Beatles News

John Lennon needed help. At least his statue did. A bronze likeness of the Beatle, who was assassinated 33 years ago Sunday, was inaugurated in a leafy Havana park 13 years ago. But souvenir-seekers kept stealing the iconic circular spectacles that adorned it. Officials tried gluing them on. But they should have known better: Vandals simply broke them off.

Enter Juan Gonzalez, a 95-year-old retired farm worker who lives across the street. For the last 13 years, four days a week, Gonzalez has showed up at 6 a.m. for a 12-hour shift, wearing a government security guard's uniform and cap. As tourists arrive, he places the glasses on the singer's nose and waits patiently as they snap pictures. When they leave, he gently tucks the glasses away in a shirt pocket next to his cigars. Gonzalez probably didn't hear much of the Beatles in their heyday. He was already middle-aged and the communist government then frowned on rock 'n roll and its long-haired practitioners. Not much of their music made it to the ears of farmers in rural Cuba and he moved to the capital on details

Tune in alert as Julian Lennon talks with Billy Bush and Kit Hoover on Access Hollywood Live on Tuesday, December 3 about his recent collaboration with Steven Tyler on his new album, “Everything Changes.” Plus, Julian sets the record straight about the meaning of The Beatles’ classic, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

“You know there is a folkloric question that we have to address here. There is a long debate “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” the great Beatles song, spells out L-S-D; people thought it was a tribute to that. Inspired by an acid experience or something. But some say a drawing you made as a child. Which is true?” Billy asks. “It’s true about the drawing of my friend Lucy who in fact sadly passed away a few years ago from Lupus. Since then I have become the American Ambassador for the Lupus Foundation. So it has longevity in all kinds of ways.”

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Former Beatle John Lennon has been shot dead by an unknown gunman who opened fire outside the musician's New York apartment. The 40-year-old was shot several times as he entered the Dakota, his luxury apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side, opposite Central Park, at 2300 local time.

He was rushed in a police car to St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center, where he died. His wife, Yoko Ono, who is understood to have witnessed the attack, was with him. A police spokesman said a suspect was in custody, but he had no other details of the shooting. "This was no robbery," the spokesman said, adding that Mr Lennon was probably shot by a "deranged" person. Witness reports say at least three shots were fired and others have claimed they heard six. There are also reports Mr Lennon staggered up six steps into the vestibule after he was shot, before collapsing.

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Dec. 06--In 1977, a young musician named Tim Piper discovered "Beatlemania" on Broadway. It was an epiphanous moment. 
"So," he remembers, "you can make a living doing the Beatles?" 

With his forward-brushed hair and sideburns, colored hippie glasses and a chain with a dog tag and a peace sign dangling around his neck, Piper has in fact enjoyed a long career as a John Lennon impersonator on concert stages around the world and on screen -- most notably, "as a ranting, raving, lunatic John" in the 2000 CBS movie "The Linda McCartney Story" starring Elizabeth Mitchell and Gary Bakewell. He's currently at the Hayworth Theatre through Dec. 29 with "Just Imagine," a rock 'n' roll fantasy. The show begins at the end. Lennon was shot and killed 33 years ago today outside of his New York City apartment as he and Yoko Ono were returning from a recording session. But in this show, he comes back for one last concert. "You see the stairway from heaven and in a puff of smoke, there I am," says Piper, who has his sights ultimately set on Broadway details

The 80-year-old artist - who enjoyed an 11-year marriage to the 'Imagine' hit-maker before he was shot dead in 1980 - feared their son, Sean, would find the pressure of being compared to The Beatles singer too difficult to deal with and hoped the 38-year-old wouldn't pursue music.

Yoko told The Sun newspaper: "Of course neither of us encouraged Sean to learn songs by The Beatles or by John. I was hoping he'd become an archaeologist or something. I didn't want him to go into music and suffer being the son of John Lennon. "I've been in that position myself, you know, being compared to John and so I'm speaking about Sean objectively, and I say that Sean is incredibly good at what he does." Sean now works alongside his mother as her creative director, leading the reformed Plastic Ono Band, and Yoko claims he is responsible for a lot of her success. She added: "Without knowing it, Sean probably saved me. Both me and my career. I really believe that."

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Unpublished photographs of John Lennon relaxing at his holiday home in Ibiza are going up for auction today. The two candid shots of the late Beatles star will be sold off to raise funds for an art student's final degree show.

Ed Robinson, a fine art student at Newcastle University, was given the photos to auction off by his mum. She was given the snaps by her brother, Ed's uncle, who had was handed three of them as a present by a friend of his called Dale Utterson. Dale’s dad Terry ran a chain of music shops with wife Joan and through his contacts arranged for his son to have a holiday in Ibiza where he tagged along with a group of photographers to a shoot. Ed said: “He went on a trip to Ibiza where John Lennon had a villa and they found out he was up for posing for the photographers. “My uncle’s friend wasn’t a professional photographer but he went along with them and he was also allowed to take a few snaps. It wasn’t a massive deal. “John Lennon was painting at the time which is a nice little link to the art auction.&r details

Paul McCartney is pledging to support a Middle East peace initiative because "Israelis and Palestinians deserve peace," he said. McCartney announced on his Twitter feed that all donations made to the organization, One Voice, will be doubled beginning today.