Beatles News

Paul has teamed up once more with Jaunt - the leading producer and publisher of fully-immersive cinematic virtual reality experiences - and today release the first two episodes of 'Pure McCartney VR', a six-part series of virtual reality (VR) documentary shorts. As part of the upcoming launch of 'Pure McCartney', a career–spanning compilation album, each of these complementary immersive VR experiences delve into the stories behind some of Paul’s most iconic songs.

Filmed in his private home studio, fans will embark on a personal journey with Paul as he recounts memories and anecdotes related to various tracks, while sharing archival and never-before-seen footage. The 'Pure McCartney VR' episodes, which chronicle 'Dance Tonight', 'Coming Up', 'My Valentine', 'Mull of Kintyre' and 'Early Days', will be released episodically, starting today, and continuing through the coming weeks up to the release of ‘Pure McCartney'.

In building the series, the team sought out the creative expertise of some of the most innovative minds in the business, including award-winning Director, Tony Kaye; Producer and Soundscape Architect Geoff Emerick; and Executive Producers Cliff Plumer, Lucas Wilson and Doug Allenste details

SIR Paul McCartney has revealed he started drinking heavily and came close to quitting music after The Beatles broke up. The music superstar said he ended up forming Wings when he stopped enjoying the party lifestyle.

Reflecting on his life and career at a recording of Mastertapes for Radio 4, he said: "I was breaking from my lifelong friends, not knowing whether I was going to continue in music. I took to the bevvies. I took to a wee dram. It was great at first, then suddenly I wasn't having a good time. It wasn't working. I wanted to get back to square one, so I ended up forming Wings."

Sir Paul also acknowledged that some of the criticism levelled at Wings was fair but he doesn't regret collaborating with his wife Linda, who died in 1998. He said: "To be fair we weren't that good. We were terrible. We knew Linda couldn't play but she learned and, looking back on it, I'm really glad we did it. "I could have just formed a supergroup and rung up Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page and John Bonham but we graduated from playing universities to town halls, which was quite funny as I'd been at Shea Stadium quite recently.

But you still remember the names of the people who gave you really bad, vicious reviews: Charle details

Legendary pop star Ringo Starr was not amused when he learned that Indonesian company Asia Global Media - a Jakarta based information technology and services firm - registered a brand name at the Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DGIP) that is very similar to his own name. Former Beatles drummer Richard Starkey, known professionally as Ringo Starr, filed a lawsuit at the Commercial Court in Central Jakarta in February 2016 over the use of the 'Ringgo Star' brand that was registered by Asia Global Media.

Lawyer Nadia Am Badar, Director at Indonesia-based law firm Am Badar & Partners, was appointed by the management of Ringo Starr to represent his side in the court case and to demand the revocation of the 'Ringgo Star' trademark. Nadia Am Badar informed that Indonesian firm Asia Global Media has registered a total of five brands or trademarks at Indonesia's Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DGIP)

However, the 'Ringgo Star' brand is unacceptable according to Nadia Am Badar because it resembles the name of former Beatles member Ringo Starr too closely. The name of English musician Ringo Starr (born in 1940) is known across the globe and has an international reputation and legendary status details

Linda McCartney launched a career as a rock photographer after photographing The Rolling Stones in New York during the 1960s. Her daughter Mary, who is now a professional photographer, focuses on portraiture and candid reportage.

She was a guest speaker at Photo London, where she was in conversation with Philippe Garner, international head of photographs at Christie’s. Afterwards, Mary – daughter of musician Sir Paul McCartney– responded to a question from Amateur Photographer.

She was asked if there were one piece of advice her mother had given her that she has taken forward in her own career as a photographer. Mary, replied: ‘She didn’t give me a lot of advice, but I did have that time where we were both photographers… where I’d take her for lunch and I would grill her about her past career. ‘So, she didn’t give me advice as such – she wasn’t like that – but I would say that all the things she photographed she had real passion for, and when she didn’t have a passion for it she wouldn’t involve herself in it.’ Mary would say to her mother, who died in 1998, that she couldn’t believe she had taken all those pictures details

Few musicians are as revered as the great John Lennon from The Beatles. The Beatles are known as one of the best and most influential bands of all-time, with everything from their earlier, poppier music still being revered to their later, more experimental music being seen as masterworks. Lennon was one of the driving forces behind the band and their transition into more interesting musical horizons, penning many of their famous songs alongside Paul McCartney.

So how much would handwritten lyrics from John Lennon sell for on the open market? According to the BBC, they’d sell for a whopping $354,000. Auctioneer Julien’s sold the handwritten lyrics to The Beatles’ song Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite! from the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song, written by Lennon, is one of the many revered deep cuts from The Beatles that clocks in at a mere 2:37.

That wasn’t the only piece of musical memorabilia that was auctioned off recently, either, as Elvis Presley’s black Gibson Dove guitar — which was gifted to the singer and painted black after he earned his black belt in karate — sold for a hefty $334,000.

By: Dave Walsh

Source: UPROXX

BEATLES legend Paul McCartney has released a series of videos celebrating his late wife Linda and her vegetarian food empire.

In the short clip, Paul reflects on his life with Linda and their decision to go vegetarian. He said: “We decided to go vegetarian, then Linda said ‘Ok well I’m going to try and make this food.’ “She was a pioneer cos there was nothing else around at the time.” Paul is joined in the video by daughters Stella, who runs a global fashion empire, and Mary, a photographer and cookery writer.

Speaking about her childhood memories of her mother in the kitchen, Stella said: “Mum very much started it, she did the cookbooks. “She was probably one of the first ‘celebrity’ people to do cookbooks, that was totally unheard of.”

Linda went on to produce not only cookbooks but a range vegetarian meals that are still popular today. Discussing why Linda went down this route, Paul explained: “When you’re going to make a move like that and be so vocal about it, people are going to go ‘Oh, I see Paul and Linda have gone veggie’.

Paul reminisced on Linda’s skills in the kitchen and said: “With details

Ethan Russell uses a passage about himself that was published in the June 2012 Daily Beast to launch his multimedia performance “The Best Seat in the House”: “To tell the story of the now-famed rock photographer – known for shooting iconic images of ’60s music legends including the Who, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Cream, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – is to strain the amount of luck you imagine any one human is allowed.”

The 70-year-old Grammy-nominated rock lensman, art director, video-film director and author will share his story Friday, May 20, at the Harris Center in Folsom. Russell’s show transports the audience back in time and into the veritable lap of rock royalty while on tour, in the studio and at home using a candid, intimate blend of about 275 photos, music, videos and live narrative. 

Russell serendipitously entered rock photography with a Nikon and no credentials, eventually shooting album covers for the Beatles, the Stones and the Who and becoming friends with many of rock’s key players. He went on the 1969 and 1972 tours with the Stones, stood next to the cameraman who filmed the stabbing at Altamont, was on the roof of the Apple St details

It is believed to be a cast-off song from one of The Beatles’ best-known albums, doomed to be forgotten without ever being heard in concert or recorded for the Fab Four’s fans.

Instead, the lyrics and chords for Pensioner’s Waltz, thought to have been omitted from the final running order of The White Album nearly 50 years ago, were curiously left hidden in an exercise book owned by a Hampstead schoolboy, who subsequently defaced the cover with a transfer of a cow.

The full, and bizarre, story of how Robert Barclay, then aged 10, ended up with Sir Paul McCartney’s makeshift manuscript has been revealed after the key pages were put up for auction with memorabilia hunters expecting the surviving notes to be sold for tens of thousands of pounds.

In a signed statement to prove its authenticity, Mr Barclay, now in his 50s, told of a chance meeting with Linda McCartney – Sir Paul’s first wife who died in 1998 – as well as Crosby, Stills and Nash at his mother’s shop at the Hampstead Antique Emporium in Heath Street, where he would head to at the end of his day at school.

“Around 1968/69 I was a pupil at St Anthony’s School in Hampstead and I wa details

A remarkable set of family photos that show John Lennon larking around and dressing as a woman in 19th century costume have emerged for sale. The five original black and white pictures offer a rare insight into the personal life of the Beatles legend and show Lennon, his wife Yoko Ono and their baby son Sean having fun in costume while on holiday in America. They were taken in a vintage clothing photography studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1977 - three years before the music icon was shot dead outside his New York apartment - and also feature Sean's nanny and a friend.

The unusual souvenir-style pictures are a far cry from the often serious portrayal of the singer in the media and at one point the famous couple switch roles with Lennon dressing as a woman and Yoko as a Civil War soldier. 

The photographer, Sanford Kreger, told a newspaper in 2005 that the family came into the studio when they visited a friend, the late George Maciunas. Maciunas was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers and designers, that Yoko Ono was also a member of. He is believed to be the other man in some of the photos. Maciunas was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer details

The Beatles' former press officer, who coined the term 'The Fab Four' to describe the band, has died. Tony Barrow represented the band between 1962 and 1968 and also wrote sleeve notes for their early albums, as well as the strip cartoon for the Magical Mystery Tour booklet.

Mr Barrow died on Saturday night, aged 80, at his home in Morecambe. He had also represented other Merseybeat acts such as Gerry and the Pacemakers and Cilla Black.

Born in Crosby in 1936, Mr Barrow was poached from the Decca record group in 1962 by The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. Beatles expert Spencer Leigh said he was an unassuming cog in the band's success and had the "unusual" task for a press officer of reining in the publicity they received.

"The majority of press officers are trying to get publicity for their performers but The Beatles had so much publicity that he was trying to draw it back at times."

"He had to be with Brian Epstein, who was a very temperamental manager - Tony told me that he'd been sacked at least a dozen times by Epstein, but he always took him back the next day", he said.

Source: BBC News

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Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Elton John and James Bay have paid their respects to George Martin at a memorial service in London.

The late Beatles producer passed away on March 8 aged 90, and was laid to rest in a private family funeral in Wiltshire, shortly after. But over 600 mourners attended a memorial service for Martin, dubbed the "fifth Beatle", at St. Martin In The Fields church in Trafalgar Square yesterday (May 11).

McCartney delivered a eulogy praising Martin's impact on The Beatles' music while Bay and comedians Alexander Armstrong and Bernard Cribbins performed at the memorial, reports The Sun.

When Martin died earlier this year, McCartney said that he was "so sad" to hear of his passing and made reference to how he "guided the career of The Beatles with such skill and good humour." He added: “I have so many wonderful memories of this great man that will be with me forever. He was a true gentleman and like a second father to me. He guided the career of The Beatles with such skill and good humour that he became a true friend to me and my family. If anyone earned the title of the fifth Beatle it was George. From the day that he gave The Beatles our first recording contract, to the last time details

Here's a handy Facebook-based video we recently stumbled upon. It's a three-screen clip that shows the magic of "And Your Bird Can Sing," a 1966 track that always ranks as one the Beatles' best "guitar songs." In fact, Guitar World ranked it at Number 7 when we published "The Fab 50: The Beatles' 50 Greatest Guitar Moments" a few years ago.

This middle-period Beatles gem from Revolver, written primarily by John Lennon, features George Harrison and Paul McCartney on impeccably crafted and performed harmony-lead guitar melodies, a pop-rock arranging approach that was still in its infancy in 1966. (It would later be employed extensively in the southern rock genre by bands such as the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd as well as hard rock and metal acts like Thin Lizzy, Boston and Iron Maiden.)

The two Epiphone Casinos in the clip represent the guitar parts of Harrison and McCartney, both of whom were playing Casinos at the time. The Rickenbacker represents Lennon's part.

Together, Harrison and McCartney’s individual single-note harmony lead guitar parts form, for the most part, diatonic (scale-based) third intervals in the key of E. (Lennon performed his rhythm guitar part as if the song were in the details

Tickets for Desert Trip, the rock mega-concert in October in Indio featuring Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, the Who, Neil Young and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, sold out in five hours Monday, concert organizers said Tuesday. Orders came in from around the globe, said Paul Tollett, head of Goldenvoice, the concert promoter that organized the Oct. 7-9 and Oct. 14-16 shows. Interest in the event, he said, has been “unprecedented. ... There were over 400,000 people trying to place orders,” he told The Times.

Sales were capped at “a little bit more than 75,000,” he said, a figure similar to what Goldenvoice does for the annual Stagecoach Country Music Festival on the same Empire Polo Field site. For the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, attendance has been expanded in recent years to 99,000 per day over a six-day run.

Tickets for Desert Trip started at $199 for a single-day admission and ran up to $1,599 for reserved-seating three-day passes for either weekend, with a variety of VIP options pushing prices above $3,000. Shortly before tickets for the Oct. 7-9 weekend went on sale, Goldenvoice announced that all the performers would return for a second weekend.

Two of the surviving key players in the birth of the Beatles had a nostalgic reunion last night on the balcony of Liverpool Town Hall. Allan Williams, the self proclaimed Man Who Gave The Beatles Away was at a ceremony to receive one of the city’s top accolades: Liverpool Citizen of Honour. The founder of the Jacaranda and the Blue Angel joins an elite group of people deemed to have played a part in Liverpool’s growth and development.

Now a sprightly 86, Allan was the first ever manager of the Beatles in the early 1960s, way before the foursome would “shake the world”. Last night, on the same Town Hall verandah where John, George, Paul and Ringo looked down on a sea of screaming fans in 1964, Allan swapped memories with Freda Kelly, 71, Brian Epstein and the Beatles secretary and who, for 10 years, ran the official Beatles Fan Club.

For Allan, who now lives in a care home in the city, the accolade was an official salute to the key role he played in the rise of the Beatles from Woolton boy band to Hamburg rockers to global idols. “It is not only the first honour I have received, it’s the only honour!” he quipped, wit as razor sharp as the suit and tie he wore for the occa details

She was one of the biggest pin-ups of the 70s, event winning the heart of The Beatles' Ringo Starr. And Barbara Bach appeared to have defied the years as she cut a youthful figure when out shopping in London on Monday. The one-time Bond girl, now 68, proved the years have been no match for her as she enjoyed some retail therapy and indulged in a spot of shopping at Stella McCartney's swish boutique in Knightsbridge. 

Barbara, who played Roger Moore's object of affection in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, looked in sprightly spirits as she left the high-fashion store, which looked to be a success as her entourage headed to her car with a number of bags from the designer. 

She broke up the muted style with a grey scarf that was emblazoned with an ornate floral motif. The former model slipped her feet into stylish chunky, tasseled loafers, while toting her essentials in a black handbag that was rendered in a texture that resembled that of bubble wrap. 

The American actress and her Liverpudlian husband Ringo live are based on the outskirts of London and have resided in the UK together since 1980, after meeting on the set of movie Caveman. Instantly falling in love with one another, they married o details