Beatles News

A letter John Lennon wrote to the Queen explaining why he was returning his MBE was found tucked in a record sleeve from a £10 car boot haul.

The anonymous owner took the document to a valuation day at The Beatles Story in Liverpool on Wednesday - and discovered it was worth about £60,000.

One expert believes the text is a draft of the letter Lennon eventually sent, which remains in the Royal archives. Lennon returned the MBE in protest at Britain's involvement in a civil war.

The letter reads: "I am returning this MBE in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts."

The letter, which was recently unearthed in the owner's attic, has been described as an "incredible find" by music memorabilia expert Darren Julien. It was originally discovered inside the sleeve of a record that was part of a collection of 45s, picked up for £10 at a car boot sale 20 years ago.

"My theory is that John Lennon never sent this draft because of the smeared ink," said Mr Julien. "If you're writing to the Queen, you want the letter to look pretty perfect, you don't want the ink to be details

In late 1974, former Beatle George Harrison released a holiday single of sorts. Its A-side, "Ding Dong, Ding Dong," was one of the catchier tunes from his latest album, Dark Horse.

Luckily for Beatles fans—and for guitar fans in general—Harrison filmed a pre-MTV music video to go along with the tune. It's overflowing with guitar cameo appearances; we even see a few of his iconic, Fab Four-era axes a full 10 years after the height of Beatlemania. You can check it out below.

As Harrison parodies several younger versions of himself—"ringing out the old," as it were—he plays (and/or displays) a Gibson ES-5 (not one of his Beatles guitars, despite the Hamburg-era leather jacket he's sporting as he plays it), his legendary 1963 Rickenbacker 360/12, his original Epiphone Casino (the same guitar he played on the Beatles' final tour in 1966) and his 1957 Gibson Les Paul, also known as "Lucy."

This is the guitar Harrison plays in the "Revolution" promo video, the same ax Eric Clapton plays on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (according to Andy Babiuk, and I totally agree). We also see a few custom instruments, including a 12-string acoustic guitar made by Zemaitis.

By: Damian Fanelli< details

THE recent release of The Beatles documentary, Eight Days A Week –­ The Touring Years, showed what life was like for the Fab Four at the height of their popularity. Now a new book, The Beatles – I Was There, uncovers the stories of the fans who saw the band live. Author Richard Houghton spoke to more than 400 people lucky enough to see the group between 1957 and 1966 to record their memories. The Beatles made several trips to Scotland during that period and the book features tales of Scots who saw John, Paul, Ringo and George as they went from unknowns to the biggest stars in the world.

Beach Ballroom, Aberdeen, January 6 1963

Bill Cowie, 15 at the time, and his brother Mike turned up early, so knocked on the stage door and were invited in to meet them. “They were tuning their guitars and discussing their playlist,” Bill recalled. He requested Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen, which John later dedicated to the “lads in the front row”. After the first set, Bill and Mike went back to the dressing room and Paul offered them a cup of tea. Afterwards, Kathleen Donald, 15, and her friend Pat Masson knocked on the dressing room door for autographs. “When I got marri details

Imagine a Beatles biography that combines the rigorous research of a World War II history tome with the continuously unfurling dramatic plot of a Game Of Thrones-style epic. Mark Lewisohn had this thought, or something like it, in 2003, and went about purging his life of virtually all non-Beatles-related activity from that day forward.

Ten years later, in 2013, the first volume of the wryly titled The Beatles: All These Years showed up on bookstore shelves, taking us all the way from the lineage of Ringo Starr’s grandparents to the moment right before the crushing onset of Beatlemania in 1963. Lewisohn expects to finish the second volume, which will cover 1963 to 70, in 2020.

His appearance at the Toronto Reference Library on Saturday, October 22, marked the end of a three-week research trip of gathering new material for this book, some of which he promised would significantly change the way we think about the story of Beatle-mania.

Disputes about the Beatles’ musicianship almost always feel like a show of faux contrarianism, but it’s important to acknowledge that their enduring popularity is due in part to the sheer volume of ephemera produced during the Beatlemania years. Nothing enab details

A former Cavern Club cleaner from Southport rescued a painting of Ringo Starr worth an estimated £5,000 when the club closed down in 1973. In the build up to a special Memorabilia Day at The Beatles Story in Liverpool former cleaner Hal Morris came forward with the painting that was recovered when the club initially shut.

The portrait of Ringo, which hung on the wall of the Cavern Club before its closure was hidden away in a drawer at Hal's home in Ainsdale for more than three decades before it was re-discovered a few months ago. It has been valued at around £5,000 by LA based Julien’s Auctions who are hosting the memorabilia event with The Beatles Story.

The original portrait of the Fab Four drummer deep in thought was painted by artist Pete Williams as he sat next to fellow Beatle John Lennon in the original Cavern Club. While John isn't featured in the painting, there is a rough sketch of him wearing his famous spectacles on the reverse side along with the artist’s signature.

Hal said: “I am absolutely flabbergasted that the painting is worth so much! It was given to me by a builder who was starting to take things down when the Cavern Club closed in March 1973 and it&rsqu details

PAUL MCCARTNEY was upset and emailed Phil Collins after being accused of being rude and patronising, but the Genesis star says the former Beatle needed to be told he had a bad attitude.

The row has rumbled on after McCartney sent Collins a message, but no apology. The drama erupted last week when Collins accused his fellow pop legend of being rude and condescending, saying that he humiliated him at a party at Buckingham Palace. The Genesis star says he is sorry that McCartney is upset but implied that McCartney will keep bing rude unless someone stands up to him

He said: "I met him when I was working at the Buckingham Palace Party at the Palace thing back in 2002. McCartney came up with Heather Mills and I had a first edition of The Beatles by Hunter Davies and I said, 'Hey Paul, do you mind signing this for me?' And he said, 'Oh Heather, our little Phil's a bit of a Beatles fan.' "And I thought, 'You f**k, you f**k.' Never forgot it." This week he told Billboard magazine that McCartney messaged him shortly after he made the accusation.

Collins said: "He's been in touch about it because he was upset. I certainly didn't get any flowers from him; I got more of a 'Let's just get on with our lives.' And I'm details

Every corner of the planet had discovered The Beatles by 1966, but it was the year when we would all discover who they were becoming. Steve Turner’s new biography Beatles ’66: The Revolutionary Year (Ecco, 464 pp., *** out of four stars) narrows in on the explosive midpoint of the band’s career, which begins, unremarkably, with a badly needed break from the business of being Beatles. Off the road and out of the studio for the first time in ages, the weary quartet settle into their own lives in and around London, sopping up avant-garde culture and experimenting with mind-altering drugs.

When they reassemble at Abbey Road in April to record Tomorrow Never Knows, John Lennon’s rendering of an acid trip, the transformation is unmistakable. As Bob Dylan vastly underestimates when he hears the song: “Oh, I get it. You don’t want to be cute anymore.” Beatles '66 is in many ways a companion piece to Ron Howard’s new Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years documentary. Where that project culminates in the group’s discomforting final tour in 1966, Beatles '66 tracks the evolution of the music that forced their retirement from the road.

The meat of the story is familiar to details

George, Through His Son’s Eyes

When George Harrison died in 2001 after a lengthy battle with throat cancer, he didn’t just leave behind his legacy as one of The Beatles – he left behind his beloved son Dhani, who has since devoted his life and career to preserving his father’s musical legacy while at the same time forging his own. Shortly after George’s death, Dhani appeared in the Concert For George documentary in which he was kind enough to sit down and share some of his most precious memories of his dad, revealing a man who, when at home, wasn’t a rockstar – he was simply ‘Dad’ and as Dhani Harrison tells it, a pretty damn good one.

“He used to say to me every day, ‘You don’t have to go to school today. Do you want to just go on a yacht in the South Pacific and run away forever?'”

From heartwarming tales that paint George as a gentle parent willing to let Dhani explore and create art instead of insisting he join the rank and file of everyday life, to a rebel at heart who refused to let authority figures mistreat or in any way break Dhani’s spirit, George’s portrayal through the eyes of one of the people who loved details

Many people have claimed the title of “fifth Beatle,” the unacknowledged secret ingredient that made the greatest rock band of all time so successful. Vivek J. Tiwary’s and Andrew C. Robinson’s graphic novel The Fifth Beatle takes up the case of Brian Epstein, the manager who originally found The Beatles in Liverpool and helped guide them to superstardom.

Originally published in 2013 to much critical acclaim (including Eisner and Harvey Awards), The Fifth Beatle is now available in an expanded paperback edition, just in time for a planned TV event-series adaptation.

The new edition includes some extra behind-the-scenes content, including Robinson’s original pencils and inks for various pages. In the scene below, for instance, multiple ’60s rock stars converge at a party. The new edition features Robinson’s original breakdowns of the scene.

By: Christian Holub

Source:Entertainment Weekly

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It was a mob scene at our Hearst Movie & A Martini recent screening of the Ron Howard Beatles documentary “Eight Days a Week” at the Avon Theatre in Stamford.

Perhaps it was not the Beatlemania madness of 50 years ago, but the film about the early touring days of the four “mop tops” from Liverpool filled the 271-seat venue. We joined forces with the nonprofit theater’s regular monthly Documentary Night to celebrate the preview of a movie that takes a new angle on the quintessential 1960s rock group — focusing on the live performances during the first half of the decade, when the Beatles’ music was taking off all over the globe.

Produced and directed by Howard in collaboration with the Hulu streaming service, “Eight Days a Week” features newly restored concert footage with the soundtracks cleaned up digitally so that the live performances are more powerful than ever. For many years, the inferior sound mixing of the concert footage allowed the screams of thousands of fans to overpower the songs the Fab Four was playing on stage.

As a result of the digital restoration of the music, tunes such as “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “A Hard D details

Sir Paul McCartney once offered to write and produce songs for the Four Tops.

The 74-year-old Beatles legend is a massive fan of the Motown band and the only surviving original member, Duke Fakir, has revealed when he met the guitarist at their manager Brian Epstein's party in London in 1966, he said he'd love to write some songs for them, but the 'Reach Out I'll Be There' hitmaker never took up his offer.

Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz - ahead of their UK tour which kicks off at Liverpool's Echo Arena on Friday (21.10.16) - Duke said: "Paul McCartney was very generous and came to me and told me he loved the Tops and he remembers when he first met us and we had a party in London, The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein threw a party for us, and Paul and I had a long talk. He asked me, 'Do you need some new music?' And I said we will call you, but I never called."

Despite a collaboration never happening, Duke, 80, wouldn't turn down the chance to have the 'Hey Jude' hitmaker pen some lyrics for the group now.

Asked if he would invite McCartney to work with them now, he said: "Of course. Are you kidding?"

And McCartney wasn't the only star who was desperate to work with the Four Tops as R& details

The Beatles get by with a little help from a friend.

 Picture it.

Bob Dylan, now the recipient of a Nobel Prize, emerges from a blue Ford station wagon and the frenzied thrum of Manhattan's Park Avenue, past a throng of screaming fans, into the Hotel Delmonico (now a luxury condominium tower owned by Donald Trump). He rides an elevator to the sixth floor and sleuths through a bevy of reporters, policemen and hangers-on into the annals of music lore and legend.

"That was rather a coup," Paul McCartney would later admit. The Beatles, in their hotel suite with managers Brian Epstein and Mal Evans, met Dylan for the first time that August night in 1964. They were also introduced to another cultural icon of the '60s: marijuana.

"Until the advent of rap, pop music remained largely derivative of that night at the Delmonico," argued rock journalist Al Aronowitz (the mutual friend who staged the encounter) years later. "That meeting didn't just change pop music — it changed the times."

It is, in hindsight, a kairotic moment after which the Beatles, and music, were inarguably changed. Thanks to Dylan, they had graduated from pills and drink. A year later, they chanced on LSD. Rubber Soul details

On the verge of last month's release of Eight Days a Week -- The Touring Years, a Ron Howard-directed film showing live performances of The Beatles, a surprising lawsuit was filed by the company assigned Sid Bernstein's intellectual property.

Bernstein was a well known rock promoter in the 1960s, credited with bringing The Beatles to the United States, who passed away at the age of 95 in 2013. The lawsuit focused on the role he enjoyed for The Beatles' 1965 performance at Shea Stadium, which has been featured on ABC in 1967, in the 1995 television docuseries, The Beatles Anthology, a 2010 Billy Joel concert film called The Last Play at Shea, and last and not least, as supplemental material following screenings of Eight Days a Week. The footage is also streamed at the Beatles.com website.

After five decades, Sid Bernstein Presents is now claiming rights to both the footage from that Shea Stadium performance, and despite seeing the Copyright Office reject its copyright registration application in July, asserts infringement on the part of two Beatles-related companies, Apple Corps Limited and Subafilms Limited.

On Wednesday, defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint that rejects the "frivolous" not details

Paul McCartney is, of course, best known as a member of the Beatles and as a prolific songwriter. At the age of 74, he tours the world relentlessly playing songs old and new to the delight of fans young and old, mostly in ballparks across America. It’s not by accident though that he finds himself on second base for a two and a half hour show…

Here’s a portion of a interview conducted by the Boston Herald just prior to a concert appearance at Fenway Park in 2009: Herald: With two nights at Fenway and dates at New York’s Citi Field last month, you’re spending a lot of time at ballparks. Are you a baseball fan?

McCartney: Baseball to us is a game called rounders we played as kids. Actually, I accidentally broke a girl’s nose when I was a kid with my back swing. I still remember her name. Shirley Prytherch. P-R-Y-T-H-E-R, um, C-H, I think. I don’t know, but it sounds Welsh to me. It’s something like this that accounts for all the armor you guys wear now playing baseball. She didn’t have any and look what happened to her.

Does that mean you’re not really a baseball fan?

No, no, my friend. (“Saturday Night Live” producer) Lorne Mi details

It’s eerie: the voice on the other end of the phone line is a dead ringer for that of John Lennon. That’s no accident.

Daniel Taylor has masterfully taken on the vocal inflections of the late Beatle in the musical/play Lennon: Through a Glass Onion, which comes to Club Soda on Tuesday, Oct. 25.

Taylor — a Liverpudlian, like Lennon — has the late Beatle’s look and mannerisms down pat, too. So much so that the hair stands up on the neck of many a patron who catches the show. The resemblance, physically and vocally, is that uncanny.

Lennon: Through a Glass Onion has bowled over audiences in the U.S. and the U.K. The Club Soda date marks the show’s Canadian debut, before it moves on to cities including Toronto and Vancouver. And that’s only fitting.

Lennon, who was murdered in New York 36 years ago, had a special connection with this city. In 1969, he and bride Yoko Ono conducted a Bed-In for Peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Joined at their bedside by Timothy Leary, Dick Gregory, Tommy Smothers and Petula Clark, among others, Lennon and Ono recorded Give Peace a Chance, their protest against the Vietnam War.

Through a Glass Onion was co-created by details