Beatles News
Heather Mills "struggled" to live in Paul McCartney's family home, claims her new documentary The Trials of Heather Mills, which airs on Channel 5 and looks back on her tough childhood and her tumultuous marriage to McCartney. According to Mirror, Mills and McCartney were first introduced by Piers Morgan in May 1999 at the Pride of Britain Awards in London where McCartney presented an award in his late wife Linda's name, who had unfortunately passed away due to breast cancer. The Here Comes the Sun singer and the former model married in 2002 at a lavish wedding in Glaslough, Ireland.
Source: Mary Anthony/inquisitr.com
Emmy-nominated actress, model and author Barbara Feldon joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about the "freedom and fun" of the 1960s, being a contemporary of the Beatles and her new memoir "Getting Smarter" on "Everything Fab Four," a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon.
Feldon, best known for portraying the striking, sophisticated superspy Agent 99 on Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's classic sitcom "Get Smart," started out as a showgirl and model in New York City before moving on to acting. In fact, she and her husband at the time, the charming Lucien Feldon-Verdeaux (whose shocking story she details in her memoir, which is available on her website), were living in a fifth floor apartment off Park Avenue when the Beatles arrived to play "The Ed Sullivan Show" (on which Feldon herself had previously performed as a dancer) in February of 1964. "We heard this roar coming up from the street," she explains to Womack. "And looking down over the parapet, we saw this mob of young women." When she asked what they were screaming about, someone yelled up, "It's the Beatles!"
Source: Nicole Michael/salon.com
Today marks St George’s Day and so Sir Paul McCartney has honoured the two late Georges associated with The Beatles. Firstly, his fellow bandmate George Harrison, who died in November 2001, aged 58. And also Sir George Martin, The Beatles record producer, who died in March 2016 at the age of 90.
On his Instagram account, Sir Paul McCartney posted a picture of the two Georges in the studio, as captured by his late wife Linda McCartney, who died in April 1998 aged 56. The 80-year-old wrote: “Happy St George’s Day to Georges everywhere - Paul.”
Macca has posted similar tributes to the pair of “Georges I have known and loved” over the past few years. In fact, he still “talks” to Harrison through the evergreen coniferous tree that the Quiet Beatle gifted him before he died. Speaking previously with All Things Considered, Sir Paul said how Harrison was very into horticulture and a great gardener.
Source: George Simpson/express.co.uk
Among the astonishing 250-plus shows that The Beatles played in 1963, a couple were especially poignant. On April 8, The Beatles were entertaining the Swimming Baths in Leyton, east London, while Cynthia Lennon was alone in Sefton General Hospital, Liverpool, giving birth to Julian. It was not yet necessarily the custom for fathers to attend births in 1963, but even so, Lennon would not have a moment to meet his first-born until April 11, squeezed between shows in Birkenhead and Middleton.Another significant gig was the August 3 booking at their former proving ground, The Cavern. Since the most recent of their 280-plus previous engagements at the Mathew St cellar on April 12, the tenor of the fans had changed. Quoted in Spencer Leigh’s book, The Cavern, club doorman Paddy Delaney recalled, “The crowds outside were going mad. By the time John Lennon had got through the cordon of girls, his mohair jacket had lost a sleeve. I grabbed it to stop a girl getting away with a souvenir. John stitched it back on.”
Source: Danny Ecclesto/mojo4music.com
In 1971, George Harrison put on the Concert for Bangladesh, and Ringo Starr was the only former Beatle to perform. Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney worried about the optics of performing with former bandmates and declined to join the event. Starr admitted that Harrison also had these concerns; because of this, he said Harrison didn’t expressly invite him. Regardless, Starr showed up to perform.
In 1971, Harrison and Ravi Shankar hosted two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden to fund relief efforts for refugees from the Bangladesh Liberation War. He welcomed a number of musicians, including Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, and Billy Preston.
The benefit concert was a success and set the tone for the celebrity benefit concerts to come. Beyond that, though, it helped raise awareness of a conflict many Americans knew nothing about.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr has never shied away from getting a little help from his friends. The drummer’s close buddies for many years included his Beatles bandmates, who assisted him in his solo career. George Harrison helped Ringo with solo project days after injuring himself on a mountain hike, for instance. Yet Ringo’s musician friends extended beyond The Beatles.
1. Ringo Starr had an ‘intimate relationship’ with Keith Moon of The Who
Ringo and Keith Moon had different drumming styles — understated elegance compared to bombastic bashing — yet their personalities meshed well. One of Ringo’s former girlfriends said he had an intimate relationship with Moon, meaning they could hold entire conversations without speaking.
The Who drummer once angled for his friend’s job in The Beatles, but that didn’t hurt their relationship. Moon babysat Ringo’s son Zak. In a full circle moment, Zak became The Who’s touring drummer later in his life.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles are the most covered bands of all time. Even in the 1960s, bands and artists were already taking songs from The Beatles and putting their own spin on them. While the members of The Beatles didn’t love every cover, they did receive royalties, so they were mostly okay with them. However, George Harrison called one Beatles song cover “rubbish” and didn’t want to be associated with it.
George Harrison didn’t write many Beatles songs, as Paul McCartney and John Lennon shared most songwriting duties. However, Harrison did get a chance to shine every now and then, and his songs appeared more frequently in The Beatles’ later projects. His song, “If I Needed Someone”, was released in 1966 with Rubber Soul. It’s a love song Harrison dedicated to his then-wife, Pattie Boyd.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles‘ “All You Need Is Love” reuses the chorus of “She Loves You.” Paul McCartney revealed this was his idea. In addition, “All You Need Is Love” quotes from the famous English folk song “Greensleeves.”In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul said “All You Need Is Love” references other songs because he decided it should. “‘All You Need Is Love’ was John’s song,” he said. “I threw in a few ideas, as did the other members of the group, but it was largely ad-libs like singing ‘She Loves You’ or ‘Greensleeves’ or silly little things at the end and we made those up on the spot.” For context, you can hear a snippet of “Greensleeves” in the song starting at three minutes and 13 seconds in. Paul sings the chorus of “She Loves You” around three minutes and 22 seconds in.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
“One of these days we must sort through our old compositions. We might be sitting on a goldmine! Some of them might stand a chance. Meanwhile we go on writing – mainly for our next LP.” John, April 1963
This, the band’s appearance on the annual Royal Variety Show was, in publicity terms, the biggest night of their career so far.
Staged in front of members of the Royal Family, the show was watched in almost every home in Britain.
John’s famous introduction to the band’s last song was *the* moment of The Beatles’ early TV career – the following day, everyone was talking about it:
Source: thebeatles.com
It took time, but George Harrison proved he was hardly the third wheel among The Beatles’ songwriters. He might have been the most progressive writer in the group and wrote several experimental songs that saw him dabbling in technicolor psychedelia and Indian music. George’s demo for “Love You To” is a wonderful look at how the sitar- and tabla-led Revolver song took shape from the bare-bones acoustic version.
It wasn’t the first Beatles song with George on sitar (that would be “Norwegian Wood”), but “Love You To” was the first Fab Four tune where the Indian instrument takes the lead. George turned the Revolver song into a showcase for the sitar, starting with two lush opening strums.
From there, George layered in some drones underneath a gentle mini solo and then launched into the song proper. He performed several memorable riffs during the song’s three-minute runtime, including a solo starting at the 1:35 mark.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
