Beatles News
Paul McCartney apparently just had to let it be after he suffered a mortifying moment early on in his career.
On Wednesday’s episode of his podcast, “McCartney: A Life in Lyrics,” the former Beatles musician, 81, reflected on an incident during one of the band’s first shows together that made him want to say goodbye to playing live music.
“We had this gig and it was the first thing I ever played, and I was lead guitar player,” he explained. “John [Lennon] was rhythm. I had a solo and I totally froze. Could not move my fingers.”
“It was just so embarrassing,” he added. “My lead-guitar-playing career melted at that moment and I said, ‘Well, I’m not doing this again. I’m not cut out for this. I’m no good.’”
McCartney did not clarify when and where the ill-fated performance took place.
The English singer-songwriter later went on to become the iconic band’s bass guitarist. He’s since learned to play more than 40 instruments, including the harmonica, mandolin, cello and ukulele, according to IMDB.
Source: Jazmin Tolliver/MSN
Paul McCartney said The Beatles rarely turned on each other three to one. He recalled the first time this happened to him.
Paul McCartney was the only one to push back against his Beatles bandmates when they wanted to appoint Allen Klein as their new manager. John Lennon was the biggest supporter of Klein, and George Harrison made it clear he backed him too. McCartney believed he could delay Klein’s appointment, but a vote by his bandmates put a stop to his hopes.
Paul McCartney felt betrayed by his Beatles bandmates
During a Friday night recording session, Klein visited The Beatles and told them he needed their contract with him signed immediately. He claimed he had a board meeting the following morning. McCartney pushed back, wanting to take the weekend to review the deal. When Lennon accused him of stalling, McCartney said he had a right to wait until Monday to sign.
“I said, ‘Well I’m not going to [sign it now]. I demand at least the weekend. I’ll look at it, and on Monday. This is supposed to be a recording session, after all,’” McCartney recalled in the book All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines. “I dug my heels in, and they said, right, well, we’re going to vote it.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles with their Sgt Pepper album... and the Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane single that wasn't included on it!
The Beatles were masters of the standalone single - here are ten examples of incredible songs that weren't included on a Beatles studio album.
The Beatles - The Ballad Of John And Yoko: release date 30th May 1969
Written about the events leading up to Lennnon's marriage to Yoko Ono in March 1969, recorded in April and released just a few weeks later, this standalone single was released hot on the heels of its predecessor Get Back. In fact, John was so keen to get the song onto vinyl, he couldn't wait for George and Ringo to return to the UK so the song only features Lennon (vocals, acoustic guitar, lead guitar) and McCartney (bass, drums, piano and vocals). The Ballad Of John And Yoko made its first appearance on an album in the US on the Hey Jude compilation in February 1970, while British fans wouldn't hear the track at 33rpm until the legendary "Blue" album (The Beatles 1967-70) arrived in 1973 .
The Beatles - Hey Jude: release date 30th August 1968
This momentous Paul McCartney song (all 7 minutes and 11 seconds of it) was issued as the very first Beatles release on their own Apple label in August 1968, backed with John Lennon's inciendiary rocker Revolution, a full three months before the next Beatles album arrived, the double "White" album. Hey Jude gave its titled to a 1970 collection issued in the US in 1970, but not officially available in the UK until 1979.
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever: release date 17th February 1967
By the time 1967 dawned, The Beatles had already recorded three tracks for their next album, When I'm Sixty-Four, Penny Lane and the progressive Strawberry Fields Forever. Their first outing since they gave up touring in the summer of '66, Lennon and McCartney had half an idea of writing an LP of songs about their childhood in Liverpool, but when a nervous EMI demanded a single after six months without any Beatle product, Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were hived off as a double-A side. This pair of excellent songs were left off the subsquent album, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Source: radiox.co.uk/Martin O'Gorman
A 12-string guitar played by Beatles stars John Lennon and George Harrison and thought to have been lost for almost 60 years has sold at auction for a whopping $2.9 million.
The acoustic Framus “Hootenanny” was used by the band in 1965, featuring in recordings, sessions and performances of songs including “Help!” “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” and “It’s Only Love,” according to California-based auction house Julien’s Auctions. It has set a new world record for the most expensive Beatles guitar ever sold — a title previously held by a 1962 Gibson J-160E, which Lennon used to record ”I Want to Hold Your Hand” and other early Beatles hits, which sold for $2.4 million at Julien’s in November 2015.
Lennon gave the acoustic guitar to a friend, who passed it on to someone “who took the guitar home, tossed it in the attic, and gave it nary a thought for decades,” the auction house said in a statement published in April.
The guitar, manufactured in Germany, has a spruce top, mahogany back and sides and a 19-fret rosewood fretboard, said the auction house, which worked with Beatles expert Andy Babiuk to confirm its authenticity.
“It has some distinctive markings which made it easily identifiable,” said the auction house, but “the real proof is in the sound.”
“When strummed, it immediately identifies itself as ‘that’ guitar. If you know the chords, Beatles tunes fall out of the sound hole effortlessly,” it said.
“Like an audio time capsule from 1965, the Framus is a direct link to those records.”
When it was found, the guitar was in such a bad state that it wasn’t playable, according to the auction house, which decided to restore it.
Source: Jack Guy, CNN/kesq.com
The songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney evolved during The Beatles’ amazing run. By the end of the band’s time together, the pair were mostly a collaboration in name only. But on “I’ve Got a Feeling,” they once again melded their talents for a fascinating hybrid of a song.
What is the song about? How was it assembled? And why was it an accurate representation of where the two songwriters were at that point in their lives? To get all the answers, we have to go back to a somewhat fraught time in The Beatles’ history: the making (and unraveling) of their Let It Be album/film project.
The original idea behind Let It Be (or Get Back, as it was originally known) was for The Beatles to rehearse and learn new songs for a concert that would allow them to debut the material. All the while, cameras would track their progress. But their best laid plans soon turned to mush, forcing them to improvise.
When George Harrison temporarily quit the band over a spat with Paul McCartney, the only way he could be coaxed back was if they moved out of the soundstage where they had been working and returning to the more natural environs of the recording studio. In addition, since they could never agree on a location for the live show, they finally threw up their hands and did a quick but memorable show on the roof of the building that housed their Apple label.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
The Oscar-winning Scottish filmmaker and Mercury Studios recall the legendary singer-songwriter’s 1972 'One-to-One' benefit concert, his only full-stage performance after leaving The Beatles. Life after The Beatles for legendary singer-songwriter John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono in New York City is the focus of Kevin MacDonald’s latest documentary, One to One: John & Yoko, from Mercury Studios.
The Scottish filmmaker, coming off his fashion doc High & Low: John Galliano, recalls Lennon in 1972 performing his final full-stage performance, the One to One benefit concert, at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, with Ono at his side.
Directed by Macdonald (Whitney, Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland), One to One features new materials like remixed concert audio produced by Sean Ono Lennon, newly restored footage and personal archives like phone calls and home movies recorded and filmed by Lennon and Ono. Besides earning an Oscar for One Day in September, MacDonald also executive produced the award-winning documentaries Senna and The Rescue.
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“I wanted to make a film that surprises and delights even the most dedicated Lennon and Ono fans by focusing on one transformative period in their lives and telling the tale through their own words, images and music,” MacDonald said in a statement about his doc. The project is built around 16mm film footage of the classic One-to-One concert while offering an intimate look at Lennon and Ono charting a new musical course after The Beatles.
Source: Etan Vlessing/hollywoodreporter.com
The Beatles penned hit after hit, all of which demonstrated their mastery of the songwriting form. But while they racked up classic songs for themselves beyond counting, they still found the time to write songs for other musicians.
Not everyone was aware that the song they were hearing on the radio had been written by John, Paul, George, or Ringo, especially if the song had been credited to a pseudonym. Here are some examples of songs that were recorded by other artists but dreamed up by the world’s favorite Liverpudlians.
I Wanna Be Your Man, The Rolling Stones. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, this song became one of The Rolling Stones' early hits. In fact, it was such a good tune that Lennon and McCartney borrowed it back so they could record their own version of it on their 1963 sophomore album, “With the Beatles.”
Source: Daniel Bukszpan/aol.com
For 18 years, all Cirque du Soleil needed was "Love." But in a few weeks, the kaleidoscopic fever dream known as “The Beatles Love by Cirque du Soleil” will go dark on the Las Vegas Strip.
No more skate ramps and curlicue airborne tricks to imbue “Help!” with the joviality to match the music (if not the lyrics).
No more graceful trapeze routines to the heart-fluttering “Something.” No more venue-sized bedsheet to appear out of nowhere, flap over the heads of the audience and get sucked into the vortex of the stage while the mashup of “Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows” envelops your eardrums, inviting striking sensory overload.
The Beatles' "Help" is performed with a tricky roller skating routine in Cirque du Soleil's "Love."
The end of Cirque’s groundbreaking production – it was the first to feature all prerecorded music and fixate on a singular music act – is July 6. A private performance will take place July 7, and considering the opening of “Love” on June 30, 2006 attracted Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Julian Lennon, Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison and Dhani Harrison among other VIPs, odds for prestigious sightings are high.
Endings are emotionally turbulent, and for the cast, crew, creative team and fans of “Love,” this finale triggers an ache.
Source: usatoday.com
John Lennon’s long-lost Framus 12-string Hootenanny acoustic guitar is up for grabs at Julien’s Auctions’ upcoming Music Icons auction, and it’s certainly an iconic piece of music history.
“It’s incredible,” Julien’s Auctions Executive Director Martin Nolan tells ABC Audio. “Presumed lost for 50 years.”
The guitar, purchased in 1964, was passed from Lennon to Gordon Waller of Peter and Gordon in late 1965; Waller then gave it to their road manager. It was only recently discovered in the 90-year-old road manager’s attic.
The guitar is an important part of The Beatles history, having been played on songs like “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and “Help!” George Harrison even played it on “Norwegian Wood.” And Beatles member Ringo Starr recently got to relive that history when he was reunited with the instrument at his home.
“We brought the guitar and he was so genuinely excited to see it and to play it and to take photographs with it,” Nolan shares. “He loved holding it and just reminiscing.”
Another person who’ll be reunited with the guitar is Lennon’s son Julian Lennon, who was photographed in the studio with it in 1965. Julian is also selling items in the auction, and Nolan notes, “Of course, Julian will come to see this before we gavel it to the new owner.”
Source: kshe95.com/ABC News
We can’t imagine anyone would turn their nose up at a Beatles comparison. The foursome was, undisputedly, one of the greatest bands of all time. So, if someone were to dub a band as next in line for that formidable throne, one would likely feel flattered. Unfortunately, not many bands earn that honor–even fewer were heralded as such by the Beatles themselves. According to John Lennon, Electric Light Orchestra are the “sons of the Beatles.” Find out why Lennon thought so highly of ELO, below.
Many bands have taken a page or two from the Beatles’ book. Their influence knows no bounds. While many of those bands have been chalked up to imitation acts, ELO was the real deal–at least by Lennon’s standards.
Before founding ELO, Jeff Lynne bounced around several other bands. One outfit, The Idle Race, was invited to Abbey Road by the Beatles. There, he got to hear the masterful precision of The White Album. The experience was enough to reshape Lynne’s entire musical perspective. Thus, the experimental, futuristic ELO was born.
ELO was founded in 1970, forged from Lynne’s experience with the Beatles. Luckily for Lynne, it wasn’t just he who was fawning over the Fab Four, the Fab Four was fawning over him–particularly Lennon.
It’s not every day that a Beatle presents you as their progeny. Lynne and ELO received the baton from Lennon in the early ’70s. While appearing on a radio show, Lennon decided to send some praise Lynne’s way.
Lennon was particularly fond of “Showdown.” The song is a feat that makes use of the band’s multi-instrumentalism.
Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
