Beatles News

Vince Calandra had never even held a guitar before. But, even back in February of 1964, he had a pretty good sense that he shouldn’t drop this one. Calandra, a self-described “street kid from Brooklyn,” had worked his way up on “The Ed Sullivan Show” from mail boy, to cue card holder for guest stars like Buddy Holly, to stage producer. A coincidence of clothing led to his brief brush with fame that day, though.

The Beatles arrived at the studio on Saturday for rehearsal the day before their big American debut on Feb. 9, but George Harrison was laid up at the Plaza Hotel with strep throat. The band’s road manager, Neil Aspinall, was standing in for rehearsal. Before it got started, manager Brian Epstein rushed over to send him back to the hotel to deal with crises. Harrison’s sister, Louise, who’d been taking care of him, couldn’t get past security back into the hotel (“You and about 1,000 other women have come here and told us they’re George Harrison’s sister,” Calandra recalls them saying); plus, t details

JFK Airport will host a celebration and dedicate a historical marker 50 years to the day the Beatles arrived there to screaming fans for their first trip to the U.S. On Feb. 7, the Port Authority and radio station Q104.3 FM will mark the day the Fab Four arrived at the airport on a Pan Am flight that day in 1964, and were greeted by screaming fans.

Port Authority officials will unveil a marker inside the airport that pays tribute to the Beatles' landing at JFK, and a cover band will play Beatles tunes to honor the day. The Beatles held their first U.S. news conference at the airport after they landed, which was attended by NBC 4 New York's Gabe Pressman, pictured in one of the photos above.

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Source: WNBC TV, NY

A coffee stall once frequented by the Rolling Stones and The Beatles has been saved from losing its license. The future of Chelsea Bridge Coffee Stall, in Queenstown Road, was uncertain following complaints by people living in Chelsea Bridge Wharf over noise and litter.

But Wandsworth councillors voted last night to preserve the license, after a petition signed by more than 700 people to save the stall was presented. Complaints were made to the council over noise, litter and anti-social behaviour by 27 members of the Chelsea Bridge Wharf Residents Association. Neighbours said people urinated on stairs close to the river and customers were kicking balls against their lift. The stall, which has been open since the 1940s, was a famous meeting spot for rockers known as the Chelsea Bridge Boys during the 1960s. Renato Di Paola has been the license owner for about two years, with a 24 hour trading license being in place for over 45 years. He said: "We do have a lot of residents in favour of us and haven't got a problem with us, there is some that have got a problem with us. "We get all details

Paul McCartney is scheduled to be in New York for the Super Bowl and if all goes according to schedule, he and Ringo Starr will make their way early next week to the Ed Sullivan Theater, where they made their American television debut 50 years ago.

The two surviving Beatles will be interviewed by David Letterman for the CBS special, "The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles," that airs Feb. 9. Performances for the show were taped a day after the Grammys, Jan. 27, at the L.A. Convention Center. Besides McCartney and Starr reuniting, the show will include remembrances from people who worked on the Sullivan show and members of the audience. Maroon 5, Eurythmics and Katy Perry are among the performers. McCartney said at the taping he was not sure if they should participate in a tribute to the world's most famous band. A source said McCartney was being truthful and that it wasn't until mid-January that conversations with two Americans in his inner-circle led him to fully understand the impact the Beatles made on Feb. 9, 1964.

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To commemorate the 50th anniversary of one of the most historic moments in music and television, The Recording Academy, AEG Ehrlich Ventures and CBS will present "The Night That Changed America: A GRAMMY Salute To The Beatles." The primetime entertainment special will celebrate the remarkable legacy of the seven-time GRAMMY-winning group and their groundbreaking first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." 

The two-hour show will tape on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, the day after the 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards, and will be broadcast in HDTV and 5.1 surround sound on the CBS Television Network Sunday, Feb. 9, 2014, from 8–10 p.m. ET/PT — exactly 50 years to the day, date and time of the original event."The Night That Changed America: A GRAMMY Salute To The Beatles" will feature today's top artists covering songs performed by the Fab Four that momentous evening in 1964 and Beatles songs through the years, and will include footage from that landmark Sunday evening, as well as other archival material. In addition, various presenters will help highlight details

Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band are gearing up for another round of performances. They'll kick off on June 6 in Ontario and wrap up on July 19 in Los Angeles with stops in Chicago, Dallas and New York.

Ringo will celebrate his 74th birthday on July 7. He'll be in Los Angeles and is extending an invitation to everyone on the planet to join him at a Peace & Love party. More details on that to come. For this leg of the tour, he'll bring the same backing musicians that he took out on the road in 2012 —Steve Lukather, Richard Page,  details

Fifty years after helping lead the British invasion in America and transforming pop culture, the most underappreciated Beatle has arguably become the most beloved. Ringo Starr is no longer mobbed by screaming packs of fans. But, by no means is the world famous drummer hanging in the background. He’s busy laying down tracks for a new album, and about to embark on another tour of his All-Starr Band; he’s publishing books — and he’s still making the case for peace and love wherever he goes.

Ringo is the older of the two surviving Beatles, but you’d never know it. At age 73, he could easily pass for someone 20 years younger. His rock-star DNA has kept him fighting trim. His skin is taut without looking stretched, and his gait is assured, even springy. At a fundraising concert Jan. 20 at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, where he was honored by the David Lynch Foundation with the Lifetime of Peace and Love Award, Ringo bounded about the stage like Peter Pan. He appeared boyish compared with the musicians surrounding details

“We always tried to get out of those crap things, but that time we got caught,” George Harrison recalled, referring to the Beatles’ visit to the British Embassy after their first US concert, held at the old Washington Coliseum on February 11, 1964. Accustomed, after a year of Beatlemania in Britain, to the crush of official events, the Fab Four were dreading it. Then they caught a slight, if short-lived, break.

Earlier that night, Donna Constantinople, née Marshall, the daughter of a prominent DC businessman, had been whisked by official limousine to the concert with three friends—the daughter of the undersecretary of the Navy, the niece of the French ambassador, and another friend from her high school. Sometime past midnight, the girls found themselves in the British ambassador’s private living room on the top floor of the residence with ambassador David Ormsby-Gore, his wife, and Beatles manager Brian Epstein. Then it happened. “A door opened,” Constantinople details

IT was 50 years ago that The Beatles filmed sequences of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ on the West Somerset Railway ... and the anniversary is to be marked. Crowcombe Heathfield Station, where Ringo rode a bicycle along theMinehead-bound platform, is in line for enhancement.

The Friends of Crowcombe Heathfield Station are tasked with restoring and rebuilding as much of the station fabric as possible. As part of the rundown of the line before its closure, the sandstone Goods Office building was demolished following the withdrawal of goods services from the station. The Friends intend to recreate a building which will serve as a workshop and store room and they are hoping to have the building constructed this year, having already set aside £10,000 of station funds towards the project. An architect has helped with designs and work on the wooden doorways, doors and window frames has been carried out by the Bishops Lydeard based RAMS restoration and maintenance team of volunteers. However, up to another £7,000 may be required to fully fund the work and details

LOS ANGELES — There's an easy way to give pop music's most performance-hardened stars a case of the butterflies: Ask them to perform in front of The Beatles. Many of today's top artists gathered Monday night to honor The Beatles' legacy, with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in attendance and late members John Lennon and George Harrison always in mind, at The Recording Academy's taping of "The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles."

 John Legend and Alicia Keys sang "Let It Be." Katy Perry performed "Yesterday," while her boyfriend, John Mayer, teamed with Keith Urban on "Don't Let Me Down." And Brad Paisley and Pharrell Williams took on the challenge of "Here Comes the Sun," a song well-known to millions of music fans. "We are honoring the most important band of all time, and trying to do justice to their song while two of them sit there," Paisley said in an interview before his performance. "We know, going in, we're not going to sing like them, and we're going to try to do our own thing with it. But ... there's reasons why people get b details

Almost 50 years ago, Beatlemania kicked off in America and changed the face of rock 'n' roll. But the whole Beatles phenomenon as we know it — with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — might never have happened without some good old-fashioned U.S. red tape.

Starr revealed to NBC News' Kate Snow in an interview that aired Monday on TODAY that while still a teenager, he considered chasing his musical dreams in Texas, not his hometown of Liverpool. "All the music we loved came from America," he recalled. "At ... 18, 19 I tried to immigrate to America because of Lightnin' Hopkins, a blues singer," he recalled. "I wanted to go to Texas because that's where he was from." A factory worker at the time, Starr visited the local consulate to start the emigration process, but the paperwork proved overwhelming. "They gave me a load of forms to fill in. And I filled those in. You know what it's like when you're 18 ... I filled 'em in, took 'em back, and then he gave me more forms," he said. "I gave up." 

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