Beatles News

1AN AUTHOR looking for fans who witnessed a performance by The Beatles at the Sub Rooms has been overwhelmed by the response from SNJ readers.

Richard Houghton appealed for people who had seen the band’s only performance in Stroud to get in touch to help him make a people’s history of the group.

Roger Brown, who contacted Richard, said: “They were billed as Liverpool’s number one group which did not mean as much to us in Gloucestershire.

“John Lennon said he was going to play this new record.

“Knowing the quality of the normal Saturday night groups I waited for them to spoil the song.

“Wow – was I surprised. John Lennon on the harmonica was really great and their version was better than the original.

“I was a fan from that day.”

Jen Fabb also got in touch with Richard as her mum used to work at the Sub Rooms providing refreshments when the band visited.

“I looked forward to Saturdays when I heard new bands and singers,” she said.

“I remember I was given plastic caps to wear on my stiletto heels to protect the floor at The Subs.

“Mum part details

In 1996, Florida Studio Theatre produced its first musical revue in the Goldstein Cabaret, featuring the melodies of Cole Porter. A string of familiar songs, delivered by gifted vocalists and tied together by a loose narrative of dialogue, it was a formula that would prove reliably popular. Over the past two decades – and year-round since the addition of a summer series in 2014 – the cabaret musical revues have become a mainstay for the organization.

They’ve covered a wide gamut of genres, from swing, country and blues, to Motown and Broadway. For the 20th anniversary season, Producing Artistic Director Richard Hopkins, Managing Director Rebecca Hopkins and Resident Pianist Jim Prosser have turned to that seminal period in American musical history catalyzed by the Beatles’ first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964. “Yesterday,” which opens this week, focuses on the music of “the British Invasion” from 1965 to 1972 – including not just the Beatles (whose music makes up a third of the playlist) but the Kinks, the Hollys and the Rolling Stones.

“So much happened in that period,” says Richard Hopkins, who was in high school at the details

Jessie J performed in New York City's Times Square on New Year's Eve, playing several of her own songs, along with the classic John Lennon cut "Imagine." The event, hosted by Allison Hagendoff, also featured Demi Lovato and Daya as well as the famous ball drop.

"2015 has been such an amazing year and I'm going to be ending it with a bang in @TimesSquareNYC, performing live for the #NewYearsEve #Balldrop," J wrote on Instagram ahead of her performance.

"I can't wait to ring in the New Year with the @TimesSquareBall, an incredible crowd of revelers & everyone watching from around the world."

It is estimated that one million people flocked to NYC's Times Square to celebrate New Year's Eve.

They've not been shy about packing on the PDA during their visit to the island of St Barts. And on Monday Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell continued to embrace the opportunity for romance when they went for a drip in the waters surrounding the island. Heading into the surf hand-in-hand with his 56-year-old wife, the former Beatles bassist, 73, cut a gallantly-drenched figure in his swimming shorts.

Clearly feeling the heat on the Caribbean island's shores, the couple - who tied the knot in 2011 - waded into the sea to cool off. 

Holding hands as they marched into the surf, against the waves, the FourFiveSeconds hit-maker and his wife looked in high spirits as they frolicked in the water. Paddling about and cosying up to one another in the shallows, the couple appeared to be the very definition of loved-up. 

Opting for a more practical look for her dip in the sea, businesswoman Nancy took the plunge in a surfer-inspired ensemble. Donning a long-sleeved, floral-print zip-up top, the pretty brunette ensured that her pale skin wouldn't get burnt. However Nancy was sure to showcase her lean and lithe legs, thanks to her small, high-cut yellow bikini bottoms. 

By: J.J Nattre details

George Harrison was very angry. I could tell from the look on his face, the way he was glowering at me. His lips were tight, he looked very, very pissed off.

We were standing in the elevator area of the 7th floor of an old apartment building in Calcutta, India. The year was 1976. Behind him was the closed door of the residence where he was staying. In front of us was the trellis door of the old mechanical elevator. We could hear it cranking up slowly from the ground floor, stopping at every floor.

It would take at least five minutes for it to reach us.

I had George Harrison all to myself for five minutes. And I knew there was only one question I wanted to ask him.

It had started as another uneventful morning in the offices of Junior Statesman, the youth magazine where I was a reporter. Around 11 am, I was suddenly summoned to the editor's room. Desmond Doig, an Irishman in his fifties, was probably the youngest soul in this office where no one was over 30. And he was looking very serious this morning, which meant that he could barely contain his excitement.

"Rumor has it," he said melodramatically, "that a certain George Harrison is currently somewhere within this very city. Rumor adds th details

Beatles fans were certainly in the mood to "Come Together" this holiday season.

Two days after Spotify released the Fab Four's entire catalog, the popular music service told Rolling Stone that "Come Together" was the band's most-streamed song in the United States, the United Kingdom and worldwide on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

"Hey Jude," meanwhile, was the consensus number two in both America and the UK, though the seminal Paul McCartney hit ranked third on the global list, behind "Let It Be."

Perhaps most surprisingly, "Love Me Do" was the fourth-most streamed Beatles song globally in the band's first two days on the site — despite the fact that it didn't crack America's Top 10.

"Here Comes the Sun" placed third in America, with "Twist and Shout" and "Let It Be" rounding out the domestic Top 5. The American and United Kingdom lists were extremely similar, with eight songs appearing on both. "Blackbird" and "In My Life" made the U.S. Top 10 but not the United Kingdom's list, which instead included "I Feel Fine" and "Love Me Do."

By: Peter Sblendorio

Source: NY Daily News

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It was 45 years ago today (December 26th, 1970) that George Harrison scored the first Number One hit by an ex-Beatle with his single "My Sweet Lord," which went on to top the charts for four weeks. The tune, which he had first produced as a gospel song for good friend Billy Preston, was the first single from Harrison's triple album All Things Must Pass -- which itself went on to top the album charts on January 2nd, 1971 for a whopping seven weeks.

Harrison recalled recording "My Sweet Lord" in his 1980 "song biography" titled I Me Mine, admitting, "I thought a lot about whether to do 'My Sweet Lord' or not, because I would be committing myself publicly (to my beliefs) and I anticipated that a lot of people might get weird about it. Many people fear the words 'Lord' and 'God.' (It) makes them angry for some reason."

It's recently been revealed that "My Sweet Lord" turned out to be a mini-Beatles reunion of sorts. Ringo Starr and future Derek & the Dominoes member Jim Gordon drum on the track, along with Apple band Badfinger on acoustic guitars and none other than John Lennon strumming along himself. In a recent Beatlefan magazine interview, Harrison's longtime friend and bassist Klaus Voormann stated that Len details

It wasn't a surprise album drop — hell, none of the music is new — but there is something really nice about having the Beatles available on the streaming sites. You're like, "I really want to listen to 'Oh! Darling' right now" and type type type you are! So to celebrate this early Christmas gift, we want to know what your favorite Beatles song is. Are you a kid who just started getting into weed who loves "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; a person who's never heard a classic-rock radio station before and is somehow not even a little bit tired of "Hey Jude"; a person whose hand is always cold, so you love "I Want to Hold Your Hand"? Is your favorite song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," because you love shredding so much you ignore how dumb of a title that is? Maybe it's "Octopus's Garden," but if so, how are you reading this, as you're definitely a baby?

 Dee Lockett:

"Something" Well, for most of my life it's been "Something." I think I started out adoring "Here Comes the Sun" above all, mostly because it soundtracked one of the best scenes from a childhood movie fave (Parent Trap, hello!). But then it became my gateway drug to the George Harrison songbook, from which I discovered "Something." Tu details

Accused of exploiting other artists' songs in the Beatles, John Lennon defended himself by saying, "It wasn't a rip-off; it was a love-in." Paul McCartney's take: "We pinch as much from other people as they pinch from us." 

"In the early years, I'd often carry around someone else's song in my head," Lennon said. "And only when I'd put it down on tape — because I can't write music — would I consciously change it to my own melody, because I knew that otherwise somebody would sue me." Perhaps the best example of the Beatles transforming a piece of music is in "Because": It was drawn from Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, but Lennon reversed the chord progression and then mutated it into something else.

While the Beatles drew inspiration from artists both famous and obscure, they almost always made whatever they were borrowing into something new, because they were a creative group of lads and because they were careful to cover their tracks. That's almost always. Here's five examples where their pinches got more blatant. 

1. "Revolution": Pee Wee Crayton, "Do Unto Others" 

By: Gavin Edwards

Source: Rolling Stone

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In mid-1971, more than a year after the Beatles officially split, John Lennon started recording what would become his second proper solo album, Imagine.

The album, which was released later that year, was a critical and commercial success, not to mention a perennial fan favorite.

It also marks one of the only times Lennon recorded with his former Beatles bandmate, guitarist George Harrison, after the dissolution of the Fab Four in 1970. Harrison's fretwork can be heard on several Imagine tracks, including "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier," "Gimme Some Truth" and "Oh My Love." He even plays a mean dobro on "Crippled Inside."

However, from a six-string perspective, there's just something special, and maybe a bit chilling, about Harrison's slide work on "How Do You Sleep?," which also happens to be the most "anti-Paul McCartney" song ever written. In fact, it's downright mean. Lennon was getting back at McCartney for what he perceived were some anti-John-and-Yoko lyrics on McCartney's Ram album, which was released earlier that year. Here are some choice lyrics from Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?," plus some commentary from yours truly:

By: Damian Fanelli

Source: Guitar World

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The music of the Beatles, four music geeks from Liverpool who made it rather big in the Sixties, will appear on music streaming sites like Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music for the first time on Christmas Eve. This comes five years after Apple Music and Apple Computer ended a decades-long rights dispute, the upshot of which was the Beatles' official output becoming available on iTunes.

The Beatles are big, like no other band has ever been big, or can ever be. The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles pinned down their singularity by noting that there's no serious body of academic literature about the Dave Clark Five. The Beatles are the yardstick to which other bands are compared, usually in terms of record sales, seldom in terms of cultural significance. The Beatles' very popularity has been used as a stick to beat them with: no band that popular can be good, so the 'argument' goes, because everybody knows, don't they, that the best music is the most original music, and original music is always unpopular (because people are idiots, or something). This particular chain of reasoning forces some unwelcome conclusions: for example, that JS Bach is the most overrated composer in musical history, and also that all traditional musi details

Classic album is a term that’s used way too much when describing records from the golden era of rock music; of course, one person’s classic album is another’s long-forgotten record, but we think that without fear of contradiction George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass is a CLASSIC album… 45 Years ago, on 19 December it made the Billboard album charts on 19 December 1970 and two weeks later it was No.1.

There’s an old adage in the music business that talks of, ‘the difficult third album’, well this was George’s third solo album and there’s nothing difficult about it, every track is worthy of its place, there’s no filler, just killers… and it was originally released as a triple album when it came out on 27 November 1970. Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone described the sound as "Wagnerian, Brucknerian, the music of mountain tops and vast horizons," and who are we to disagree? Truth is George considered this to be his first solo album proper, having originally released his movie soundtrack, Wonderwall Music and his synthesizer album, Electronic Sound.

The genesis of All Things Must Pass can be said to have begun with George’s visit to America details

He's graced the biggest stages in the world. But Paul McCartney still looks as excited as any regular punter at a hockey game to have his face emblazoned on the big screens. The 73-year-old Beatle cheered as his image was broadcast at the Washington Capitals vs New York Rangers hockey game at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. 

He joined in with the crowd, alongside two of his children - son James, 38, and daughter Mary, 46. Clad in a black blazer and sweater, the music legend looked younger than his years. Photographer Mary was ever on duty - capturing the moment with a snap on her 'phone - as she wore a navy sweater adorned with birds.

She showed the image to the delighted Hey Jude singer. Her youngest son, four-year-old Sid Aboud looked rather bemused by all the fuss as he sat on his mum's knee next to his famous grandfather. Sid - whose father is Mary's director husband Simon Aboud, lives in England with his parents but looked every inch the all-American fan in blue and red team colours, a baseball hat and a giant foam finger.

Musician James, who shares his father's distinctive cherubic looks, wrapped a check scarf around his neck as the siblings joined Paul for the holiday season on NYC, where he details

Choosing to follow Sir Paul McCartney into the music business has not been an easy path for his son James, who is struggling to emulate the success enjoyed by the former Beatle.

Last week James, 38, was met with a mediocre response from customers when he sang and played guitar at a small pub, The Islington, in North London. Only a handful of the audience remained to see the end of his performance and there were certainly no calls for an encore. A blonder, less confident version of Paul, James has found it hard to make his own name in the music business; he finds playing live on stage difficult because of his shyness, and friends say he is constantly aware of living in his father’s shadow.

While his sisters, Stella and Mary, have prospered from their father’s fame, Sir Paul’s only son often refused to tell new friends his surname when he worked as a waiter in Brighton. Like the rest of the family, he is a strict vegan, but has had issues in the past with his weight. James was 19 and an art student when his mother Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer.

He found therapy in playing the guitar and, a month before Linda’s death in 1998, he recorded a track with her, The Light Comes Fro details

Paul McCartney joined Bruce Springsteen for a surprise performance on Saturday Night Live last night (December 19). McCartney joined Springsteen and the rest of the sketch show's cast, including hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, on a cover of 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town'. Earlier in the night Springsteen & The E Street Band performed two songs from the recently released 'The Ties That Bind: The River Collection' box set, 'Meet Me In The City' and 'The Ties That Bind'.

Springsteen recently unveiled plans to mark 1980 album 'The River' during his upcoming 2016 tour. A reissue of the album was released on December 4. The River Tour will see Springsteen touring North America from January to March, kicking things off in Pittsburgh on January 16 and finishing up with two shows in Los Angeles from March 15-17. Springsteen is likely to play 'The River' in full and draw heavily from its recent box set release during the tour. 'The Ties That Bind: The River Collection' features the original album plus unreleased music, unseen concert footage and a new documentary.

The double-album gave Springsteen his first US Number One Record and resulted in an extensive touring period. The third disc presents Springsteen's show wi details