Beatles News

Paul has been nominated for 'Best Solo Artist' at this year's NME Awards. The shortlist for the category, announced earlier this week, also includes David Bowie, Lily Allen, Kanye West, Jake Bugg and Lorde.

Fans can cast their vote for the award at NME's website HERE! Voting closes on February 21st. The awards will take place at the O2 Academy Brixton on February 26th.

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For years, Stevie Nicks has kept a treasured 1970-era photograph framed and with her on the road, getting untold moments of inspiration while touring both as a solo artist and with Fleetwood Mac. She’s pictured with George Harrison, along with the well-known Maui restauranteur Bob Longhi.

Nicks, as revealed in Graeme Thomson’s George Harrison: Behind The Locked Door, was in Hawaii at the time doing some uncredited co-writing with the former Beatles star. Nicks was said to have contributed to “Here Comes the Moon,” from 1979′s George Harrison. This treasured photograph was apparently taken while the guitarist put the finishing touches on “Soft-Hearted Hana,” from the same studio project — which was, in turn, dedicated to Longhi. The image from that long-ago impromptu collaboration in 1978, originally passed along by a friend, stays with Nicks even today. When I go on the road it goes right on my makeup mirror,” Nicks says. & details

Music historian and author Harvey Kubernik first thought of the concept for this book at George Harrison's 1974 Beverly Wilshire Hotel press conference on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, where 10 years earlier he had seen, just down the same street, the February 1964 live Beatles, Beach Boys and Lesley Gore concert in a closed-circuit theatrical movie-house showing at the Fox Wilshire Theater.

During his ensuing 40 years of published musical journalism, Harvey would, on occasion, ask his interview subjects — songwriters, recording and mastering engineers, poets, musicians, graphic artists, philosophers, record producers, disc jockeys, authors, filmmakers, pen pals, photographers, record collectors and friends — about the Beatles timeless catalog and the influence of their rarely chronicled-at-length history with Southern California and Hollywood. "My goal was to bring something new to the table and the fable, especially the Beatles relationship to Hollywood and Los Angeles that helped introduce their sound domestically in the first place," o details

Le Pavillon Populaire, a space dedicated to photography in the city of Montpellier, will showcase the first retrospective in France of the work of photographer Linda McCartney, from 21st February – 4th May 2014. A remarkable set of more than 200 prints and original documents will be displayed spanning her prolific career; from her pictures of the most famous musicians of the ‘swinging sixties’, to her personal and experimental photographs.

Her photographic autobiography is also a moving account of family life with her husband, Paul McCartney. She worked with the playfulness of Polaroids and elegantly created a spontaneous visual language. Linda McCartney uniquely combined the innovative spirit of American photographers and the intimate ambition that is found in her most personal photographic chronicles. Exhibition Curator: Gilles Mora and members of the McCartney family, in collaboration with Claudia Schmid of Linda Enterprises Ltd. Linda Louise McCartney (nee Eastman) was born in New York City on 24th September 1941. She graduated from Scar details

“Yoko is the world’s most famous unknown artist: Everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does,” the late John Lennon once said of his then-wife, Yoko Ono. A major retrospective in Sydney seeks to rectify this, showcasing Ms. Ono’s careers as a conceptual artist, band member, filmmaker, celebrity and peace activist.

“War Is Over! (if you want it): Yoko Ono” has become one of the most popular exhibitions ever at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Highlighting five decades of the Tokyo-born artist’s work, the show has attracted nearly 50,000 visitors since it opened in mid-November. The exhibition occupies an entire gallery of the museum as well as part of the roof. The works, which include photography, video, installations and music, retrace her path as key figure in New York’s 1960s experimental art scene to famous widow to contemporary culture giant in her own right.

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Tame Impala could be forgiven for being sick of Beatles comparisons, but when they come from John Lennon's son it's got to be taken as a compliment. "I was speaking to Sean Lennon and he told me I sound like his dad," says Kevin Parker, Tame Impala's leader. "So I guess if anyone's going to tell me I sound like John Lennon I guess he's the one with some sort of authority on it."

Parker, who hails from Perth, is bemused by the Fab Four comparisons. "I just don't think we sound like them so much... but I've listened back to my vocals sometimes and gone, 'Oh yeah, that kind of sounds like the Beatles'. "I've never thought I sound like John Lennon in particular," he adds, which puts him at odds with the Beatle's own son. "We played some shows with him (Sean Lennon) in America... He's a trippy kind of dude," Parker says.

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A pair of Fab rock legends will perform at the 56th annual Grammy Awards. It was announced today that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who with the Beatles are this year's recipients of the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award, will perform at the ceremony, set to take place live from Los Angeles' Staples Center on Jan. 26.

McCartney is a Best Rock Song nominee this year for "Cut Me Some Slack," his collaboration with the surviving members of Nirvana. The Beatles have been awarded nine Grammys, starting with a well-deserved Best New Artist nod in 1964. Other newly announced performers on the night include current nominees John Legend, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Kacey Musgraves, Taylor Swift and Keith Urban. The CBS telecast will also feature a special performance from Album of the Year nominee Sara Bareilles and MusiCares Person of the Year Carole King. Starr, Bareilles, Macklemore & Lewis, and Musgraves will all be making their Grammy telecast performance debuts.

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John Power set to return to Liverpool stage as John Lennon. The La’s and Cast star won acclaim for his portrayal of the late Beatle when he made his acting  debut in Lennon at the Royal Court last summer.

Now the theatre is set to bring back the popular show, which will form part of the Cultural Programme underpinning the International Festival for Business 2014 – the global business  festival hosted by Liverpool for the UK taking place in June and July. John Power said today: “I’m really looking forward to catching up with the cast again. “It was a great challenge last time and the whole experience last time was a bit mind-blowing  to be honest. “If the performances are anything like last year’s then the audiences will love it so hopefully we  can pick up where we left off and it’ll be a great show.” The rest of the cast from 2013 have all been approached and many are confirmed including Tom Connor as Paul McCartney , Mark Newnham as young Lennon and Kirsten Foster as Yoko Ono. details

Guernsey Post have been forced to cancel plans to produce a stamp featuring The Beatles because of permission problems. The July issue was due to commemorate 50 years since the hit group's performance at Candie Auditorium.

The stamp imagery has now been replaced with art work celebrating Raymond Evanson's 25 years of gold at the Chelsea Flower Show. 
Guernsey Post have said it's disappointing that the idea's been shelved but these things happen and they work around them when they need to. 

Source: Guernsey News, UK

Fifty years after an iconic performance at the Ed Sullivan Theater, the surviving members of The Beatles could stage a reunion in the same venue where the magic began. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are in talks with producers from "The Late Show with David Letterman," which films in the Ed Sullivan Theater, to stage a reunion on the show, according to Showbiz411.

Early reports pinpoint the first week of February as a potential Beatles blowout week for "The Late Show," with McCartney and Starr potentially appearing on Friday, Feb. 7, the day the group arrived in the United States in 1964. What the rest of Letterman's weeklong extravaganza would include has yet to be revealed. There's no doubt an endless number of artists who'd jump at the opportunity to cover a Beatles classic on the program, and the show could also recruit survivors who were associated with the band: Yoko Ono, original manager Allan Williams, original drummer Pete Best, "A Hard Day's Night" director Richard Lester, plus George Harrison's and John Lennon's children (Dhani Harrison, Julia details

On Thursday The Beatles' U.S. Albums Set For Release was a top story. Here is the recap: Apple Corps Ltd. and Capitol Records have announced that they will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles' first U.S. visit and the band's history-making debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show," with the digital release of The U.S. Albums.

The new 13-album Mastered for iTunes LP collection spans The Beatles' U.S releases from 1964's Meet The Beatles! to 1970's Hey Jude. We were sent over the following details: The collection includes a 64-page booklet with Beatles photos and promotional art from the time, as well as a new essay by American author and television executive Bill Flanagan, is available now for digital pre-order exclusively on iTunes. All of the Mastered for iTunes albums (with the exception of The Beatles' Story, an audio documentary album) are also available now for individual pre-order on iTunes. The Beatles' U.S. albums differed from the band's U.K. albums in a variety of ways, including different track lists, song mixes, album titles, and art. The albums are details

If your vibe is 1960s Fab icons and cool animation, tune in to Cartoon Network on January 20th for a special Powerpuff Girls event featuring Ringo Starr! The Beatles drummer will appear as a "flamboyant mathematician" named Fibonacci Sequins. The original series aired from 1998-2005 and featured an irresistible cocktail of retro-style animation and fast-paced heroics and hilarity inspired by Japanese Anime.

The new episode, Dance Pantsed, will reunite all of the voice actors under the directorial helm of original series storyboard artist and writer, Dave Smith (Craig McCracken is currently working on Wonder Over Yonder). Spy Vibers will be especially pleased to learn that local-hero Kevin Dart (Yuki 7) came aboard the Powerpuff Girls reunion as art director and character designer. Kevin's love for retro-spy illustrations and movie posters always brings an exciting flair to his projects. He sat down with me today for a brief interv details

A few months after first meeting her, John Lennon tried to commission Yoko Ono to build a "light house" in his garden. "Oh, that was conceptual," Ono demurred, referring to a structure she'd built in her imagination with beams of refracted light emanating from hypothetical prisms.

In the 47 years that have ensued since that conversation, Ono has constructed a legacy as the world's penultimate conceptual artist.
If Ono had her druthers, people entering the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery on Friday, January 24 to see Yoko Ono: Imagine Peace (YOIP) would be handed a set of instructions and asked to fill the exhibition hall's blank walls with magnificent artworks projected from their individual and collective imaginations. YOIP does not go quite that far, but there will be no viewers or spectators at the exhibit. Everyone who passes through the Rauschenberg Gallery's doors will be magically converted into an active collaborator the instant they are handed an Onochord and encounter works such as Wish Tree, Map Piece and Play It By Trust.

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Pop veteran Tommy Roe is set to relive the night he supported The Beatles at their very first concert in America by recreating the event for its 50th anniversary with a Fab Four tribute band.

The Dizzy singer, 71, opened for the Let It Be hitmakers at their iconic Washington Coliseum show in Washington, D.C. on 11 February, 1964, two days after the great Brits made their U.S. performing debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. Now Roe has signed up to take part in a re-enactment of the landmark gig to celebrate the historic occasion next month (Feb14). He will take the stage for an acoustic set at the same venue on 11 February (14), before cover band Beatlemania Now perform the same setlist Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison delighted fans with five decades ago. Photos of the original concert, snapped by a young Mike Mitchell, will also be exhibited at the event, which has been put together by officials at the DC Preservation League and Douglas Development Corporation. 

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