Beatles News

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

A few years ago, Calgary guitar-teacher Brian Griffiths told a student about tearing up the stage with the Beatles in the 1960s.

The student’s mother approached Griffiths months later saying, “You know, I really don’t care – but he still thinks that you actually knew the Beatles…”

Griffiths didn’t correct her, but she underestimated her son’s coach.

Griffiths was the guitarist in The Big Three, one of the most popular bands in England, sharing the stage, a manager and many pints with John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Now, Calgary filmmaker Todd Kipp is turning The Big Three’s untold story into a feature-length documentary called Some Other Guys: The Story of The Big Three.

“I’d never even heard of The Big Three before 2013,” said Kipp. “It’s just mind-blowing, even Rolling Stone Magazine said the Beatles were in their shadow, and they were the best band out there – so how come no one here knows who they are?”

The trio was details

The comic book writer on Beatlemania, Stan Lee and Dr Who - and why every Scouser should move to Indiana

Tim Quinn, a comic-book writer from Crosby, has come full circle.

He has lived in Indiana, worked with members of the Rolling Stones, commissioned work from Stan Lee, drawn for Marvel Comics and created a unique Doctor Who comic strip.

Now back on Merseyside, he is publishing a book of his much-loved work on Doctor Who Magazine, and says that compiling it has taken him back to his childhood on Merseyside when the series started.

He was ten years old when Doctor Who came out in 1963, and in that year he had his first introduction to stardom, courtesy of the Beatles.

“Growing up in Liverpool gave me the belief that things could happen, because we were basically taking over the world.

“It made you realise that the world was your oyster, and with a bit of luck and a bit of talent, anything could happen.”

By Olivia Rudgard

Source: The Liverpool Echo

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The childhood home of Beatles legend Paul McCartney is to be sold at an auction in Liverpool's famous Cavern Club for £150,000

The Liverpool childhood property of Beatles legend Paul McCartney has bought for £150,000 at auction.
The terraced residence in Western Avenue, Speke, was exactly where the musician lived with his mothers and fathers from 1947 until the mid-nineteen fifties.

McCartney's mom Mary labored as a midwife at the time, and the relatives are explained to have been well regarded in the neighborhood.

The sale was held at Liverpool's Cavern Club in which The Beatles usually performed.

Beatles guideline Paul Beesley explained: "This is an significant dwelling due to the fact it's the place Paul expended his formative schoolboy years.

'Lots of interest'
"He was uncovered to audio from an early age and his dad experienced a jazz band. Paul's 1st instrument was the trumpet.

Source: The Beacon Review

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His book gives an insider's account of the tour that changed America

We all love telling a good story, and Ivor Davis has one walrus of a tale to pass on.

Davis had the unique opportunity to travel with The Beatles on their first American tour almost 50 years ago.

“The amazing thing today, when I go anywhere and talk about The Beatles…people are so fascinated with (them)…were talking about kids to people my age,” he says. “Looking back, I didn’t realize, at the time, how incredible this experience was. It took me a long time to appreciate that I had gone through this experience.”

As a young journalist and Hollywood correspondent for one of the largest newspapers in England,The London Daily Express, Davis had no inkling that the six-week assignment covering a fresh British band across the pond would provide a window into a world that has been speculated upon for generations.He spent 24/7 with The Beatles on the whirlwind 1964 tour that has made its way into music history. Many p details

It's a booking that would have been unfathomable before Firefly Music Festival came to Dover in 2012: Paul McCartney is going to perform a nearly three-hour show of Beatles hits in Delaware this summer.

Forty days after the first rumor surfaced online that McCartney would headline Firefly, it became official Wednesday when Sir Paul was named as the last addition to the fest's 110-act lineup.

McCartney will join Kings of Leon and the Killers as the headliners of the fourth edition of the Firefly – one of the fastest growing festivals in the country.

McCartney's official Facebook page posted that the performance – his first in Delaware – will be Friday, June 19. Firefly officials would not confirm the date.

The McCartney announcement came a week after the rest of the 2015 roster was announced.

Stephen Bailey, managing director of programming at The Grand in Wilmington, says it's hard to underestimate the impact of McCartney coming to Kent County.

"Delaware was off limits f details

In their post Beatles careers, each had a day that stands out. Let's take a look at those days, starting with Harrison. 

For George, his big day was August 1, 1971.That was the day of The Concert for Bangladesh. It really started in early 1971, when Harrison was dining with Ravi Shankar. Ravi brought up the problems in Bangladesh. He kept Harrison informed. By Spring, the situation turned desperate. Shankar approached Harrison once again. Harrison's response changed the music industry and helped determine his place in music history and as a humanitarian.

Since the breakup of The Beatles, Harrison was becoming a bigger force as a solo than he was as a Beatle. His solo record "All Things Must Pass" was a huge success. In my opinion, it's the best solo album any of The Beatles have made.

He also did a few live gigs on The Delaney & Bonnie and Friends tour. It helped him form friendships with musicians such as Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Don Preston and Jim Horn. Those relationships were essential to the success of the concert.

By details

Known first as "The Quiet Beatle," George Harrison was a great songwriter who had the misfortune to be surrounded by two stone cold geniuses whose work often obscured his talents. Yet Harrison compositions such as "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" are as good as anything the Beatles ever recorded. And with his solo debut All Things Must Pass, he stepped completely out of the shadows of his Beatle band mates to reveal himself a powerfully spiritual songwriter with an expansive sense of melody. Harrison was also a gifted, fluid guitarist and hugely influential in introducing the Beatles — and, by extension, the entire Sixties generation – to Eastern religion and musical influences. His devotion to Hinduism was expressed publicly through rock and roll's first massive charity event, the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.

Before all that, Harrison was a teen guitarist in thrall to Britain's 1950s skiffle revival — a working class kid with a band called the Rebels. It was Paul McCartney, a schoolmate one year ahead of Harrison, who invited the 15-year-o details