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Beatles News
The jacket worn by Ringo Starr in The Beatles' movie Help! is to be auctioned. Help! was the band's second feature-length film, released in 1965, and spawned the soundtrack album of the same name.
Now, Starr's double-breasted black woolen jacket from the picture is going on sale at Boston-based auction house RR Auctions. The jacket will go on sale later this month, with the auction running from July 16 to July 23.
No estimate has been given for the item's value.
Meanwhile, the auction will also see nearly 500 other items on sale as part of the auction house's Marvels Of Modern Music collection. Additional items include a 1971 letter from The Doors' frontman Jim Morrison and a guitar owned by the Ramones' Johnny Ramone.
By: Luke Morgan Britton
Source: NME
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Unpublished photos of the Beatles are increasingly hard to come by, but Alison Martino found a few taken in Los Angeles to twist and shout about.
My friend Laura Fleming and I were teenagers when we first pored over images of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in her family’s photo albums back in the ‘80s. I remember fixating on a snap of Laura’s mother, Bonnie Cowan Fleming, getting chummy with Paul and members of the band’s entourage at a garden party in Brentwood in 1964. She looked like Gidget in a polka dot dress from Jax boutique in Beverly Hills. Laura and I were so jealous.
Bonnie hadn’t attended that garden party by luck. Laura’s grandfather, Warren Cowan, was the cofounder of Rogers & Cowan, a publicity firm that once counted Hollywood legends like Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, Natalie Wood, and Elizabeth Taylor as clients. The company added the Beatles to that list during the band’s first trip to America.
Decades later—and with a little help from my friends—I’m thrilled to make the Cowan’s family photos and the story behind them public for the first time.
By: Alison Martino
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It’s one of the great dog-themed anthems of rock ’n’ roll, but up until the last minute “Hey Bulldog” was supposed to be about a frog. It was early February 1968, as the Beatles were preparing for their fateful trip to India to meditate with the Maharishi. Pressed for time, and with a commitment for one more song to round out the soundtrack of the “Yellow Submarine” movie, the group decided to bang one out quickly. John Lennon had notes for a song he called “Hey Bullfrog” and brought the idea into the studio. Paul McCartney helped polish it up, and in one of their typical all-night recording sessions the band worked out a bluesy, no-frills arrangement—just the four Beatles playing together, with none of the psychedelic effects that characterized their work of the period.
During the session McCartney began barking to amuse his mates. Lennon got into the spirit of it, and soon the two were ad-libbing a crazed dog-and-master routine during the song’s fadeout. They enjoyed the bit so much they decided to keep it in the final recording. To justify the inclusion of the impromptu horseplay, they simply changed the song’s title from “Hey Bullfrog&rdqu details
One of the most significant moments in Walthamstow history was over in a flash for one young fan as she recalls the day The Beatles came to town.
The Beatles, a mop-topped four piece from Liverpool, were still just on their way to global stardom when they visited the Granada cinema in Hoe Street, Walthamstow on May 24 1963.
The Granada, which could hold almost 3,000 people, had played host to many leading acts of the period including John Coltrane, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly but the excitement was palpable for the arrival of John, Paul, Ringo and George.
Tickets were 7 shillings and a six pence and had 4,000 fans, some queuing for over two days, held back across the road by police as the cinema continued to show films.
In the show with US support from planned headliner Roy Orbison, the band delivered a frantic seven-song set including, Love Me Do, From Me To You, Please Please Me, and crowd favourite Twist And Shout.
Newspaper reports at the time said that 24 girls were treated by the St. John's Ambulance volunteers for hysteria.
By: Barnaby Davis
Source: Guardian
We've already glanced back at the albums that defined 1985 and 1975.
So let's turn back the clocks another decade!
Nineteen hundred and sixty-five was when many of rock's titans began to take off creatively, transitioning from brilliant hit makers into true artists who changed the rulebook as they went along.
This was still in the era when major artists were expected to release an album every 10 months or so, meaning that many artists took not one but two enormous creative leaps in 1965.
First and foremost, of course, was the Fab Four. They began the year with the soundtrack to their whimsical classic, Help!. On Help!, you could hear the first seeds of John Lennon and Paul McCartney staking out their own, equally brilliant musical grounds, with Paul's timeless ballad "Yesterday" and John's world-weary "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away."
On Rubber Soul, they took their taste for boundary-pushing to a new level, dipping into Eastern music for the first time on Lennon's astounding "Norwegian Wood" and psychedelia on the spellbinding "Nowhere Man."
By: Jackson Maxwell
Source: Guitar World
Unpublished photographs of the Beatles taken on their first trip to America in 1964 have gone on show for the first time.
Collector Edward Adams, 55, has picked 20 images from his library of more than 1,000 candid shots of the band by photographer Joe Allen.
They were taken during the first of the Fab Four’s two trips to America in 1964, which sparked Beatlemania across the country.
The collection details how the Beatles — John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Paul McCartney — arrived in New York on February 7 on Pan-Am Flight 101 before playing concerts on the East Coast.
The photographs show the band performing on The Ed Sullivan Show, relaxing on a yacht — lent to them in Miami by furniture tycoon Bernard Castro — and playing in the sea.
They are also pictured meeting Muhammad Ali, then still known as Cassius Clay, at the Fifth Street Gym in Miami where the boxer was training.
Other images show McCartney and Harrison on a train from New York to Washington DC, after their flight was cancelled due to snow, and the band chatting and laughing with female fans.
By: Lizzie Edmonds
Source: Evening Standard
EPSTEIN: THE MAN WHO MADE THE BEATLES is a window into the private world of Brian Epstein, the music entrepreneur whose stellar career as The Beatles' manager made him a household name, yet whose controversial personal life remained the purview of only friends and close business associates.
This two-hander play imagines this brilliant but troubled man's drug-fuelled final days whilst looking back upon his illustrious adult life and meteoric career from his drama school days to managing the world's biggest pop group. Epstein died in 1967 at the age of 32 of an accidental drug overdose.
Epstein first discovered the Beatles in November 1961, during a lunchtime Cavern Club performance. He was instantly impressed, and saw great potential in the group. After being rejected by nearly all major recording companies in London, Epstein secured a meeting with George Martin, head of EMI's Parlophone label. In May 1962, Martin agreed to sign the Beatles, partly because of Epstein's conviction that the group would become internationally famous. In 1997, Paul McCartney said, "If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian."
Source: Broadway World
A number of John Lennon fans and vinyl collectors were irked recently when the copy of his solo album Rock 'N' Roll that was included in a box set was defective. Universal Records has announced intentions to replace all of the faulty copies.
Lennon was released as the first box set to feature all eight of the former Beatle's solo albums in one vinyl collection (not including his work with wife Yoko Ono). Those who jumped right in quickly found that Rock 'N' Roll, his 1975 LP, was flawed. It wasn't just that the disc was damaged but that it had been pressed incorrectly: The track "Sweet Little Sixteen" was played twice on the album, which meant that "You Can't Catch Me" wasn't included at all. Universal Music set up a website for fans to switch-out the faulty version with a working one.
By: Ryan Book
Source: Music Times
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The three strange Lennon-McCartney hits that went to No. 1 without Lennon or McCartney—and what they tell us about the secret to recording a smash.
Fifty-one years ago this summer—in late June 1964—the No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop chart was a Lennon-McCartney composition. Only it wasn’t by the Beatles, and John Lennon had nothing to do with it. It was a Paul McCartney–penned song recorded, and taken to the chart summit, by a British duo named Peter and Gordon, one of whom was McCartney’s would-be brother-in-law.
Seventeen years after that, in late June 1981, the Hot 100’s No. 1 song also sported Lennon-McCartney writing credits. Only neither man had anything to do with this song, a disco medley of covers—mostly Beatles tunes, though not entirely—by a Dutch studio collective calling itself Stars on 45. Lennon and McCartney weren’t even singing on the record; their vocals were covered by a bunch of sound-alike Dutchmen.
The fact that these two singles rank among the only non-Beatles, Lennon-McCartney compositions to top the chart—ever—says something about the quirky place the Fab Four’s catalog holds in the America details
Macca magic touches every stage he steps on – as evidenced at this year’s Roskilde Festival.
TAKING SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY for granted is easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’s the ex-Beatle who will always be an ex-Beatle. But last Saturday’s spectacular at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival rammed home every damn reason for his legendary status. For two hours and 40 minutes of all-time classics delivered with magnificence, this was the beginning and end of music. When something’s this great it can make you wonder if there’s any point seeing another gig, ever.
Of course, sanity returns. There is other music – there has to be. But that doesn’t change the fact that THIS WAS PAUL McCARTNEY! On stage, being PAUL McCARTNEY! Sounding JUST LIKE Paul McCartney! OK, there was some trouble holding the long, high notes in The Long And Winding Road. Nonetheless, at Roskilde, he was all he should be and more.
By: Kieron Tyler
Source: Mojo
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Ringo Starr turned 75 on July 7th, and to celebrate, Paul McCartney has shared with Rolling Stone an exclusive, behind-the-scenes video from this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in Cleveland, where he delivered his fellow Beatle's induction speech. In this four-minute video from before, during and after the April 18th ceremony, fans can follow McCartney from rehearsals to backstage to the ceremony-closing all-star jam and watch as the bassist hangs out with Stevie Wonder, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, Joe Walsh and, of course, Ringo.
In the video, Wonder congratulates Starr on the Rock Hall honor. With McCartney standing beside them, Starr jokes with Wonder that they're considering reuniting the band and asks the "Superstition" singer if he wants to join.
Next, McCartney soundchecks the Beatles' "I Want to Be Your Man" while Armstrong poses for a photo alongside the bassist. After witnessing all the rockers onstage to soundcheck the evening's final all-star jam, it's time for the ceremony (but not before Walsh performs some hilarious antics in a backstage hallway).
By: Daniel Kreps
Source: Rolling Stone
Like his father, the late Beatles guitarist George Harrison, Dhani Harrison is a musician. He made his professional debut on his dad's last studio album, Brainwashed, issued after George's death in 2001. Now 36, Dhani composes film scores and is half of a band, the newno2 – named after a recurring character in the late-Sixties British television show, The Prisoner – with another musical son, Paul Hicks. (His father, Tony, is the founding guitarist of the Hollies.)
Unlike his father, Dhani is – with his mother, Olivia – a caretaker. Since George's passing, Dhani has been active in the archiving and release of his father's solo legacy, including a 2004 box, The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992; a 2012 rarities CD, Early Takes: Volume 1; and the first comprehensive reissue of George's early life away from the Beatles, The Apple Years 1968-1975. The centerpiece of that set – seven CDs with bonus tracks plus a DVD, issued in September – is, of course, the 1970 masterpiece, All Things Must Pass.
But The Apple Years begins with George's initial, eccentric excursions – the 1968 Indo-rock film score, Wonderwall; the '69 Moog holiday, Electronic Sound – and runs through the details
On May 22, 1965, children across England – and maybe some parents, too – finished their afternoon tea and took to the couch to watch the latest episode of the increasingly popular BBC 1 program, Doctor Who. A new storyline was beginning. Over six cliff-hanging episodes, “The Chase” would feature the Doctor and his friends being pursued across space and time by their arch nemeses, the Daleks.
Shaped like pepper pots, the Daleks were mechanical creatures that glided around on unseen wheels, barking out the word “exterminate!” in a nails-on-chalkboard screech and zapping people with electronic rays. They were terrifying and kids loved them. The Daleks had become a phenomenon. There were Dalek toys and books and board games. And, that summer, there would be a big screen Doctor Who and the Daleks movie, starring Peter Cushing as the Doctor. In color!
But, right then, on TV, the picture was still black and white and the Doctor was veteran character actor William Hartnell. The Daleks hadn’t shown up in the story yet and the Doctor – a kindly/crotchety man who looked to be in his early 60s – was in his time and space machine, the TARDIS, enjoying some down time with details
Sir Paul McCartney reviews his songs as he sings them to stop himself becoming emotional.
The legendary musician found fame in band The Beatles in 1960 and has since forged a successful solo career as well as fronting his own group Wings.
His tracks are known for their meaningful lyrics, many of which were inspired by events in his own life. He doesn't let the emotions take over him too much while performing though as he understands his songs are interpreted in various ways.
"I'm really doing them just because they're songs. I mean, when I do Let it Be I'm not thinking about my mum. If there's one thing I know it's that everyone in that audience is thinking something different. And that's 50,000 different thoughts, depending on the capacity of the hall," he explained to British magazine Esquire. "Obviously, when I do Here Today as I do, that is very personal. That is me talking to John [Lennon, Paul's former Beatles bandmate who was killed in 1980]. But as you sing them you review them. So I go, [sings] 'What about the night we cried?' And I'm thinking, 'Oh, yeah: Key West'. We were all drunk. We'd delayed Jacksonville because of a hurricane."
Source: MusicNews.com
Yoko Ono took out a full-page ad in the New York Times on Friday calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reject state permits for a pipeline that would transport gas fracked in Pennsylvania into New York's Southern Tier.
The ad, paid for by the anti-fracking activist, artist and widow of John Lennon, called on Cuomo and President Barack Obama to reject the Constitution pipeline.
“We must stop fracking, which means we must not transport fracked gas across our state where it is headed for foreign export markets,” she wrote. “The danger to our homes is also the danger to the rest of the world, as we continue to harm the climate, the world is watching us.”
In the ad, Ono called the pipeline a “scar that never heals” and said it had an Orwellian name.
Plans call for the Constitution pipeline to become part of a network that will transport natural gas to New England, where governors have called for more capacity amid dramatic price spikes. Federal regulators have already largely signed off on necessary approvals for the pipeline. Some residents who have fought the pipeline running through their land have been taken to court by the developers.
By: Scott Waldman
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