Beatles News

Sony Corp. won a U.K. court ruling blocking a documentary-maker from showing a movie about the Beatles’ first concert in the U.S.

The film by WPMC Ltd. about the 1964 performance in Washington called “The Beatles: The Lost Concert,” infringed Sony’s copyrights in the U.K. and the U.S., according to a ruling in London Wednesday. Sony owns the worldwide copyrights to eight songs in the concert, including “From Me to You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” Judge Richard Arnold said.

The concert, shown in cinemas and theaters across America as part of a 90-minute package with performances by the Beach Boys and Lesley Gore, took place a few months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and helped spark “Beatlemania” in the U.S. What happened to the master tapes after the show “is unclear,” Arnold said.

The songs “are reproduced in their entirety; the extent of the reproduction is excessive having regard to the transformative purpose; and the permit such use would likely damage the market for, or potential value of,” the songs, Arnold said in the ruling.

Calls to Sony and lawyers for the company and WPMC were details

It’s a familiar story, at least as old as I am: across America’s public schools, arts education programs have been slashed as a cost saving measure, leaving private systems and non-profits to fill in the gaps. In my estimation, one non-profit happens to be filling in that gap rather well, doing so in a way that benefits students, teachers, schools, and the private sector all at the same time.

This program is called, quite simply, the Lennon Bus; think of it as a highly technical realization of Partridge Family values: essentially a recording studio on wheels (though these days, it’s much more than that), the Lennon Bus tours the country, making appearances in school districts and after-school programs—many of them severely impoverished.

More than an arts/engineering intensive, the Lennon Bus aims to teach children the importance of team work, focus, discipline, and goal-based learning—and they do all of this by means of a technologically up-to-date multimedia facility. The Lennon Bus also seeks to demonstrate just how valuable such student programs can be to school administrators; having shown off its wares, the Lennon Bus often proceeds to facilitate the donation of the necessary e details

When recounting their experience, anyone who has ever had the pleasure of interviewing Sir Paul McCartney will reveal the one agonising thought that whirled through their mind as they began their preparations: where do I start?

The life and career of a musician so vital that he stands as a pillar in the foundations of rock and roll is naturally so expansive, so prolific and so unique that finding one point in thousands from which to launch a line of questioning can drive you crazy. Of course, that's only half the battle: once you've found your flow, and the research throws up an endless list of questions, where do you stop?

For his 2007 cover story with Clash Magazine, I arrived at my first interview with Paul clutching six sheets of A4 paper and enough questions to fill both sides of each (and that was after some furious self-editing), eager to satisfy a lifetime's curiosity, and squeeze into our conversation and the allotted time the kind of answers any superfan - like myself - would cherish, because who knew if or when this opportunity would ever arise again. We'd begin, of course, by talking about his new album, 'Memory Almost Full', but from there, our direction was unmapped and the landscape vast.

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In 1973, John Lennon was sued by an American music mogul for the claimed theft of lyrics written by rock and roll legend Chuck Berry. The case was settled out of the court but it turns out the Beatle was not the only member of his family to be accused of being light fingered.

Historic records which go online today for the first time show that a century before John Lennon’s unwelcome brush with the law, his great uncle was busy embarking on a life of prolific crime to make ends meet in Victorian Liverpool.

The documents detailing William Lennon’s criminal career, which started in 1876 with the theft of 11 coats and four pairs of trousers before eventually graduating to counterfeiting coins, are part of 1.9 million legal and criminal records held by the National Archives now available on the internet.

The vast database details the nefarious activities of hundreds of thousands of Britons over 157 years until 1936, as well as chronicling the lives of some of the justice system’s more notorious enforcers, including the man reputed to be Britain’s longest-serving hangman.

By: Cahal Milmo

Source: The Independent

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After collaborating with the likes of Kanye West and Rihanna, Paul McCartney is continuing to work with a younger generation of influential artists. This time around he's teamed up with Lady Gaga and Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready for the soundtrack to a new animated feature he's producing titled High in the Clouds. The film is based off the children's book McCartney co-authored in 2005, and Macca will also voice one of the film's characters, Deadline reports.

Gaga hinted at the collaboration back in February, saying she was working in the studio with McCartney on an unspecified project.

"Had a beautiful session with Sir Paul McCartney and friends. Working on one of his many secret projects! Killer musicians, vibe, and lots of laughs," Gaga captioned a photo on Instagram of herself alongside McCartney, McCready and a room full of instrumentalists. "Always a good time with my buddy. I'll never forget when he called me last year to work and I hung up the phone cuz I thought it was a prank!"

By: Caitlin Carter

Source: Music Times

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All My Loving Review | Dir. Tony Palmer

“We met over a great deal of brown rice and he said, 'you have a duty’”, director Tony Palmer explains about an early encounter with The Beatles star, John Lennon, and so the blossoming of All My Loving began.

A film about pop in 1968, initially to be aired on the BBC after the epilog, hit London cinema screens again recently. “Everyone demands the existence of heroes...here in Liverpool were born four heroes, The Beatles”, an amusing Pathé news voice states. Offering conflicting views from within the industry, “If it sells, who cares” declares Eddie Rogers of Tin Pan Alley, while The Who’s Pete Townsend argues, “It's crucial it (pop music) should remain as art.” These stand points show that this doc is still tackling focal issues within the music industry some 40 years after it’s making, perhaps Paul McCartney's insight that “Pop music is the classical music of now”, is still relevant.

To say this is only the second film made by Palmer, it is an achievement, though you could be completely forgiven for thinking that it doesn’t do what it says on the tin. Less a documentary ab details

Collection of nonsense rhymes will be heard in full for the first time, 35 years after the former Beatle’s death.

Thirty-five years after his death, the first unabridged performance of John Lennon’s nonsense poetry will take place at the Edinburgh festival fringe after a crowdfunding campaign reached its target.

Backed by the musician’s widow, Yoko Ono, who said she might travel to Scotland to see the production later this summer, the new adaptation is the first time In His Own Write – Lennon’s wordplay-obsessed collection of nonsense rhymes and drawings – will have been performed since Lennon read extracts of it on television in 1964.

Baldynoggin Productions has cast three actors for the show, including director Jonathan Glew, who was responsible for getting permission to use In His Own Write from the Lennon estate. The estate, run by Ono, is notoriously careful about granting access to any of the Beatle’s works.

“I basically spent a week writing the best letter of my life,” Glew told the Financial Times. He said he had decided to go to the free fringe – where production companies are not charged for venue rental, provided they offer fr details

In his signature song for a little pop group from Liverpool, England, Ringo Starr warbled "I get by with a little help from my friends."

Well, those friends better be proficient in iCal and multitask scheduling because the diminutive Billy Shears is a little busy these days.

Starr, recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist (the last Beatle to be so honored), has released a new CD, "Postcards From Paradise." He's the face of both a new ad campaign for Skechers and his own #PeaceRocks social media movement. And he's headed back to the concert trail this fall with the latest version of the All Starr Band.

Did we mention that he turns 75 on July 7? And that he has, thanks to an insanely healthy lifestyle, plenty of boundless energy (as Houstonians saw firsthand last year during his gig at The Woodlands) and only a slightly higher body-fat percentage than, say, Gollum.

In the first major biography of the "funny Beatle" in nearly a quarter century, Michael Seth Starr (no relation) charts the life and career of the man born Richard Starkey.

The book separates Starr's life into three parts: pre-Beatles, Beatles and Post-Beatles. Readers learn that growing up, Starr - details

Sean Lennon recently gave an exclusive interview to the Humanity, the biannual publication of denim brand Citizens of Humanity, where discussed his inspirations (perhaps unsurprisingly, his famous parents John Lennon and Yoko Ono rank high on the list), his favorite Beatles songs, and what he thinks about Kanye West working alongside his father's former collaborator, Paul McCartney.

Lennon attributes his first musical efforts to the work of his prodigious father, but not in the way you might think -- “It’s not like I had the Beatles hanging out jamming in my house," he says. "When he died," he tells Humanity, "I remember feeling like there was sort of a vacuum that had been left. I used to just try to play the piano to connect with my idea of what I thought he was, being a musician and stuff. I think at first my inspiration came from just wanting to find some connection to my dad."

His mother, Yoko Ono, is equally inspiring as a musical collaborator. “She’s incredible in terms of her lyrical capability," he tells the magazine. "I mean she’ll write like 3 or 4 songs a day in the studio. That makes it really fun, so often we’ll make it up as we go along.” Lennon's favorite details

This week’s edition of Deep Beatles could be retitled “A Tale of Multiple Mixes.”

Originally intended for the Hard Day’s Night soundtrack, the Beatles’ “I Call Your Name” stands out for its cowbell-led percussion, unusual musical structure, and distinctive guitar solo. While omitted from the album due to its slight similarity to “You Can’t Do That” (chiefly its cowbell), “I Call Your Name” resurfaced on the Beatles’ 1964 UK EP Long Tall Sally and the U.S. Capitol release The Beatles’ Second Album. Today, it can be found on the Past Masters compilation.

John Lennon had been hanging on to “I Call Your Name” since the Beatles’ pre-Hamburg days, according to a 1980 Playboy interview. “That was my song. When there was no Beatles and no group, I just had it around,” he said. “It was my effort as a kind of blues originally, and then I wrote the middle-eight just to stick it in the album when it came out years later. The first part had been written before Hamburg even. It was one of my ‘first’ attempts at a song.” In a 1994 interview, Paul McCartney recalled helping Lennon revise the details

Yoko Ono is a towering figure in the twentieth-century art and music worlds. She was one of the main artists behind the Fluxus movement, and her performance and visual art and sound experiments had made her famous before she ever met her future husband, John Lennon of The Beatles. Lennon was a visual artist as well as a musician; his simple, spare and playful art was as accessible as any of his music and imbued with a similarly unique creative vision. Ono is now exhibiting some of Lennon's visual art at various art galleries around the country, including Fascination Street Fine Art, where special prints are for sale. We recently spoke with Ono about her late husband's artwork, its populist sensibility and the importance of giving.

Westword: You're displaying the art of John Lennon around the country. As someone who was involved in the avant-garde art world early on, including being part of the Fluxus movement, how would you say that John's work fits in with the history of art?

Yoko Ono: One day, a long, long time from now, maybe [it will fit in with the history of art]. Things go very fast, so I don't know when that's going to be. But I think John's work will be very highly rated because not one artist I see in details

Paul McCartney had been on the road for nearly a year when his Flowers in the Dirt tour finally touched down in Liverpool on June 28th, 1990. This was a special night since McCartney had been completely off the road since the final Wings trek in 1979, and this was his first show that centered around Beatles tunes. A humongous crowd showed up at King's Dock to watch the local hero and cameras were rolling for a television special.

The year also marked the 50th anniversary of John Lennon's birth, and McCartney wanted to do something memorable at the show to mark the occasion. "So much gets said about me and John," he said at the time. "And we had barneys [British slang for fights], plenty of barneys. I like the idea of putting that to rest by playing a small tribute to to him." 

He pulled that off by performing a long medley that incorporated "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Help!" and "Give Peace a Chance." It was the first time he'd ever played those songs live, and he picked them since they were quintessential Lennon tunes. "To me, 'Give Peace a Chance' is one of John's big statements to the world," McCartney said. "I'm not trying to make a saint out of him, but the Vietnam War was bought to a close by a mill details

When your band features a Beatle (George Harrison), a Heartbreaker (Tom Petty), The Bard (Bob Dylan), The Voice (Roy Orbison) and The Sound (Jeff Lynne), you're gonna be a pretty impressive outfit.

What's your favorite supergroup? There are plenty to choose from, to be sure.

Cream. Blind Faith. Derek and the Dominos. (OK, enough of the Eric Clapton groups.)

And there's Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The Highwaymen. Damn Yankees. Mad Season. Chickenfoot. Them Crooked Vultures. Velvet Revolver. Those are just the ones I can think of. There are certainly more.

My favorite? No question. The Traveling Wilburys.

When your band features a Beatle (George Harrison), a Heartbreaker (Tom Petty), The Bard (Bob Dylan), The Voice (Roy Orbison) and The Sound (Jeff Lynne), you're gonna be a pretty impressive outfit. If you've never heard the music of the Traveling Wilburys, take a few minutes and spend some time on YouTube. (I won't tell your bosses, colleagues or family members ... go ahead.) Let me know when you're done.

By: Chris Shields

Source: St. Cloud Times

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Global Beatles Day was founded, not with commercial purposes, but to commemorate their music and celebrate them collectively and individually. Even further tan Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison's magical tunes, The Beatles were huge on promoting peace and love, truth and youth, and most of all, the expansion of human consciousness. They explored the expansion of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, until they innovated and found new ways to make music. GBD is celebrated on June 25th because the hit song “All you need is love” was performed by The Beatles on the BBC produced program, Our World, on that same day in 1967.

In order to celebrate the four musicians, we’ve compiled a series of their greatest quotes; some of which made it into their song lyrics, and some others just went down in history.

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” – John Lennon

“And, in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.” – Paul McCartney

“It's all in the mind.” – George Harrison

“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” – John Lennon

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Perhaps the most surprising thing about Paul McCartney’s recent collaborations with rap superstar Kanye West — apart from the fact that Paul McCartney actually collaborated with Kanye West — is how dominant the former Beatle is on each song.

Though it’s coated with auto-tune and sung by West, “Only One” is the kind of crackling oddball that would sit right at home on 1980’s weird but sincere McCartney II, its punch-drunk keys and effects dropping out intermittently to reinforce West’s intense love for his young daughter and late mother.

“FourFiveSeconds” is sung largely by R&B hitmaker Rihanna. Its words are an ode to club-life catharses — “I think I’ve had enough/ I might get a little drunk/ I say what’s on my mind/ I might do a little time” — and it leans heavily on Rihanna’s serpentine croon and West’s earnest speak-singing. But the bright jangle of McCartney’s acoustic guitar and the ebullient lilt of the song’s infectious chorus recall the underrated joys of 1971’s Ram.

Following the December release of “Only One,” a shower of uninformed Twitter users reacted details