynthia pregnant, they married in 1962, just before the release of “Love Me Do” started the meteoric rise to fame that changed their world.

Source: theday.com

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New Ringo Starr photography exhibit featuring previously unseen pics opening next month in the UK

Rob ShanahanA new exhibition featuring the photography of the recently knighted Ringo Starr, including archival images appearing in the ex-Beatles drummer's 2013 book Photograph, will open next month at Genesis House, headquarters of Genesis Publications, in Surrey, U.K.

The display also will mark the unveiling of a portfolio of previously unseen photo prints by Starr, as well as additional series of pics first made available in 2013 and 2015.

The Photograph Portfolio 2018 includes candid pics of Starr's Beatles bandmates -- John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison -- as well as a famous shot Ringo took of some excited Fab Four fans in a car during the group's first visit to New York City.

Source: wjbdradio.com

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A new, digitally-remastered version of The Beatles’ classic animated movie Yellow Submarine is returning to cinemas for the first time since 1999. The new film is set to play in UK and Ireland cinemas via an event-style release on 8 July, 2018 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its original release. Tickets are due to go on sale on Tuesday, 17 April.

Directed by George Dunning, and written by Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal, Yellow Submarine began its voyage to the screen when Brodax, who had previously produced nearly 40 episodes of ABC’s animated Beatles TV series, approached The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein with a unique vision for a full-length animated feature.

Yellow Submarine, based upon a song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, is a fantastic tale brimming with peace, love, and hope, propelled by Beatles songs, including "Eleanor Rigby," "When I’m Sixty-Four," "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "All You Need Is Love," and "It’s All Too Much." When the film debuted in 1968, it was instantly recognised as a landmark achievement, revolutionising a genre by integrating the freestyle approach of the era with innovative animation techniques.

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The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has made its mark on the music world in many ways, and now the influential 1967 album will be heading into the Guinness World Records book thanks to a recent chart achievement. The album is being recognized for the longest gap between stints at #1 on the U.K. chart, uDiscoverMusic.com reports.

Bolstered by a deluxe 50th anniversary reissue that came out in late May, Sgt. Pepper returned to the top spot of the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart on June 8, 2017, 49 years and 125 days since the last time it held the #1 position — — on February 3, 1968. The album with the next longest gap between stints at #1 in the U.K. is The Rolling Stones‘ 1972 record Exile on Main St., which returned to the top spot after the release of a deluxe reissue on May 29, 2010, 37 years and 353 days since it had previously been at #1.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band first hit the top of the chart on June 10, 1967, and spent 23 straight weeks there. It then reached #1 four more times between November 1967 and February 1968.

The album has sold 5.1 million copies in the U.K., making it the bestselling studio effort and third most successfu details

The 50th anniversary of the world-famous Beatles travelling to Rishikesh in India is to be marked with a new exhibition in their home city of Liverpool.

The exhibition, Beatles in India, at the award-winning Beatles Story museum will open on Feb. 16 and run for two years. It will look at what was a key and relatively secretive part of the lives of the four-strong band, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

It will feature never-before-seen memorabilia, imagery and personal accounts from the people who were there with the band in 1968.

A sitar used by Ravi Shankar will go onto display within the new immersive area, loaned to The Beatles Story by the Ravi Shankar Foundation. As George Harrison's mentor, Shankar's influence on the him ultimately helped to popularise the use of Indian instruments in 1960s pop music.

Source: xinhuanet.com

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