Beatles News
The Beatle wrote that he 'hope life begins at 40' in the letter written in 1979. In December 1980 - two months after his 40th birthday - Lennon was murdered. The letter will go under the hammer at RR Auction of Boston, Massachusetts.
A poignant letter penned by John Lennon saying he 'hopes life begins at 40' just mere months before he was murdered has emerged for sale for £30,000. The Beatle also says he wishes for a little less 'trouble' in his life when he reaches the milestone in the letter to his cousin Liela Birch. He then talks about the 'many b******s I've met in the last 40 years or so' when lamenting people who he felt were after his money. He was tragically shot dead by Mark Chapman outside his New York apartment in December 1980, two months after his 40th birthday.
He writes: 'I'm 40 next year - I hope life begins - ie I'd like a little less 'trouble' and more - what?'
Source: Francine Wolfisz/dailymail.co.uk
A hurricane couldn’t stop them. Segregationists didn’t even slow them down. Disputes with a musicians’ union and some rogue filmmakers were just temporary roadblocks.
The Beatles were coming to Jacksonville, come hell or high water.
Sept. 11 marks the 60th anniversary of the Fab Four playing to a screaming crowd at the old Gator Bowl stadium. They played for about 30 minutes, but the echoes linger six decades later.
It's a show that almost didn't happen for a number of reasons: Hurricane Dora had just roared through town, bringing President Lyndon Johnson in to survey the damage; the band nearly canceled in a dispute with stadium management, which wanted to segregate the audience; and a group of rogue filmmakers caused the band's road manager to threaten cancellation if they didn't stop shooting unauthorized footage.
Thousands of fans, having paid $4 and $5 for a ticket, couldn't make it to the show because power was out in large parts of the city. The band played a 30-minute set in conditions so windy that Ringo Starr's drums had to be nailed to the stage so they wouldn't topple over.
Source: jacksonville.com
Their concert lasted only 30 minutes, but the Beatles’ one and only visit to New Orleans 60 years ago this month still brings vivid memories to many. On Sept. 16, 1964, the Beatles played their sold-out concert at City Park Stadium, later renamed Tad Gormley Stadium. It was one of 24 stops on their 32-day North American tour.
Beatlemania hit New Orleans just before 3 a.m. that day, when the chartered plane carrying the Fab Four — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — touched down at the airport in Kenner. Like most everywhere they went, the band was mobbed by fans when they arrived at the Congress Inn, a motel on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East. They held a press conference, where Mayor Victor Schiro presented them with keys to the city, proclaimed it Beatles Day and made them honorary citizens.
At the Beatles’ request, they were visited that night at the stadium by Fats Domino, who met them in their trailer. Meanwhile 12,000 frenzied fans grew impatient during the opening acts, which included Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Jackie DeShannon, the Bill Black Combo and the Exciters. By the time the stars took the stage, the crowd was hysterical and hundreds of teenagers poured out of their seats and onto the field.
“Policemen had to physically tackle some of the youths — mostly girls... It took 225 New Orleans policemen and special patrol guards more than 20 minutes to restore order,” reporter Clarence Doucet wrote in the next day’s Times-Picayune. “Police Supt. Joseph I. Giarrusso… called the episode one ‘that was both amusing and tragic at the same time.’”
Source: Blake Pontchartrain/nola.com
Songwriting is a delicate balance between vulnerability and universality, as Paul McCartney learned while working on the “angst-ridden” song he wrote to make himself feel better after a particularly arduous time in his life. After all, the more commercially available the music, the finer the line between sounding desperate and speaking to everyday experiences.
Luckily, McCartney was able to work through his initial concerns that he was leaning toward the former and continued writing this quintessentially Paul tune, angst and all. Paul McCartney Wrote This Song To Help Feel Better.
When Paul McCartney first sat down to write what would later become the opening track of his 2018 release Egypt Station, he worried that he was creating a song that was too “angsty.” In an interview with GQ, McCartney said he feared the song sounded too desperate. But eventually, he realized he enjoyed angsty music, so why wouldn’t others?
“People like that,” he said. “I like that. So, I’m gonna write something. You can often take a moment you remember where you had, let’s say, an argument, and you think of that situation, and you work it out in the song. Just by saying the opening lines, I’ve got crows out my window, dogs at my door, I don’t think I can take anymore, that makes you feel better.”
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
Ringo Starr is getting ready to kick off another tour with his All Starr Band, and he just gave fans a peek behind the scenes at rehearsals for the trek.
In a new video, Ringo shared clips of him and his band at work rehearsing the song “Matchbox.” He also revealed that there’s something very special about the drum kit he’ll be playing on the tour, noting it’s the same model he played when The Beatles were on The Ed Sullivan Show.
“I had the small kit because I wanted to be seen,” he explained. “But then I had the great idea and said why don’t you give me a rostrum, and they built the rostrum and I’m up there having a great time.”
For this leg of the All Starr Band tour, Ringo will be joined by Toto’s Steve Lukather, Men At Work’s Colin Hay, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette and Buck Johnson.
The tour kicks off Saturday in San Diego and wraps Sept. 25 in New York City. A complete list of dates can be found at ringostarr.com.
Source: ABC News/deltaplexnews.com
It was another Monday afternoon in September in Pittsburgh, with the usual industrial smoke scenting the air on a day that had seen drizzle and fog.
At exactly 4:36 p.m. on that day in 1964, the wheels of a Lockheed Electra aircraft traveling from Baltimore hit the runway at Greater Pittsburgh Airport, as the airport was then known. There to greet the passengers were an estimated 4,000 people, hordes of reporters, and two limousines and an escort of six police cruisers.
The Beatles had come to town.
Plenty of concerts in Pittsburgh’s history have gained legendary status, whether it’s a newly-electric Bob Dylan cranking up “Like a Rolling Stone” at the Syria Mosque in 1966, Elvis Presley belting out his hits at a New Year’s Eve show at Civic Arena seven months before he died, or Bob Marley playing his last concert ever at the Stanley Theatre eight months before he died. But perhaps the most legendary of them all is the Beatles’ Sept. 14, 1964, appearance at Civic Arena, the only time the Fab Four played Pittsburgh.
The stop in Pittsburgh 60 years ago was part of a 24-city, 32-concert blitz across North America six months after John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr took the country by storm after their appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Organized in the months after those landmark broadcasts by General Artists Corporation in New York, it took the Beatles to most of the continent’s major cities in a frantic, one-month span, starting Aug. 20, 1964, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco and concluding on Sept. 20, 1964, at the Paramount Theater in New York.
Source: Brad Hundt/observer-reporter.com
The Beatles are the bestselling music group of all time, selling 183 million units and setting the all-time mark for Billboard No. 1 hits. The band rose to popularity in the 1960s and was equally beloved on both sides of the pond, both in their native England and in the United States. The Beatles albums in order show the impressive growth and evolution of the band’s sound as they matured. Listening to the Beatles’ discography is like strolling down memory lane. They had so many hits, and you can enjoy them all when you listen to the 12 Beatles albums that make up their live studio work.
The Beatles were a British rock group made up of four members: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They got together in 1960, and their distinctive musical style blended rock ‘n roll, pop, beat and even some classical music. The “Fab Four,” as they were called, released 12 studio albums.
Lennon and McCartney began as songwriting partners, and they started playing with Harrison in the 1950s. Pete Best drummed with them briefly before they settled on Starr. Producer George Martin was sometimes referred to as the fifth Beatle. The group heralded the British invasion of rock music to the United States, including an appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” that set off Beatlemania. But they also sparked controversy with their drug use and embrace of counterculture. Tensions between Lennon and McCartney eventually led to the breakup of the band in 1970.
Source: Toni Fitzgerald/forbes.com
A John Lennon-inspired golf buggy owned by Noel Gallagher of Oasis is expected to sell for between £5,000 and £10,000 at auction.
It joins more than 60 lots being offered by Propstore, an auction house based in Chenies, near Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire.
The auction includes a collection of 18 of Noel's guitars, among them a custom Silver Sparkle Gibson Les Paul Florentine he once described as "the best guitar in the world", which is expected to sell for between £200,000 and £400,000. Propstore said the lots were part of an auction due to begin in November. John Lennon's bespoke Rolls-Royce was created in 1967
The golf buggy has a psychedelic paint job is in the same style as Lennon's Rolls-Royce Phantom V limousine.
The vehicle was given to Gallagher in the late 1990s by his then-wife Meg Mathews, and was used to travel around the pair's Buckinghamshire estate.
A tambourine used on stage by Noel's brother Liam is also on offer, along with a number of Noel's handwritten lyrics to Wonderwall, which are estimated to go for between £4,000 and £8,000. There is also a set featuring Supersonic and Live Forever lyrics, with the latter autographed by both brothers and estimated to sell for between £3,000 and £6,000.
Source: Danny Fullbrook & PA Media/bbc.com
George Harrison asked Eric Clapton to contribute a guitar solo to his new Beatles song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Clapton initially declined Harrison’s request, saying “nobody ever plays on Beatles records,” but Harrison eventually convinced him to participate, and Clapton recorded the solo that night.
The song appeared on the band’s album The Beatles, also known as The White Album, which was released in November 1968. The track was one of Harrison’s songs on the album. It went on to be an iconic track for him and has often made it on lists of the greatest guitar songs of all time.
Harrison eventually paid Clapton back for his contribution by cowriting and playing guitar on Cream’s “Badge.”
Harrison and Clapton performed “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” live together several times. In November 2002 Clapton performed the tune at the Concert for George at London’s Royal Albert Hall backed by a band that included Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. The concert took place on the one-year anniversary of Harrison’s death.
Source: wdrv.com
George Harrison asked Eric Clapton to contribute a guitar solo to his new Beatles song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Clapton initially declined Harrison’s request, saying “nobody ever plays on Beatles records,” but Harrison eventually convinced him to participate, and Clapton recorded the solo that night.
The song appeared on the band’s album The Beatles, also known as The White Album, which was released in November 1968. The track was one of Harrison’s songs on the album. It went on to be an iconic track for him and has often made it on lists of the greatest guitar songs of all time.
Harrison eventually paid Clapton back for his contribution by cowriting and playing guitar on Cream’s “Badge.”
Harrison and Clapton performed “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” live together several times. In November 2002 Clapton performed the tune at the Concert for George at London’s Royal Albert Hall backed by a band that included Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. The concert took place on the one-year anniversary of Harrison’s death.
Source: kslx.com
