Beatles News

There’s a London festival this weekend that loves you — yeah, yeah, yeah.

The first edition of the London Beatles Festival goes Friday through Sunday at venues around London. Devoted to the Fab Four’s music, lore, films and more, the fest mixes top Beatles tribute bands with local heroes playing the 1960s’ pop band’s hits.

Vendors offer collectibles. Iconic Canadian photographer John Rowlands is among those who will show and tell. London collector Jeff Blake has images on offer. Komoka’s Fred Young brings his museum and vinyl.

Children will settle in at the Yellow Submarine fun zone, while older fans kick back at the Octopus’s Gardens, a licensed locale with bands and DJs. “We want to make it a fun event for everybody,” fest director and London rocker Paul Rivard said this week.

The fest starts Friday at 6 p.m. when tribute act BeatleMania Revisited plays an all-ages show at the Clarence Street stage. Performers will celebrate the Fab Four’s sounds in their own “diverse styles,” Rivard said. That would certainly be true of beloved London rockers, The Mongrels.

Oft saluted in The Free Press for having the best setlist details

I teared up immediately. The moment I heard John Lennon’s voice in the latest documentary about The Beatles, the Ron Howard directed “Eight Days A Week — The Touring Years,” my vision became blurry, my thoughts scattered, as I pondered a modern world with Lennon still alive — the ambassador of hope, love, and the promise of a better tomorrow.

Entering the Fine Arts Theatre in downtown Asheville this past Sunday afternoon, it became quickly apparent I would be one of the few in attendance under the age of, perhaps, 60. The Beatles are beloved by all, by any age or demographic, but, they will — always — be owned by my parents and their peers.

I’ve never known an existence without The Beatles. My parents do, and yet, I never will. And that’s not a bad thing. Far from it. The point of The Beatles is to practice and perpetuate love, understanding, and what it means to not see color — only friendship and companionship.

Thus, taking a seat at the Fine Arts Theatre, I found myself amid, as my mother would say, her “vintage.” And I was happy to be amongst company that knew the “real deal,” that were once teenage girls and boys in details

When the Beatles visited New Orleans for their now-legendary City Park concert in September 1964, they had two primary requests. Following the show, they wanted a day off from their grueling 25-concert, 30-day tour, in order to bask in the music of one of America's most soulful cities; and they wanted to meet local musician Fats Domino, one of their major influences.

As far as that day off goes, it was scheduled – and then un-scheduled when the band was offered a reported $150,000, which is said to be about six times their normal fee, to add a last-minute concert in Kansas City to the jam-packed tour schedule. (After leaving New Orleans and arriving in Kansas City, the band was asked if there was any place in America they'd love to see. Beatle John Lennon's wistful reply: "New Orleans is one of them.")

And as for meeting the notoriously shy Fats? Well, in that case, they scored – and there's photographic evidence to prove it.

Two photos from that meeting make it into Ron Howard's new Beatles documentary "Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years." And while they are, somewhat disappointingly, the only images from the lads' New Orleans stop to make it into the film, they are still priceless images details

In 2001, painter Eric Waugh broke the world record for the largest painting by a single artist. His stunning 41,400-square-foot painting, entitled Hero, was revealed on World AIDS Day. Now, in honor of the 45th anniversary of John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” Waugh has created a 2500-square-foot painting of the musician that will be displayed today in New York City to commemorate the U.N.’s International Day of Peace.

“It is my hope that people surround the painting and pay tribute to John and his dream for a world without strife, war, and conflict,” Waugh wrote on his website. “Recent events, at home and abroad, show that John’s vision remains as important as ever.” The painting was created at his warehouse in Austin, Texas, is five stories high, and took more than a month to complete.

Waugh will unveil and display the painting today in the heart of New York City’s Central Park, directly in front of the Naumburg Bandshell amphitheater. The bandshell is located near Strawberry Fields, a memorial to Lennon, and across the street from the Dakota, the apartment complex where Lennon was assassinated in 1980. According to Waugh, it’s the perfect location t details

It’s an odd way to look at things, but there’s much more to the Beatles than the Beatles.

For example, some of the best work John, Paul, George and even Ringo did came after the band broke up. Harrison’s All Things Must Pass is a landmark album, while Lennon’s Imagine defined him as a solo artist. Paul McCartney’s band Wings in concert was one of the hottest tickets of the early to mid-‘70s and the live album Wings Over America hit the top of the charts in the U.S. So it goes without saying no Beatles festival – least of all the first London Beatles Festival, running Sept. 23-25 — would be complete without a few of the world’s best solo tribute artists.

As it turns out, one of them lives in the Forest City. Yuri Pool is Paul in The McCartney Years, a show he says is far more a concert than a tribute act. Pool sounds so much Sir Paul that it’s difficult to tell the two apart. Now eight years old, the show tours North and South America and Europe throughout much of the year. “It’s amazing,” he said. “We just got a new contract for South America, so that market is opening up as well. And we’ve got a major tour through Europe n details

While the Beatles officially broke up in the spring of 1970, that didn’t stop more music coming from John, Paul, George and Ringo.

In fact, according to Adam Boc, the founder and one of the driving forces behind the tribute band, AfterFab — The Beatles Solo Years, if anything, there was even more to be heard from the Fab Four after they went their separate ways following a decade spent together as a group.

AfterFab, who specialize in the post-Beatles era works of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, are one of the 30 groups scheduled to appear in the Forest City between Sept. 23-25 at The London Beatles Festival.

“The solo Beatles actually had more Top-40 hits than they did as a group,” said Boc. “There’s a large number of songs that were popular and penetrated people’s memories, but weren’t kept alive by oldies and classic rock radio, so sometimes there is a little gap in their memory and we fill that.”

Based out of the Boston area, Boc started putting the group together in 2012 but it wasn’t until the fall of 2013 when they actually played their first gig.

Referring to themselves as a tribute or ‘ details

The family of Sir George Martin, the late record producer known as the "Fifth Beatle", is being torn apart because of a dispute over his will, it has been reported.

Alexis Stratfold, one of two children from Martin's first marriage has described her inheritance of £68,250 as "a pittance". Martin, who died earlier this year at the age of 90, reportedly left £325,000 – an amount small enough to avoid UK inheritance tax – to be shared between Alexis and a number of others, including his former chauffeur, three grandchildren and a niece. Martin's eldest son, Greg, brother of Alexis, was written out of the will entirely.

The family feud has erupted because the remainder of Martin's estate has, it is understood, gone to his 87-year-old widow, Judy Lockhart Smith, with whom Martin had two more children, Lucie and Giles.

"There were so many examples I could cite over the years both big and small, of how we were... treated as second class compared to you two and your kids," wrote Alexis in an email to Lucie, which has been seen by the Daily Mail.

"I know it is an uncomfortable thought for you to address but let us not beat about the bush here: the inequality is stark. "The amount o details

The Beatles are one of only four acts with at least 30 top 10 albums.

The Beatles continue to build their incredible legacy on the Billboard charts, as the band’s new Live at the Hollywood Bowl album debuts at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Oct. 1). The set is the group’s 32nd top 10 album. Only three other acts have at least 30 top 10 albums: The Rolling Stones, with a record 36, Barbra Streisand (34) and Frank Sinatra (33). The Billboard 200’s chart history dates back to March 24, 1956, when the tally began with the name Best Selling Popular Albums. It was Billboard’s first regularly published weekly albums chart, and eventually became known as the Billboard 200.

The new Live at the Hollywood Bowl album launches with 36,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Sept. 15, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 35,000 were in traditional album sales. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new album -- like its 1977 predecessor, The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl -- features songs from details

Named after The Beatles track of the same name, Ron Howard documentary on the fab four, The Beatles: Eight Days A Week, attracted some of the biggest names in the industry.

Not only do the likes of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr feature in the film, numerous musicians spoke about the influence of The Beatles on their work.

Some of those who filmed segments were inevitably cut from the final film, including Ed Sheeran, who reportedly spoke candidly about his love for the band. "Ed had recorded a segment for the film,” a source told The Sun. “But it failed to make the final cut along with a load of other talking heads by Ron who wanted to make more time for The Beatles themselves.

"Ron had to be ruthless, but Ed will be gutted. He’s crazy about The Beatles and has grown really close to Paul over the past couple of years, even introducing him to his dad.”

Speaking about the various talking heads being cut from the film, Ringo said: "When we saw the first cut there were a lot of other people doing a lot of talking, which I believe he’s cut out now and it’s mainly me and Paul talking and it’s better.”

By: Jack Shepherd

Source: The Indepen details

Blink and you’ll miss it, but Ron Howard’s intensely enjoyable documentary about the Beatles’ touring years has a great surreal moment at the very beginning. The moptops are getting out of the plane in New York, on their way to a date with destiny on The Ed Sullivan Show, and the newsreel camera briefly catches a couple of placards held up in the huge airport crowd. “Beatles Unfair 2 Bald Men” reads one, and another says: “England Get Out of Ireland.” The images vanish, and their atypical sentiments are in any case drowned by the global scream of unironic adulation. Yet both echo other undercurrents in Beatlemania: a fear of these weirdly attractive aliens, a hatred of youth culture and youth itself, and perhaps mixed feelings in New York and the US about this extraordinary new British invasion. Maybe Paul McCartney even saw that second placard and modified it as a song title for Wings.

Is there really anything more to say about the Beatles? Well, Howard gives us a movie conceived on similar lines to his non-fiction features such as Apollo 13 or Frost/Nixon, real people tested in the fire of publicity, with the same classic narrative arc of personal growth. Yet he persuades you details

Chapman thought about taking his own life after killing The Beatles frontman John Lennon. But after shooting the star outside his New York apartment in 1980 he decided against saving one bullet to kill himself. “At one point I did have a thought of saving the last bullet and putting it in my mouth, but no, not me,” he told a three-member parole board. "I am too much of a coward to take my own life." The born-again Christian admitted at the hearing where he was denied parole he had a sociopathic mind.

He has admitted he killed Lennon because he wanted to be famous. Recalling the confrontation at around 2pm, he said: ”He came out, and this is a part that I really regret happening, he came out and as a ruse, I had his album and a pen and I asked him to sign the album," Chapman said. "He took his time. He asked me if I wanted anything else. "His wife had come out with him … and she was waiting in a limo and that’s something I often reflect on how decent he was to just a stranger.

"He signed the album and gave it back to me. He got in the limo.” Chapman walked away but returned that evening with a .38 calibre revolver and shot Lennon four times in his back. Police found him readin details

Every single day is a Beatles anniversary of some kind. This week alone marks several worthy commemorations. 1963: the Beatles scored their second No. 1 hit with “She Love You.” 1965: “Yesterday” was released as a single in the US. 1966: Revolver started a six-week run atop the US chart. 1967: the Fab Four began filming Magical Mystery Tour. 1968: “Hey Jude,” clocking in at seven minutes and ten seconds, became the longest chart topper of all-time. In this edition of Audio Rewind, though, I’m honoring an anniversary with a much shorter lifespan, an event that long eclipses the Beatles era.

This week in 2005, Q Magazine polled music experts and determined “A Day in the Life” to be the best British song of all-time, calling it “the ultimate sonic rendition of what it meant to be British.” And indeed, the track is one of the most indelible in modern music history—British or otherwise. Complex. Innovative. Topical. Dynamic. Haunting. A sonic approximation for what it feels like to live “A Day in the Life.”

The song arrived as the final track on the Beatles seminal record, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The 1967 full-len details

Fifty years after they stopped touring, and four decades after they ceased to exist as a recording entity, is there really anything new to say about The Beatles?

It's pretty safe to conclude that no modern rock group's personal, professional and musical history has been as thoroughly combed through as that of Messrs McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison.

You could stock a decent-sized library and then wallpaper it with all the books and articles that have been written about the band over the years. From authorized biographies and purported tell-alls to socio-cultural ruminations and forensic examinations of their recording techniques, so much water has flowed over their history that the band's collective edges have been sanded down to almost nothing.

My own bookcase counts at least three such volumes, including one that improbably roots through the dream symbolism of the Liverpudlian band and its music. The most well-thumbed book, by far though, is "Lennon, the Definitive Biography," by Ray Coleman.

Yet here we are, as a culture, talking about the band again. The occasion? The release of the new Ron Howard-directed "Eight Days a Week," and an expanded reissue of 1977's "Live at the Hollywood Bowl details

In 1964 Larry Kane was a 21-year-old journalist starting his career at the Top 40 music station WFUN Miami.

Kane considered himself a serious journalist. He'd contacted the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein in advance of the band's arrival in Florida to ask for an interview at the Gator Bowl stadium in Jacksonville.

"We planned to fly young fans to Jacksonville to meet the guys," he says. "But instead Brian Epstein and their publicist Derek Taylor suggested I cover the whole 1964 US tour. I've never quite worked out why the offer was made - except possibly that Brian, being new to America, assumed I was far more important than I was."

Kane tried to persuade his bosses to send instead one of the DJs already into the band. "There were all the Cuban refugees in Miami. There was war in Vietnam escalating and racial revolution in America - why would we bother about an English band who would doubtless disappear in a few months?"

But in December 1964 Kane found himself at the first venue on the tour - the Cow Palace in Daly City, California. "The reason WFUN sent me was because they wanted a real story every day - not just frivolous happy talk. Ultimately I was filing five or six stories each day because i details

This week sees a special one-off screening of the much-anticipated documentary film, The Beatles: Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years, from award-winning director, Ron Howard. But for those who want to keep the music alive after the credits finish rolling, there are a whole host of Beatles attractions to visit. From Paul McCartney and John Lennon's childhood homes in Liverpool to handwritten lyrics on display at the British Library, here are some of the top Beatles haunts to visit.

1. Liverpool and The Beatles

Evan Evans, London’s largest sightseeing company, offers a day trip exploring the historic city of Liverpool, home of the Beatles. The 'Liverpool and the Beatles tour' includes round-trip travel to Liverpool with Virgin Trains and tickets to The Beatles Story, where guests can experience the most sensational story the pop world has ever known. 

In the afternoon the 'Magical Mystery Tour' takes guests around all of the landmarks in the lives of the Fab Four, including their homes, schools, birthplaces, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields and many other significant spots, before ending at the famous Cavern Club. The tour - which operates April to October - costs £138 per adult and £ details