Beatles News
Sixty years to the day of the last time Beatlemania put a stranglehold on Indianapolis, thousands of Beatles fans returned to the Indiana Farmers Coliseum to listen to their favorite band.
The Fab Four performed at the Indiana State Fair on Sept. 3, 1964, to a sold-out crowd of 10,000 screaming fans. On Sept. 3, 2024, some of those same fans, along with droves of other Beatles faithful, returned to the coliseum to listen to a recording of that show and see a performance by a Beatles tribute band.
Of all the stories from the Beatles’ short stint in Indianapolis, the best might be in the hours after the concert when State Police Officer Jack Marks, assigned to the Beatles’ security detail, spotted a sleepless Ringo Starr by the pool at the Speedway motel the band was staying at.
“My dad and two other state policemen saw him and went over and were talking to him,” said Karen Balach, “And said, ‘Since you can’t sleep, would you like to drive around and see part of the city?'”
At the time, Karen’s last name was Marks and she was just 11 years old — too young for her parents to even let her go to the concert. Her dad had the coolest job around, trailing the Beatles everywhere and making sure the most famous band in the world was safe during their Indy stay.
Source: Eric Graves/fox59.com
Though he might not have had quite as many cuts as Paul McCartney or John Lennon, George Harrison did deliver his fair share of hits for the Beatles. Among his cuts are “I, Me, Mine,” “Something,” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Each of those songs are indelible in the Beatles catalog, proving Harrison’s songwriting prowess. However, there is one song in particular that stood out for McCartney. Find out what Macca’s favorite Harrison-penned Beatles song is, below.
Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s alright
It’s impossible to not like “Here Comes the Sun.” It’s the sonic equivalent to feeling the first warm rays after a long, cold, lonely winter. McCartney once credited this track as one of his favorite songs Harrison contributed to the band.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, McCartney was asked what song of Harrison’s he liked best. “‘Here Comes The Sun,’” he said at the time. “It is a brilliant song and the kind of song that’s really good in times like these.”
Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
Elton John has never been shy about his struggles with addiction. Now that the rock icon has been clean since the early ’90s, he has been more than up for talking about his experiences. One tidbit he has shared involves George Harrison. Reportedly, the Beatle helped John curb his drug addiction.
The Beatles weren’t strangers to drugs. They had their fair share of bouts with weed and other substances. Nevertheless, Harrison took it upon himself to help out his fellow musician when he noticed he was struggling. John has opened up about how bad his drug addiction got in his heyday.
“I thought, ‘This is the drug that has opened me up,” John once said. “I can converse, I can be verbose. I would have an epileptic seizure and turn blue, and people would find me on the floor and put me to bed, and then 40 minutes later, I’d be snorting another line.”
“I’m not being flippant when I say that, when I look back I shudder at the behavior and what I was doing to myself,” he added elsewhere.
It was caustic enough to prompt John to do a 180 and attempt to get sober. Part of that journey involved Harrison’s keen advice. The Beatle came to him one day to try and give the singer a wake up call.
“It’s very hard to put into words,” he once said. “He was very forthright, and he actually administered quite a few tellings-off to me about my drug problem.”
Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
The Fab Four brought British Pop to Milwaukee 60 years ago this week, on Sept 4th, 1964.
Radio super DJ Bob Barry was working for WOKY when he was asked emcee the concert.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Barry told WTMJ’s Wis. Morning News. “My program director told me I had to because it was the Beatles.”
Adoring fans screamed for the band as they were announced.
“I couldn’t hear what they were singing, it was that intense,” Barry said.
Source: Erik Bilstad/wtmj.com
The late George Harrison was responsible for composing many memorable songs for both The Beatles and his own solo career. Harrison usually wrote tunes by himself, but there were quite a few instances where he collaborated with other artists, sometimes for those musicians’ projects and sometimes for his own.
Spotify recently debuted a “George Harrison Co-Writes” playlist featuring more than 50 songs Harrison wrote in collaboration with other artists.
Here are four noteworthy tunes that appear on the playlist:
“Badge” – Cream (1968)
Harrison helped Eric Clapton write “Badge” while Clapton was working on a tune to contribute to Cream’s 1969 farewell album, Goodbye. The song never mentions the word “badge,” and the title came about because of a humorous misunderstanding.
The tune initially didn’t have a title, but Harrison had written the lyrics on a sheet of paper, and included the word “bridge” to denote where the bridge of the track was to be played. In a 1977 interview with Crawdaddy magazine, Harrison recalled that Clapton looked at the sheet upside down and, misreading his handwriting, asked him, “What’s ‘badge’?”
Harrison also contributed rhythm guitar to the track under the pseudonym L’Angelo Misterioso. “Badge” became a hit in the U.K., peaking at No. 18 on the singles chart. It didn’t fare as well in the U.S., only reaching No. 60 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Having said that, “Badge” went on to become a classic-rock radio staple.
“Photograph” – Ringo Starr (1973)
Beatles drummer Ringo Starr enjoyed his biggest solo success with his third studio album, Ringo, which was released in 1973. The star-studded project included songwriting and musical contributions from all three of Starr’s former Beatles bandmates.
Source: Matt Friedlander/americansongwriter.com
The Beatles skated through much of their career, getting nothing but the most laudatory notices from the press. Their music was hailed and set apart as an ideal by music critics. But they eventually took some hits from the press about the quality of their work, especially upon the release of their 1967 television movie Magical Mystery Tour.
The group made the movie themselves and attempted an avant-garde production with a non-linear plot and trippy filming techniques. Unfortunately, the public and the press were expecting something much different. Here is the story of the rare Beatles’ project that was, dare we say it, labeled a flop at the time of its release.
Making the Movie
The Beatles’ first project following the August 1967 death of their manager Brian Epstein, Magical Mystery Tour was planned out just a month later at a group meeting. Filming began almost immediately and continued into October. The group would record six new songs for inclusion in the soundtrack.
Most of the “plot” revolves around a “magical” bus trip featuring The Beatles and a bunch of random passengers. Although there was a rough plan mapped out by the group for what was to be filmed and when and where, they also left room for happy accidents to make their way into the movie. Occasionally, sequences were filmed separate from the bus trip.
Filming didn’t go smoothly, as the band failed to realize the logistics of putting together a film and handling the demands of cast and crew. It didn’t help that the press were following their every move, making it difficult for them to locate the spontaneity they desired. On top of that, arguments between group members about the filming and editing added to the general chaos.
The Reaction
On December 26, 1967, Magical Mystery Tour was broadcast across the United Kingdom. Many fans tuned in excitedly, having heard the songs from the film, including soon-to-be-classics like “I Am the Walrus” and “Fool on the Hill.” But they just weren’t prepared for what they were about to see, and that went double for the critics preparing to review the film.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
“I was considered an ugly woman who took your monument away... some of his closest friends told me that probably I should stay in the background, I should shut up”: New Lennon doc throws light on the prejudice Yoko Ono faced
Will Simpson
3–4 minutes
There’s a new documentary on the way about John Lennon and Yoko Ono that focuses on the early years of the couple’s time in New York.
One To One: John And Yoko looks at their first eighteen months in New York and the build up to the One To One benefit gigs for Willowbrook State School, a home for special needs children in August 1972. They would be his last full length concerts.
The documentary features fully restored footage of the shows, with remixed audio produced by John and Yoko’s son, Sean. The film also boasts previously unseen material from the Lennon archives, including phone calls and home movies recorded by Lennon and Ono themselves.
The director is Kevin Macdonald, who was also behind the camera for the Oscar winning One Day In September, as well as Touching The Void (2003), The Last King Of Scotland (2006) and Marley (2012).
Source: Will Simpson/musicradar.com
“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,” the director said.
“Built around the
The Beatles never played a lot of their music live, considering the Fab Four called it quits for good just a few years after they retired from touring in 1966. It’s a shame, but we’ve been lucky enough to hear a few Beatles songs performed for the first time by each former member after they kicked off their solo careers.
That being said, quite a few songs still haven’t gotten a live performance. One such song would be the single “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” from 1969. This song didn’t make it to any album. Rather, it was released as a B-side to the May 1969 single “Old Brown Shoe”.
“The Ballad Of John And Yoko” was written by John Lennon and explores the pair’s famous wedding. Lennon wrote the song while he and his new wife were enjoying their honeymoon in Paris, France. It describes their famous “bed-in” in Amsterdam and performance art stunt to demonstrate “bagism”. Lennon even said that the song was less of a love song and more of “a piece of journalism.” The song also happened to be the very last no. 1 single in the UK until the late-released track “Now And Then” came out in 2023.
So, is there a reason why The Beatles never played this lovely little tune in front of a live audience? Why The Beatles Never Played “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” Live
Well, the answer is pretty simple. The Beatles quit touring a few years before this song was even written and recorded. Just as well, The Beatles were already going through the process of breaking up (even if just mentally) by 1969.
Source: Em Casalena/americansongwriter.com
Shortly after the Beatles parted ways in 1970, George Harrison was already well into his third album, a nostalgic retreat into past influences and a new beginning as a solo artist. Harrison’s triple album All Things Must Pass was his first album since the Beatles’ split and became the most successful solo release by a member of the band at the time, going to No. 1 worldwide, including in the UK and on the Billboard 200.
The first single from All Things Must Pass, “My Sweet Lord,” released with the B-Side, and another hit for Harrison, “What Is Life,” met a similar fate, topping the charts and giving Harrison his first No. 1 single as a solo artist. Despite the success of the track, it wouldn’t be long before Harrison found himself in a legal battle over the song and was accused of plagiarizing a 1960s hit.
Months after the release of “My Sweet Lord,” Bright Tunes Music sued Harrison in 1971, claiming that the song infringed the copyright of the Ronnie Mack-penned “He’s So Fine,” which became a hit for the girl group the Chiffons in 1963.
The lawsuit claimed that “My Sweet Lord” sounded too similar to the Chiffons’ hit and that he “subconsciously plagiarized” the song for his own. Harrison’s former Beatles bandmate John Lennon even concurred that “My Sweet Lord” was lifted from “He’s So Fine.”
In All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon said “Well, he [Harrison] walked right into it. He knew what he was doing.” He must have known, you know, he’s smarter than that.”
Source: Tina Benitez-Eves/americansongwriter.com
Almost 29 years after airing on TV and its later expansion on VHS/DVD, The Beatles Anthology remains an epic documentary series.
I became a fan of The Beatles through watching The Beatles Anthology during its three-night ABC broadcast in 1995. It would lead to both Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road becoming the first CDs in my collection. I would also pick up a guitar for the first time, later dropping the trumpet. In college, I took a piano course for the same reason but never quite mastered it. Of course, there’s the time that I saw Paul McCartney in concert back in 2011. That’s my Beatles story in a nutshell but none of it happens without ABC becoming A Beatles C. Fun fact: I came into the series because of all the ABC stars promoting it at the time so you can blame the misleading marketing for my becoming a fan.
While the initial broadcast ran about six hours, the expanded DVD is even longer. The eight DVD volumes span 1940 through their breakup after recording Abbey Road. On top of that, there’s another disc with 81 minutes of special features. All of the music is remastered for 5.1. I took in all of it in just over a 24-hour period prior to the Olympics kicking off in Paris. This was my first time sitting down to watch the documentary since the 1995 broadcast. I’ve been wanting to add the box set to my collection but my preference was to wait for a Blu-ray upgrade. While a Blu-ray upgrade now seems unlikely, rewatching has been on my agenda for a few weeks and as they say, it was now or never.
Source: Danielle Solzman/solzyatthemovies.com
