Beatles News

The big legal story of the last ten days or so is Paul McCartney’s announcement of his intentions to sue Sony/ATV (the music publishing division of Sony) in order to reacquire the rights to the songs he wrote and co-wrote during the first half of the Beatles’ career.

Unless you’re a hardcore Beatles fan, you might not have known that Paul doesn’t receive any publishing royalties from songs like “Yesterday.” “A Hard Day’s Night” and “She Loves You.” Those were all part of the Northern Songs catalogue that slipped away from the Beatles in 1969 as a result of the debacle known as Apple Corps.

The Telegraph does an excellent job of explaining how things went so pear-shaped for Macca–and how Michael Jackson came to be his biggest enemy is getting his songs back.

Paul McCartney has filed a lawsuit to reclaim the rights to many of The Beatles‘ most famous hits from the world’s largest music publisher, Sony/ATV. If a court finds in his favour, the rights will begin defaulting back to McCartney from October 2018, in accordance with US copyright law. But for many years, the songs belonged to another musical legend – Michael J details

The photos feature in an exhibition taking place at Proud galleries in Chelsea in March.

Photographer David Magnus bore witness to some of the band’s greatest moments and the set of previously unseen photographs, which were taken at the world famous EMI Studio 1 in Abbey Road, offer a fascinating and candid insight into The Beatles during a historic time.

In 1963, at the age of 19, David Magnus was invited to photograph the band, who were relatively unknown at the time, during a concert at Stowe School.

This early work with the group allowed him unprecedented access throughout their rise to fame and, as such, his portfolio is chocked full of rare and unique images.

The photographer’s close relationship with the band and their publicist, Tony Barrow, granted him exclusive access to record a pivotal moment in their career 50 years ago – on the weekend of June 24 and June 25 1967, when The Beatles recorded their song ‘All you need is Love’ for the first time during a live broadcast for the BBC’s Our World.

The broadcast was the world’s first live, international, satellite television production and reached over 400million people across the globe.

And speaking of the Beatles (carrying over from last week), it may sound crazy but this column is about a guitar chord. That’s right — just one chord, so if you’re not into the guitar or Beatles music or whatever, so sorry.

And yet it might help that this is one of the most famous chords in popular music history, a beautifully sustained and shimmering blast from George Harrison’s Rickenbacker 360/12 12-string guitar, a singularly bold, riveting and spine-tingling opening statement. The chord has entered music immortality and is instantly recognizable to almost everybody of that generation.

I’m referring of course to the opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night.” It’s a song attributed to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, but, according to various websites, it is mainly a solo Lennon composition that he dashed off in one evening during a creative frenzy after making up his mind to compose the eponymously-named movie title track (which, incidentally, was inspired by a Ringo Starr malapropism.)

On April 16, 1964, the band gathered at Studio 2 of EMI Studios in London. Lennon had the melody in his head and the lyrics scrawled on a piece of paper. The other band details

The Beatles may have claimed all you need is love but fans wanting to own an iconic bit of the band's kit which has just gone on sale will need more than just love. The drum kit used for the recording of the band's first US number one has been put up for auction with bidding beginning at $75,000 (£60,598). The kit was used by Andy White, often known as the 'Fifth Beatle', on the recording of Love Me Do, which became the band's first number one in the US. 

Fans of the celebrated band, which formed in Liverpool in 1960, could now own the famed Ludwig drum kit which helped the rock band make a name for themselves across the pond. The kit will be auctioned by Nate D. Auctions on January 26 2017. It still has all the original markings including White’s name, the song title and The Beatles’ logo on the bass drum. Andy White played the drums on the recording of Love Me Do on September 11 1962 at the EMI Studios at Abbey Road, London. 

Love Me Do was the first single on the Beatles' first album Please Please Me which was released in the UK on October 5 1962. The single was first recorded on 4 September 1962, with Ringo Starr, who had just joined the band, on drums. 

By: Hannah La details

“Now the Time Has Come,” a song featuring Ringo Starr that debuted last September for the annual International Day of Peace, is being made available as a free download for the first time. “Now the Time Has Come” shines a light on peace initiatives and drops this Friday (Jan. 20), the date of the inauguration of president Donald Trump. Its lyrics include the line: “Now the time has come/Time has come for everyone/To lay down all your guns/And let the light of love shine on and on.” The song was created by Starr and producer Bruce Sugar and two versions are available to stream online, one by Ringo and friends Richard Page, Colin Hay and Billy Valentine, and another with Ringo and friends and Latin artist Fonseca.

The International Day of Peace (“Peace Day”) is observed around the world each year on Sept. 21. It was established in 1981 by United Nations resolution 36/37 as a day devoted to “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples.” Ringo Starr has celebrated “peace and love” annually since 2008 on his July 7 birthday. He held a public gathering in 2016 for his 76th birthday with friends such as details

It could become one of the most important legal battles in music - Sir Paul McCartney is suing Sony over control of The Beatles' back catalogue. The star has gone to a US court, seeking to regain the publishing rights to 267 of the band's classic songs. He's been trying to get them back since the 1980s, when Michael Jackson famously out-bid him for the rights. Jackson's debt-ridden estate sold the songs to Sony last year, along with others including New York, New York. Sir Paul's legal case, filed in a Manhattan court on Wednesday, is over what is known as copyright termination - the right of authors to reclaim ownership of their works from music publishers after a specific length of time has passed. It was part of the US 1976 Copyright Act and, in recent years, performers like Prince, Billy Joel and Blondie have used it to regain control of their work. However, Duran Duran recently lost a similar case - when the British High Court ruled that the contracts they signed in the UK took precedence over their rights in the US.

Under UK law, music publishing companies can control the copyright until 70 years after the artist's death. Sir Paul is worried that Sony/ATV Music Publishing will use Duran Duran's loss to challenge h details

The Quarrymen's Rod Davis remembers Woolton Church fete 60 years on.

The Cavern isn’t the only 60th anniversary taking place in Liverpool this year. On July 6, it will be 60 years to the day that John Lennon was introduced to Paul McCartney at the Woolton church fete. The 16-year-old Lennon was playing at the summer event with his group The Quarrymen, a line-up of school friends from the near by Quarry Bank High School.

On banjo was Rod Davis, whose dad took one of the few images of that day – that of the Quarrymen’s float, with Lennon and the rest of the group on board.

Rod returned to the city this week to play with fellow Quarrymen at the Cavern’s 60th birthday celebrations.

And he took the time to look back seven decades to the group’s teenage years, and the day that would go down in 20th century music history.

By: Catherine Jones

Source: The Liverpool Echo

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The artist, who grew up in Kent, has created a collage for the Madarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel

Artist Sir Peter Blake, best known for his work designing the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album cover, has unveiled his latest commission - a giant collage across the front of a swanky five-star London hotel.

The Dartford-born artist, dubbed the Godfather of British pop art, was commissioned by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group to create a collage which will cover its hotel in Hyde Park during part of a major renovation project. It will cover in part the hotel’s iconic facade. The huge work, entitled Our Fans, will be the largest he has ever created and is a Sgt Pepper-esque collage of 100 famous fances who have regularly stayed at the hotel.

The star-studded line-up will include the likes of Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley. The artist, who attended Gravesend School of Art before securing a place at the Royal College of Art in London in 1956, said: “Some of my first works were collages of crowds of people; this piece is in the spirit of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.”

By: Kent Britcher

Source: Kent News

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To mark what would have been George Harrison's 74th birthday on February 25th, the Beatles guitarist's entire solo catalog will be reissued on vinyl.

George Harrison – The Vinyl Collection features 13 albums, including all 12 of his solo studio LPs – from 1968's Wonderwall Music to 2002's Brainwashed – and the live album Live in Japan.

Each album has been newly remastered from the original master tapes and pressed onto 180-gram heavyweight vinyl. Those records are then housed in a high-quality slipcase that replicates each album's original artwork and track list. The Vinyl Collection also comes with two 12-inch single picture discs of "When We Was Fab" and "Got My Mind Set On You." Each of the reissued albums will also be made available individually, with the 3-LP All Things Must Pass only available as a limited edition piece.

In addition to the Vinyl Collection, a new "Extended Edition" of his 1980 autobiographic work I Me Mine will be released on February 21st. The new edition of the book includes 59 additional handwritten lyrics and unpublished photographs not found in the original printing.

By: Daniel Kreps

Source: Rolling Stone

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A life-size bronze statue of Cilla Black has been unveiled outside Liverpool's Cavern Club as the venue celebrates its 60th anniversary. The club, credited with launching the career of The Beatles, opened its doors on 16 January 1957 as a jazz cellar.

Crowds gathered in Mathew Street to see the sculpture which shows a young Cilla performing one of her early songs. The TV celebrity and 1960s singing star, who died in 2015, started work as a cloakroom attendant at the club.

It was commissioned by Black's sons Robert, Ben and Jack Willis, who said they backed the idea after being moved by the response from the city following their mother's death.

Robert Willis said they wanted to "donate it as a small gesture of gratitude to this great city for their wonderful outpouring of love and affection for our mother", adding that he was "thrilled" with the statue.

His mother would have been "very flattered, proud and honoured", he said. One of the sculptors, Andy Edwards from Stoke-on-Trent, said "it's the story of the birth of that period in Liverpool's musical culture" and it was important the city remembered her.

Source: BBC News

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As the Cavern Club celebrates its 60th birthday people can now explore the iconic building - without leaving their home. The Cavern Club Chronicles allows you to take a virtual tour of the Mathew Street venue, where Brian Epstein discovered the Beatles .

It means people from all over the world, who might never get the chance to visit the Cavern in person, can now ‘step inside’ and see it from every aspect. You can even take a close look at more than 35 pieces in the musical museum, including historic photos, quotes, stories and videos.

Users can navigate their way round using the Google Street View arrows, or by clicking on the ‘Trivia’ button. The Cavern Club teamed up with Expedia to present the virtual tour in time for the club’s 60th anniversary.

Over the years stars including the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Stevie Wonder and Adele have performed at the Cavern . The venue first opened on Wednesday, January 16, 1957 as a jazz club before becoming a popular venue for rock and roll bands in the sixties.

The original building closed in March 1973 and was filled in as part of construction work on the Merseyrail loop line. The club was later r details

A tourist visting Liverpool fell in love with The Cavern Club so much he decided to build one of his own. Lifelong Beatles fan Kevin Robjohns, from Immingham, Lincolnshire, decided to recreate the famous club - which turns 60 on Monday - in his own back garden after a trip to Liverpool. The 36-year-old, who works as a HGV maintenance man, started the project in 2015 - converting a former pigeon loft into a miniature version of the “birthplace of The Beatles.”

Dubbed “Club Cavern” the bar even has its own replica of the famous stage, complete with coloured brick wall, but instead of being signed by the great and the good of the music world, it’s signed by Kevin’s friends and family who have visited the club. Kevin says he decided to create the ‘man cave’ as a place to store the Fab Four memoribilia he has collected over the years. He said: “I’ve always loved music, when I was a teenager my room was covered in Beatles posters and memoribilia. I thought I’d keep it all and use it one day so it had all been in the attic.

“I finally got to visit The Cavern on a trip to Liverpool and I was just taken a back by how small it was and that’s whe details

Magic Alex of the Beatles, or Alexis Mardas as it was his legal name, was found dead from natural causes in his apartment in Athens, Friday January 13. Mardas was known in the 60’s by his nickname Magic Alex given to him by John Lennon when he was involved with the Beatles as the director of their company Apple Electronics between 1965 and 1969.

Mardas arrived in England in 1965, exhibiting his Kinetic Light Sculptures at the Indica Gallery. He impressed John Lennon with the Nothing Box; a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights, and allegedly said that he could build a 72-track tape machine. Mardas was then given the job of designing the new Apple Studio in Savile Row, and was in India with The Beatles at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in India. 

In the 1970s, the anti-terrorism industry offered bullet-proof vehicles, bugging devices and security hardware, so Mardas set up various companies offering these products to royalty and VIPs. King Hussein of Jordan bought a fleet of cars that Mardas had customised. 

By: Anastasios Papapostolou

Source: Greek Reporter

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Okay so to be frank the question to ask after the year-long spate of rock star deaths is: Jesus, who's next?

In a New Yorker cartoon at the end of 2016, God says to the Grim Reaper, "Maybe go easy on the much-loved celebrities for a while." This time last year was the pretty shocking death of David Bowie, and at Christmas there was the really sad death of George Michael. In between, there was...just about everyone.

Bring out your listicles of the famous dead. 2016 saw what appeared to be record numbers of music royalty passing over to that great backstage in the sky. Prince. Leonard Cohen. Glenn Frey from The Eagles, Paul Kantner from Jefferson Airplane.

In New Zealand, Ray Columbus, Bunny Walters, and Toni Williams. Pete Burns from Dead or Alive, Alan Vega from Suicide. Elvis's guitar player Scotty Moore.

Bernie Worrell from Parliament, Maurice White from Earth Wind & Fire. And more besides, plus 64 members of the Red Army Choir in a plane crash on Christmas Day.

Piece by piece, the original scaffolding of rock'n'roll is being taken away. The greatest art form of the 20th century was invented by the very young, but that was 50, 60 years ago, and the only ones left are now very old. T details

March 24, 2017 will see the arrival of the long-awaited next addition in Paul McCartney's award-winning Archive Collection: Flowers In the Dirt (originally released in 1989). But one particular decision has raised the hackles of McCartney's collective fan base—and understandably so. Unlike the previous nine entries in the series, a significant portion of the material slated for inclusion in the pricey "deluxe edition" will be available as downloads only.

To survey the tracklist alone, the Flowers deluxe set appears to be the most comprehensive set so far. In addition to a remastered version of the album on disc one, discs two and three include the original demos and 1988 "band demos" of nine Elvis Costello collaborations (McCartney and Costello famously teamed up to write a batch of songs together, several of which were never officially released by either artist). A DVD will contain the long out-of-print documentary Put It There (no word yet on whether it's the original version or the truncated home video version), ten music videos, and three featurettes.

So far, so good. But here's the catch. No less than 16 tracks—five B-sides, eight alternate mixes, three additional Paul/Elvis demos—will NOT details