Beatles News

It’s been 55 since the Beatles split up, but a show that’s coming to Guildford in September could possibly be the next best thing to hearing them perform.

An audience at G Live will hear all 30 songs from the “White Album” played by a Canadian touring company just as they sound on the record, note for note.

The “White Album” – officially titled simply The Beatles – must surely be one of the most diverse music projects of all time, containing styles as varied as folk, country rock, blues, old time music hall, hard rock, psychedelia and avant-garde. So this performance by Classic Albums Live could be the ultimate Beatles challenge.

Craig Martin – “We pay the album the ultimate respect” 

CAL is no tribute band in the usual sense. Their founder, Craig Martin, says: “The concept take is simple: perform classic albums exactly the way they were recorded – note for note, cut for cut, as the original artists intended it to be. No gimmicks, just pure musical excellence.”

From that first few seconds when you hear the rushing sound of a jet coming in to land (in the opening track, Back in the USSR) the audience i details

“What goes on tour, stays on tour” goes the old adage, yet for Paul McCartney on January 16th 1980, some secret ‘sustenance’ for Wings' long-anticipated Japanese tour became global news as the beloved ex-Beatle was locked up for a staggering nine days when a sizeable bag of marijuana was found on his possession.

To confound matters even further, Paul’s 7.7 ounce (219 gram) bag of fresh Hawaiian cannabis wasn’t even hidden. It had been naively stuffed within within his carry-on luggage alongside clothes and other essentials. Seemingly, without a hint of subtlety.

As Paul and his wife (and bandmate) Linda passed through security at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, a diligent customs officer opted to be as thorough with his screening of the incoming music legend as he had been with the rest of the new arrivals.

After all, Paul had form.

Having been arrested in Sweden in 1972 and at his home in Scotland the same year for pot-related offences (possessing it, and growing it respectively), simply getting permission to come to the hyper-stringent Japan had been something of a legal hoop-jump, as the country’s rigid laws had zero tolerance for drugs of details

 Why Moon wanted to join The Beatles as a drummer has nothing to do with jealousy, but more to do with admiration. Moon had always been a fan, a friend, and an occasional collaborator who even offered backup vocals in their track “All You Need Is Love,” long before The Beatles’ breakup. As iconic and essential to rock music as Moon is, he would have never fit in with The Beatles.

The Beatles and The Who, although friendly, were also compared to each other by music fans. Both bands were on a trajectory to greatness, as The Who climbed the charts and England and worldwide descended into Beatlemania. However, while tension was well and truly alive in The Beatles, something even more violent was occurring in The Who.

Internal conflicts rocked his relationship with the band, and Moon grew frustrated with it, especially after he chased fellow member Pete Townshend with a knife. Moon was dealing with drug use during his time as a drummer in The Who, which contributed to the tension. Things came to a head when Roger Daltrey flushed his drugs down the toilet, prompting him to search for other bands to join.
Paul McCartney Turned Down Keith Moon’s Preposition

When Moon details

John Lennon's friend Elliot Mintz said the star was "insanely jealous" of Paul McCartney's success with Wings in the 1970s. Lennon stepped out of the spotlight in 1975 to raise his son Sean. Mintz appeared on Billy Corgan's The Magnificent Others podcast

After the Beatles broke up in 1970, its chief songwriters Paul McCartney and John Lennon experienced different levels of solo success — something that irked Lennon in the years before his tragic death, according to a friend.

Lennon’s longtime friend and confidante Elliot Mintz appeared on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast on Wednesday, July 30, and opened up about the “Imagine” singer’s complicated feelings toward McCartney in the 1970s.

After the Beatles went their separate ways, McCartney, 83, formed the band Wings, and saw commercial and critical success with hits like “Jet” and the chart-topper “Listen to What the Man Said.”

Lennon, meanwhile, released a number of solo albums, but stepped out of the spotlight in 1975 to focus on raising his son Sean, whom he shared with wife Yoko Ono.

“He spoke so lovingly of Paul. But then when John was not making any details

Ringo Starr is considered one of the most amicable Beatles. He was more or less left out of the three-way fight his former bandmates were entangled in towards the end of their career. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have opinions on the way things soured. One nasty conversation with Paul McCartney in the middle of their breakup had Starr throwing the gloves off. Though his bandmates said much worse to each other, learn more about the surprising jab Starr gave McCartney in one of his solo pursuits. A Fight Between Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney Led to an Insult-Filled Song.

Though Starr has a reputation for being sweet and sympathetic, that didn’t mean he was immune to the fighting. The end of the Beatles’ career was marked by numerous issues. That kind of thing would weigh on anyone, even the middleman.

While the band was in conversations to end things (the legal part of their partnership, anyway), Starr went to see McCartney, who had all but given up on the band’s future. McCartney, believing that Starr had been sent by the rest of his bandmates and label figureheads, let his anger get the better of him.

“Ringo came to see me,” McCartney once recalled. &ldq details

 The director of the Cavern Club, the Liverpool nightclub described as the birthplace of The Beatles, says the venue "has to focus" on younger fans ahead of the city's annual International Beatleweek later this month.

Jon Keats told BBC Radio Merseyside "younger fans luckily are attending the festival more and more every year, which is important".

He said: "That's a big thing that we have to focus on and that is happening because younger people are finding The Beatles for themselves."

"At the heart of everything, it's about the music, it's all the emotions those four musicians left us," he added.

The week-long festival, which celebrates the legacy of the Beatles, begins on 20 August.

Source: bbc.com

In 1969, Paul McCartney wed Linda Eastman and adopted her daughter, Heather Louise, from a previous marriage.
The former Beatle and Eastman welcomed three more children together between 1969 and 1977: daughters Mary Anna and Stella Nina and son James Louis.  McCartney shares his youngest daughter, Beatrice Milly, with ex-wife Heather Mills. The couple welcomed Beatrice in 2003.

Paul McCartney might be a music icon to the world, but at home, he’s just dad. The former Beatles legend has five children: Heather, Mary, Stella, James, and Beatrice.

The singer-songwriter married his first wife, Linda Eastman, in March 1969. McCartney adopted Eastman’s daughter from a previous marriage, Heather, the same year. Over the course of their nearly 30 year marriage, the couple welcomed three more children together: daughters Mary and Stella and son James.

Eastman died of breast cancer in 1998, with her four children and McCartney by her side, People reported. “Any love song I write is written for Linda,” the musician had told People the year before. 

In 2002, he married model Heather Mills. The couple welcomed their only child, a daughter named Beatrice, in 2003. Mil details

On the morning of December 9, 1980, Paul McCartney received the devastating news of the death of John Lennon hours earlier at New York City’s Roosevelt Hospital. The ex-Beatle had been shot and killed just outside of his apartment in The Dakota just before 11 pm the previous evening. And while the global impact of Lennon’s death was immense, it paled in comparison to the painful shockwaves it sent through his closest associates, relatives, and friends.

Because many of those associates, relatives, and friends were just as famous as Lennon, the press flocked to the musician’s survivors to hear comments on how they were processing the violent tragedy. Years later, McCartney reflected on how the media twisted his shell-shocked reaction in the days and weeks that followed. 

The Beatles’ sheer gravitas and celebrity make it easier to forget that they were normal people, albeit famous ones, too. To receive a call about the death of your best friend, particularly one with whom you were not on good terms at the time, would be life-shattering for anyone. For a musical icon like Paul McCartney, it certainly was life-shattering. It was also glaringly, uncomfortably public.

Speaking about details

As part of a covers album made in tribute to the very best of the Fab Four’s music, longtime producer George Martin assembled some of the biggest names for fourteen songs. Each of the songs featured on In My Life had originally been produced by Martin with the band. Features from Céline Dion to Phil Collins gave the album some contemporary features from some of the biggest names around, but there were also some surprising additions made by Hollywood stars Sean Connery and Robin Williams. A comedian who featured on the album is the standout moment for fans, though, with Jim Carrey and his version of I Am the Walrus hailed by listeners as one of the best covers around.

One fan praised The Mask and Sonic the Hedgehog star in a post to the r/Music subreddit, writing: “Wow, he’s good. You can tell he put a ton of work into that, and wanted to do it right.”

Another added: “Holy shit, he actually sings rather well.” A third wrote: “Wow. Mind Blown. I wasn’t expecting that whatsoever.” Other listeners were left enjoying the Carrey cover more than the original version of the song, which went on to be covered by Oasis during several of their tours.

Sourc details

The Beatles’ music and their ability to elicit intense emotional reactions from their audience go hand in hand when defining their cultural legacy, but one of the biggest controversies the band ever faced (thanks in no small part to John Lennon) had the potential to derail their career entirely by alienating their U.S. audience.

Of course, in the end, not even the staunchest of American critics could hold back the massive tidal wave of Beatlemania that crashed into countries around the world throughout the 1960s.  John Lennon’s Words Came Back To Haunt Him In 1966

When Maureen Cleave first published her interview with John Lennon in the Evening Standard, few Brits batted an eyelash when reading the Beatle’s cheeky comments about the guitarist’s home life, the gorilla suit he bought for a band prank that only he participated in, and, of course, his dry commentary about the Beatles versus Jesus Christ. At a time when Lennon and the rest of the band were heavily investing in Eastern philosophy, practices, and perspectives, he waxed cynical about religion.

“Christianity will go,” he told Cleave. “It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that. details

We often think about the Beatles’ infamous breakup within the context of the music and cultural movements they were promoting throughout the 1960s, but the ramifications of that split went far beyond the music charts or trends of the day and deep into the center of the lives of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. These men weren’t just losing bandmates. They were growing apart from the friends they had since they were in their formative late teens and early 20s.

During a 2016 special edition of BBC Radio 4 Mastertapes, McCartney talked about the emotional impact of splitting up the Fab Four—an experience he likened to a popular barbershop song from 1929.  

By the time the Beatles officially split up, tensions were so high that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume they couldn’t wait to get as far away from each other as possible. But as every ex-Beatle attested after the split, the business dealings and creative disagreements became too much for the band to bear. After less than a decade together, the Liverpudlian quartet broke up and began going their separate ways personally and musically.

Paul McCartney had no qualms about admitting th details

As any band that has parted ways and continued solo will tell you, it’s impossible not to be compared to your former bandmates. Even in the most amicable of situations, it’s always a competition to see who can come out on top. The Beatles suffered these kinds of comparisons after they parted ways. While most of them took it in stride, John Lennon was personally offended after being compared to one of his Beatles bandmates. Find out which one below.

If we had to compare the solo careers of two former Beatles, the easiest connection would be Lennon and George Harrison. They both had something to say with their music that extended far beyond the typical love song or ode to heartbreak. They were both free thinkers who had no problem alienating listeners who were less so.

However, if you dissect what both Lennon and Harrison were saying with their music, you’ll find two people on opposite sides of a religious battle. Though they both penned songs about more than just faith, their opposing views in this arena summarize their differences—differences Lennon wanted people not to miss.

Lennon was markedly anti-faith. He wrote many songs about his disillusionment with religion. Harrison, how details

There is no denying that the Beatles are one of the world's most iconic bands in music history — having a heavy influence on wide-ranging aspects of peoples' lives since they formed back in 1960. In 1964, they first set foot in America, and Beatlemania took over the world, which is documented in the 2024 film Beatles '64 — and will soon be detailed on the big screen too, in FOUR new Beatles movies!

During their 10-year reign, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr made a huge cultural impact with their influences on music, fashion and even film. In 2023, the band released their 'final' song, 'Now and Then', which became their 18th Number 1 after 54 years and in 2025, they won Best Rock Performance at the Grammys! Now take a look back at their iconic career, as their album 'Help!' celebrates its 60th anniversary on 6th August 2025.

Let's take a look at where it all began back in 1957, bringing us classics such as 'Hey Jude', 'Come Together', 'Help!' and 'Here Comes The Sun'.
Why did the Beatles break up?

While a mix of complex factors contributed to the disbandment of the Beatles, it is most commonly thought that creative differences had the largest impact and ultima details

Some never-before-seen photographs from Paul Saltzman's Beatles in India series are on display at Toronto's Markham Street Gallery
Paul Saltzman’s Beatles in India photos came as a result of a serendipitous meeting

A group of people wearing flower garlands sit cross legged on a platform.  In 1968, filmmaker Paul Saltzman went to India and took some photographs of the Beatles that eventually became very famous. These photos would form the basis of a book, as well as a show, on now, at the Markham Street Gallery in Toronto.

But at the time, Saltzman didn't go to India with the intent of having a book or a gallery show or even photographing the Beatles at all. He didn't even know they were there. He went because he was having an existential crisis.

Saltzman says that, at the time, he had everything he could have wanted; he had a budding career in film, an apartment in Montreal, a girlfriend and a cool car. But one morning, he woke up and realized: "there were parts of myself I didn't like, and I wasn't a very self-reflective person, so that was a shock." Sitting on the edge of his bed, he asked himself what he was supposed to do about that, and he heard "a deep inner voice that was all details

 December 8, 2025, will mark 45 years since the senseless murder of John Lennon. And all these years later, it still remains one of rock's greatest tragedies: not only did it spell the end once and for all of any potential Beatles reunion, but also the fact that Lennon appeared to be gearing up for a highly productive creative period, after being out of the limelight for several years.

This leaves one to wonder what projects he had in the works for 1981. Over the years, quite a few people who worked closely with Lennon dropped a few hints as to what he had in the pipeline.  Lennon's biggest plan for 1981 appeared to be the launch of his first-ever substantial solo tour in support of his most recent album, "Double Fantasy," which was released on November 17, 1980, less than a month before his death.

In the 2020 book, "John Winston Ono Lennon", the bassist in Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band, Gary Van Scyoc, recalled a conversation he had with Lennon concerning this topic. "We talked on the phone, and he said, 'I'm hoping to go out. I don't know who would want to do it – whether Tony Levin [who had played on 'Double Fantasy'] would want to tour.' I said, 'Put my name on the list,' and h details