Beatles News

Houston’s Off The Wall Gallery presents an exhibition of the extraordinary artworks of John Lennon.
All artwork is on exhibition and available for acquisition March 26-29. All events are complimentary and open to the public.
Gallery exhibition hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily and noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday.
The exhibition opens on March 26 and continues through March 29.
Scheduled events will feature programming led by Collection Curator, Lynne Clifford, a noted authority on the works of John Lennon. On Saturday, March 26, from noon until 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 29, from noon until 5 p.m., Ms. Clifford will be in the gallery and available to the public; speaking on the exhibited works and providing insight into the history and stories behind the artwork.
In his art, John Lennon, the legendary musician, songwriter, poet, philosopher and artist, delivered a consistent message – peace and love. Art was actually his first love, as he began drawing long before he owned a guitar.

John Lennon’s artwork celebrates human love and comm details

How much does Beatle music - as heard on record - owe to the quartet of performers, how much to George Martin, their recording manager, their arranger, their technical expert, their musical mentor? Are they mere puppets for a “pop” Svengali? Are they really as imaginative musically as they often seem, or is this another instance of the medium being the message?

After all the highbrow hot-air that has been breathed about the Beatles phenomenon, it is refreshing to have George Martin’s own view. He talks very much as a practical musician, not in generalities but specifically of his own part in the Beatles’ success. When he first met them - they were then doing arrangements of such songs as “Over the Rainbow” and Fats Waller’s “Your Feet’s Too Big” he found that “their own compositions weren’t very good at all.” They would come to him with a song, which consisted simply of a conventional chorus. “They’d be puzzled how to begin the thing, how to end the thing details

The Beatles' legacy is a monster of perfection and curiosity. Their records have become the go-to blueprint for commercial pop music—but there was also a slyly subversive, at times blatant, rejection of the mainstream in favor of something far more heady and difficult. Nevertheless, they became the saviors of pop music in the '60s, a band who could put out singles and stay in the upper reaches of the charts but who also weren't limited by any set musical guidelines. They could cover classic pop tunes from the '50s and then turn around and plaster their songs with gallons of psychedelic ephemera. They were The Beatles, and that was all people cared about.

The story of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr has been memorialized in practically every way, from films to records to a slew of biographies. And with each retelling, we get a little closer and a little further from the truth. This history is constantly shifting with explanations, insight and assumptions that have become commonplace—with the necessity of details

The Beatles are considered by many to be the greatest band of all time. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of their songs are well known by the general public, even though some people around and in this day and age do not know who Paul McCartney is. As it happens with the great groups who produce music of the highest quality, some true gems slip through the cracks. Here are five of those.

5. "I Will"

In 1968, all four members of The Beatles traveled to India for a spiritual retreat. While there, the inspiration bug, leading them to write most of the White Album, hit them. "I Will" was one of the songs written there, and given the vastness and the wide popularity of many of the tunes on the album, it is not surprising that this one is often forgotten.

"I Will" may very well be the sweetest, most beautiful, lightest, and optimistic love song Paul McCartney has ever written. One could say the song is a love letter, divided into four verses. In the first one, McCartney declares that he would be willing to wait as long as need be for the person he details

A week and a half ago, I published a blog post titled "5 Underrated Beatles Songs That You Should Get to Know". Originally, it was going to contain 10 songs in total, but it got too wordy towards the end. Therefore, in this second part, I would like to share five other songs that the casual fan may not know or remember, from the Beatles' vast and popular catalogue.

5. I've Just Seen a Face

Out of all the songs on this list, this is quite likely the one most likely to be recognized, as Paul McCartney, its main songwriter, has taken to performing it live throughout his career, bringing more recognition to the tune. It was also mentioned in the 2012 film Stuck in Love, starring Jennifer Connelly and Greg Kinnear.

Recorded in June 1965 as part of the Help! album sessions, the track is one of a few songs by the Beatles that does not have a bass line. The song's instrumental part is quite catchy, but its true treasure is in the lyrics.

Most love songs one will hear are related to the loss of love or an unrequited one. With "I' details

Andrew Grant Jackson wasn’t even born in 1965, but in his new book, he does a credible impression of a baby-boomer author with firsthand experience of that year’s revolutionary music. Jackson, whose two previous books focused on the Beatles, considers 1965 to be “the most groundbreaking twelve months in music history”. “It was”, he writes, “the year rock and roll evolved into the premier art form of its time and accelerated the drive for personal liberty throughout the Western world.”

As that quote demonstrates, Jackson’s focus isn’t solely on music qua music, but also as a marker of and force for social change. Throughout the book, he contextualizes the astonishing surge of musical creativity and innovation during the mid-‘60s, making connections to the rise of youth culture, to the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, to the emergence of “second wave” feminism and gay liberation. The music, whether rock, R&B and soul, jazz or country, was formally inventive and it “expressed pow details

A new study is being carried out between Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Liverpool to find out definitively what the legacy of the Beatles is worth to Liverpool. There will be in-depth research into the current Beatles offer, its value in monetary terms to the city, any gaps in the tourism offer and what the potential value of the Beatles could be if these gaps were filled.

The report will also study the other benefits of being linked to the Beatles ‘brand’, and what impact this has on the global reputation of the city. The research will involve stakeholders including tourist attraction operators, music industry experts and members of the public.

Liverpool City Council’s cabinet member for culture, tourism and events, Councillor Wendy Simon, said: “Talk to anyone in or outside of the city about Liverpool and its history and you can guarantee the Fab Four will get a mention.

“We know that the Beatles are a massive pull in terms of tourists, but we don’t know exactly what this translates to in terms of financial details

Jim Irsay explains why he paid half a million dollars for the iconic instrument.

Last November, John Lennon's Gretsch guitar, the instrument the rock legend used to record the Beatles' 1966 classic "Paperback Writer," hit the auction block, with TracksAuction, the company selling the instrument, calling it "the most significant of John's guitars to come onto the market in the last 30 years." Lennon's cousin, David Birch, had owned the instrument since 1967, but pulled the iconic guitar from auction after it failed to reach its $600,000 reserve.

It was hardly the end of the story, though. For months before and after the auction, Chris McKinney, the guitar curator for Indianapolis Colts owner and collector Jim Irsay, had been in contact with Birch, hoping to avoid the auction and buy the guitar directly on behalf of Irsay. When the instrument didn't sell at auction, Irsay paid $530,000 for the Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins hollow body.

Lennon guitar used on 'Paperback Writer' and other sessions with the Beatles is a significant piece of history," Irsay t details

It isn’t Strawberry Fields.

But outside The Barrymore Hotel in downtown Tampa, John Lennon stands wearing a sport coat, long hair and his signature eyeglasses.

Steve and Cathy Ferguson walked around the corner at The Barrymore Hotel recently and spotted the life-size statue of Lennon. The couple and their friends couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take some selfies.

“We’ve been a lot of places and seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen just a random Beatles’ statue or one of the Beatles standing in front of a hotel somewhere,” said Steve Ferguson, who was visiting from Virginia with his wife before getting on a cruise ship.

“When you came around the corner and you saw it, it just drew you right to it,” Cathy Ferguson said. “It was almost like he was going to talk to you. That was the kind of feeling.’’

Most Tampa residents haven’t yet seen the statue of one of the world’s most celebrated musicians, though it has been displayed outside the hotel, across the details

They are extraordinary pictures of the Beatles in their heyday, images never published before. 

And, it is claimed, these photographs reveal for the first time a bombshell moment in the band’s history that has left Beatles experts baffled.

It is 1968 and John Lennon coolly stares into the camera. Alongside him, George Harrison has in his shirt pocket a resignation letter from Paul McCartney – apparently written a full two years before he would eventually quit.

That is the claim of Michael Herring, who took the pictures as a 19-year-old art student during a magical day other Beatles fans could only dream about.

Mr Herring says he took these intimate pictures of the Beatles after turning up uninvited on John’s doorstep, later sharing a car ride with him to George Harrison’s house to details

Albert Maysles was the least judgmental of documentary filmmakers, which is one compelling reason that Gimme Shelter holds up as the greatest of rock docs, 45 years after its release. The objective eye that he and his collaborator brother brought to the filming of the Rolling Stones at a critical juncture in their history let viewers fill in their own blanks about whether the tragedy at Altamont represented “the end of the 1960s,” as often proposed, or just a gig gone wrong; about whether the Stones were satanic majesties destined to be the soundtrack to very bad deeds, or could be just as baffled in the face of larger forces as any of us. The Maysles brothers’ dispassion, in the face of rock ‘n’ roll legends who would intimidate just about any other filmmakers, was something you could get passionate about.

Albert Maysles died Thursday at 88, having survived by decades his brother, David, who passed away in 1988. In recent years, Albert had directed or co-directed several music-related films comm details

An Outaouais man has stumbled upon negatives of the John Lennon and Yoko Ono bed-in at Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel in 1969.

John Urban was searching last month for an old negative of a snow sculpture when he came across images of the famous week-long Montreal bed-in that he had never seen before.

"I was pleasantly surprised," he said. "It made my day."Urban initially thought his former roommate Frank Antonsen borrowed his camera to take the shots, and then left the roll in by mistake. But Antonsen told CBC News that though he was at the bed-in as a journalist, he only brought a tape recorder — not a camera. He said it's possible the photographer who went with him, Nathan Wolkowitz, took the photos but he has since died.

"It was a 36-exposure roll," Urban said. 

"I look at these and say, I'd better put them on the scanner and blow them up cause I've never seen them before."

Urban has lived in Brennan's Hill, Que., about 5 details

Louise Harrison says she was more than just a big sister to The Beatles’ George Harrison. She almost was like his second mother.

“I was 11 years old when he was born,” says Harrison, 83, of San Diego. “So I was kind of like a younger mum to him!

“I would look after him, and I’d help him learn how to walk and to talk. And (when he got older and became famous) it was still very much of a supportive relationship.”

Now Harrison’s brother is gone, and she’s found herself continuing that same kind of motherly relationship with a George Harrison impersonator and three other guys in a Beatles tribute band. The Liverpool Legends performs Tuesday at Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall.

Harrison hates using the word “manager” to describe her relationship with The Liverpool Legends — although she admits that that’s exactly what she is.

She prefers another title.

“I’m the mum!” she says and laughs. “I guess it&rs details

'Who was the most important photographer covering the sixties' rock and roll music scene? I can think of no one else whose work was so comprehensive and who captured the essence better than Linda,' Paul McCartney writes about his wife who died tragically of breast cancer at 56.

Paul McCartney remembers his adored wife who died in 1998 with portraits from this family album he states is a testament to her artistic talent.

Linda's passion for music inspired her to work independently and she amassed a major portfolio of photographs of rock musicians from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Linda Eastman McCartney was born in New York City in 1941 and raised in suburban Westchester County.

She was not related to the George Eastman family of Eastman Kodak fame. Rather, her father, Leopold Vail Epstein, was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants and had change details

The Beatles were a constant, compelling presence in the lives of baby boomers for six years between 1964 and 1970. First generation fans, as young as 6 and up through high school and college age, were not only intrigued by the non-stop flow of dazzling new music, images and ideas the Beatles presented; they were also intrigued by the Beatles as people, and boomers emulated the Fab Four in a variety of ways.

Immediately, young people saw the Beatles' hair as a symbol of freedom, and boys began finagling longer intervals between haircuts. Millions begged their parents for Beatle boots or saved their allowance or chore money to buy a pair. Then there were polka dot shirts, Nehru shirts and round wire glasses. The desert boots George wore on the cover of Abbey Road were de rigueur for cool high school boys in the fall of '69. And when trying to understand and take a position on the war in Vietnam, some boomers came to oppose the war because "cool people like the Beatles were against it."

The Beatles inspired details