Beatles News
Keith Richards, the legendary guitarist of The Rolling Stones, is currently on the cover of Guitar Player magazine as he continues to promote the new album from his band. The group is back with their first full-length of new material in 18 years, Hackney Diamonds, and the members have been busy pushing the set for weeks.
In his cover story interview, Richards talks about the band’s new music, missing late member Charlie Watts and, perhaps most intriguing, the decades-long relationship between The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.
Richards remarked on the profound connection that has always existed between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. He emphasized their differences while acknowledging the strong bond they shared. "The Beatles and the Stones have been basically joined together at the hips from the beginning," Richards stated. "We were totally different bands, but we knew each other well."
Source: Hugh McIntyre/forbes.com
Paul McCartney played drums for Ringo Starr on a song he wrote for him. Here's why you won't hear his drumming on the song.
Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney have known each other for the vast majority of their lives. They worked together closely in The Beatles, but they’ve collaborated, on and off, in the decades since the band broke up. Most recently, McCartney wrote Starr a song for his EP Rewind Forward. He even recorded a version for Starr that featured himself singing and playing the instruments, including drums. Starr joked that McCartney’s drumming was not up to his standards.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
The paradoxes of George Harrison’s career can perplex even the most casual Beatles fans. Taken together the contradictions are as much a part of the band’s legend as John Lennon’s solipsism or Paul McCartney’s eagerness to please. Here, after all, was a global pop star who played lead guitar in the most influential group in history and yet was regarded as its invisible man. He was a paid-up antimaterialist whose first significant Beatles song, “Taxman,” was a scarifying assault on the U.K. tax regime, and a sharp-eyed scourge of selfishness (see his final contribution to the Beatles’ oeuvre, “I Me Mine”) whose emotional life seems to have been a gargantuan exercise in having your cake and eating it. Being in the Fab Four might have given Harrison (1943-2001) fame, wealth and boundless opportunity, but as Philip Norman shows in this absorbing biography, the burden it placed on his far-from-resilient shoulders stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Source: D.J. Taylor/wsj.com
Paul McCartney recently kicked off the latest leg of his ongoing Got Back Tour, delighting audiences in Australia with a setlist that spans the many chapters of his illustrious career. During the opening night performance in Adelaide at the city’s Adelaide Entertainment Centre, the rocker surprised fans by bringing back a Beatles classic he hadn't performed live in nearly two decades.
After playing a handful of tracks from his solo career, as well from as his band Wings, McCartney shocked many in the crowd who know his full discography well by breaking out the Beatles' 1964 single, "She's A Woman.” The singer-songwriter has reportedly not played the tune in 19 years. According to Stereogum, the last time McCartney performed “She’s A Woman” in concert was back in 2004, when he headlined the U.K. music festival Glastonbury.
Before launching into the song, McCartney let the audience know that nostalgia was about to take over, stating, "This is from a long time ago." The thousands in attendance understood that something from his distant past was about to be played, and they were reportedly thrilled with the mere hint of what was to come.
McCartney continued to tease his fans, adding, cheekily, "Let's hear it for a long time ago." Another round of applause began as he started the song.
Source: Hugh McIntyre/forbes.com
On February 7, 1964, the English rock and roll band The Beatles stepped onto U.S. soil for the first time. As they stepped off their flight from Heathrow Airport in London to John F. Kennedy International Airport, the quartet was greeted by a swarm of eager fans.At the time, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were all in their early twenties and were still getting used to the band’s sudden success. They earned a streak of hits in the U.K. following the release of The Beatles’ debut album Please Please Me in 1963. But the band’s arrival in America helped elevate them from a regional success to a true global phenomenon.
According to The History Channel, 3000 fans were on hand at the airport to get a glimpse of the “Fab Four.” The excited crowd filled every inch of the terminal rooftop and airport tarmac, screaming joyfully. As the band made its way through the chaos, reporters were on hand to document the chaotic scene.
That moment marks the unofficial start of the so-called “Beatlemania” craze, which was elevated even further by the band’s appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show two days after their arrival. Their debut appearance on American television occurred a few months earlier via a recorded feature segment on the NBC news series The Huntley–Brinkley Report. A few weeks later, their song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” began taking over the airwaves on radio stations nationwide. By the time The Beatles made their physical debut in America, the single had already become a No. 1 hit.
Source: Lorie Liebig/americansongwriter.com
Ringo Starr discussed his memories of writing "Photograph" with George Harrison. One musician put 16 tracks together by himself to finish the tune.
Ringo Starr‘s “Photograph” proved that Ringo and George Harrison could be just as potent a duo as Lennon-McCartney. Ringo revealed he and George wrote “Photograph” at a famous film festival. It took a combination of 16 tracks to get the song just right.
George and Ringo co-wrote “Photograph,” making it possibly the most famous song with a writing credit from Ringo. During a 2023 interview with Billboard, Ringo discussed his memories of writing the tune with the “My Sweet Lord” singer. “We were on a yacht,” he recalled.
“We were at the Cannes Film Festival,” he added. “I’ve very little memory of whatever went on on that holiday.” The Cannes Film Festival is one of the most famous film festivals in the world, with movies from across the globe competing for an award called the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm). The festival has helped launch the careers of cinematic geniuses like Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and Jane Campion.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
There are so many iconic Beatles hits that it’s tough to rank any single one above the rest. But if you were looking for the most propulsive single by the Fab Four, “A Hard Day’s Night” would have to be very near the top of the list. With that starter’s pistol of an opening chord and an unrelenting pace, just listening to it will leave you somehow energized and breathless all at once.But how did this song come to be in relation to the movie of the same name? What exactly is that opening chord anyway? And what in blazes does that title phrase even mean? All those answers and more as we explore “A Hard Day’s Night.”
The Beatles found themselves amid a whirlwind of activity in the early part of 1964. Fresh off the massive success of their first visit to America, they hustled back to England to begin work on their first feature film with director Richard Lester. While they were doing that, they also had to record the music that would accompany the film.
So busy were the four men that Ringo Starr found himself stumbling out of the studio on one occasion not quite aware if it was morning, afternoon, or evening. He started to complain about what a hard day it had been when he realized that the sun had long set. Hence, he uttered the phrase “a hard day’s night.” (John Lennon used the phrase in his poetry collection In His Own Write, which also arrived in the spring of 1964, so the timing of when Starr said it is somewhat difficult to pin down.)
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
John Lennon’s ex May Pang says that the late musician still wanted to write with Paul McCartney even after The Beatles split.
Pang — who dated Lennon for 18 months from 1973 to 1975 amid a break in his marriage with Yoko Ono — spoke with USA Today in an interview published Friday about the retelling of her relationship with the legendary musician in her documentary,The Lost Weekend: A Love Story.
In a wide-ranging chat about how she and Lennon became involved romantically and details covered in the documentary, Pang, 72, is asked by the outlet if it was “surprising” that Lennon’s “mind goes to ‘Maybe I should start writing with Paul again,’” (in the documentary).
She then explained: “The pressure was off. All of them were now free to do whatever they wanted to do.”
“So in January 1975, Paul and Linda [McCartney] were saying, ‘We’re going to go down to New Orleans and do a new album [Venus and Mars].’ So John says, “Oh, great, New Orleans, always loved it,’” Pang recalled.
She continued, “A couple of days later, he’s tinkling on the guitar, and he goes, ‘What do you think if I wrote with Paul again?’ You talk about shock: The reference is like The Exorcist, the head flips back. And I said, ‘I think it would be great.’"
Source: Alexis Jones/people.com
John Lennon and George Harrison’s creative differences on the song ‘Norwegian Wood’ almost ruined their friendship.
The Beatles had their fair share of fights and conflicts during their time together, with instances of near fistfights and getting kicked out of homes.
John Lennon believed that George Harrison and Ringo Starr were unnecessary to the band's success, but thought Starr would have found success regardless, while he didn't see Harrison reaching his full potential.
Lennon and Harrison had some tension while recording the song "Norwegian Wood," but ultimately managed to record it the way Lennon wanted, despite disagreements.
The Beatles are one of the biggest rock bands of all time. With 2 studio albums, 5 live albums, 51 compilation albums, 36 extended plays (EPs), and 63 singles, they sold millions of copies across the world. Despite their ability to create incredible songs together, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison didn’t always get along.
Source: By Astrid Longi/thethings.com
Producer George Martin's son compared The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" demo with John Lennon's vocals to gold. Ringo Starr discussed the tune's evolution.
The son of a famous producer found a demo of The Beatles‘ “Yellow Submarine” with John Lennon singing the lead vocal. The demo includes some morose lyrics. Ringo Starr revealed that other members of the band decided to “liven up” the song before they had him sing it.
In 2022, USA Today reported John moped a lot in a demo of The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.” In the demo, he sangs lines like “In the place where I was born, no one cared, no one cared,” “and the name that I was born, no one cared,” and “in the town where I come from, no one cared.”
Giles Martin, son of Fab Four producer George Martin, discussed the demo. “I had no idea it existed,” he said. “It was a complete discovery and I was surprised. One of the thrills I get when doing this is for people to experience the same thing I experience. Going through the cobwebs and finding the gold — that’s what I want to transfer to other people.”
Martin felt the sad version of “Yellow Submarine” didn’t have as much appeal as the version we all know and love. “It wouldn’t have been as commercial in that original form, and you can hear them working together and pushing each other in different directions,” Martin said. “Which, of course, was their downfall in the end. But at this stage, they were delighted by the way they were creatively pushing each other.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
