Beatles News
George Harrison’s favorite record, the triple album All Things Must Pass was released a few months after the Beatles’ official implosion
“ It was a great experience making this album., even if I didn’t really believe it » Harrison said a few years later. “ I remember thinking in the studio that it was marshmallowy, but the people around me were enthusiastic. That’s when I realized it was good. »
For the album’s 30th anniversary in 2000, Harrison himself oversaw a new mix, which included a remake of his hit “My Sweet Lord”. And today, to commemorate the album’s 50th anniversary, its rights holders are releasing a sparkling new mix of the title track “All Things Must Pass,” which also heralds a major project in the works.
The songs told Harrison’s story in multiple, sometimes undetectable ways. With subtle references that probably went over most fans’ heads, “Wah-Wah” and “Run of the Mill” were jabs at the Beatles’ crashing reunions and their chaotic histories. “Beware of Darkness” was his take on the less savory side of the music industry, and his newfound devotion to Hare Krishna was the focus of “My Sweet Lord” and “Awaiting on You All.” All Things Must Pass made Harrison his own creative and commercial force. Despite a sale price of $12 – a high price for the time – the three-disc set rose to the top of the American charts, where it remained for seven weeks.
Source: Christopher Johnson/wecb.fm
The Beatles never truly got back together.
At least during John Lennon's lifetime, that is, having acrimoniously called it a day in 1970 after a decade together.
Of course, they were dubbed 'The Threatles' when Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr reunited in 1994 to revitalise Lennon's long-lost demos for 'Free As A Bird' and 'Real Love'.
Once the band split, each of the members would fraternise with one another in some way and contribute to each other's albums in some way.
With the exception of John and Paul that is, due to their ongoing dispute which boiled over into thinly veiled digs at one another in songs like Paul's 'Too Many People' and John's scathing 'How Do You Sleep At Night?'.
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Collaboration post-Beatles was more of a frequent occurrence with Ringo however, as John, Paul, and George were happily pursuing their own creative ambitions.
Focusing on his acting career initially after The Beatles broke up, Ringo released two albums of covers, but by 1973 had changed his mind.
Source: Thomas Curtis-Horsfall/goldradiouk.com
Paul McCartney married for a third time in 2011. At the ceremony, he took time to honor his late friend, John Lennon.
Paul McCartney has been married three times, and John Lennon attended none of his weddings. Lennon died before McCartney’s second two weddings, and The Beatles were at such a low point in their relationships that none had attended McCartney’s first. Still, McCartney took time to bring attention to Lennon during his wedding in 2011. Here’s why McCartney wanted to pay his respects to his late friend.
In 2011, McCartney married Nancy Shevell, whom he began dating in 2007. This was McCartney’s third marriage; his first wife, Linda McCartney, died in 1998, and he finalized his divorce from his second wife, Heather Mills, in 2008.
The couple wed at the Old Marylebone Town Hall in a small ceremony that included both their families, Ringo Starr and his wife, Barbara Bach, and George Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison. After the ceremony, the group headed to McCartney’s home for a party.
“They had a lovely dance together,” McCartney’s brother Mike McGear told People, adding that the wedding was “Fabulous. Beautiful. It was just lovely and peaceful. Smashing lovely feel. I’m happy for my brother; he’s a lovely brother.”
McCartney and Starr were, of course, the only Beatles at the wedding. As it took place on Oct. 9, Lennon’s birthday, McCartney took a moment to toast Lennon. It would have been Lennon’s 71st birthday.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon said The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" was similar to Bob Dylan's music. He even accused the "Lay Lady Lay" singer of getting "away with murder" among intellectuals.
Bob Dylan’s influence is so great that it even extends to a song about an “elementary penguin.” John Lennon said The Beatles‘ “I Am the Walrus” was similar to Dylan’s music. He even accused the “Lay Lady Lay” singer of getting “away with murder” among intellectuals. While John’s comments were spot-on in some ways, he also ignored a major aspect of Dylan’s work.
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John cited Dylan as an inspiration and also discussed “I Am the Walrus.” “In those days I was writing obscurely, à la Dylan, never saying what you mean, but giving the impression of something,” he explained. “Where more or less can be read into it. It’s a good game. I thought, ‘They get away with this artsy-fartsy crap; there has been more said about Dylan’s wonderful lyrics than was ever in the lyrics at all. Mine, too.’
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a song for The Rolling Stones together. John explained why he was willing to give the track away in the first place.
In an incredible moment that the world somehow forgot, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a song for The Rolling Stones together. John felt the song encouraged The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write songs of their own. The “Imagine” singer explained why he was willing to give the track away in the first place.
The Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership wrote “I Wanna Be Your Man.” The Rolling Stones were the first group to release “I Wanna Be Your Man.” It was The Rolling Stones’ second single, following a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Come On.” The Beatles later recorded the tune for their album With the Beatles featuring lead vocals from Ringo Starr.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
“OK! This is the All-Starr Band!” declared Ringo Starr last month in New Buffalo, Michigan, dashing onto the stage to begin the evening as emcee before moving to the drum set later. “Every one of you will know at least two songs!” joked the Beatle, setting the stage for the extravaganza to come.
Touring behind his latest EP Rewind Forward, Starr has toured in an array of All-Starr Band iterations since 1989, ceding center stage to his famous band mates throughout a show that functions not just as a trip down Beatle memory lane but recent rock history.
Joined on this run by guitarists Steve Lukather (Toto) and Colin Hay (Men At Work), bassist Hamist Stuart (Average White Band), keyboard player Edgar Winter, drummer Gregg Bissonette and saxophonist Warren Ham, the seven piece group put their spin upon a few tracks from the projects of each member.
Source: Jim Ryan/forbes.com
Drummer Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr, denied any chances of a supergroup forming with other children of The Beatles, including John Lennon’s son Sean Lennon and George Harrison’s son Dhani Harrison. Starkey’s responses came after he posted an image of himself hanging out with Sean Lennon and fans began proposing the supergroup idea.
“What a guy (although he looks completely insane here and he is and so are we),” wrote Starkey in his caption. “It was so great that Sean invited us to hang at the Dakota and actually get to know each other a bit. We had a gas, and I have to say being in the apartment … I experienced such an overwhelming feeling of love that we didn’t wanna leave.”
Starkey’s responses to fans pushing for the Beatles kids supergroup have been mostly light-hearted. “Would I love to see you, Dhani, and Sean do something together,” wrote one fan, to Starkey’s response “[You] mean a three-way right?”
The same fan quickly elaborated “[I] was thinking more musical! You are all so talented and wonderful artists. I think your fathers knew each other, too.” The drummer quipped “If we had spent three years sleeping on flea-infested mattresses in the back room of a Hamburg club it might have chemistry, but we have been swaddled in silken robes in houses so big that it’s too far to go and make a piece of toast.”
Source: Tina Benitez-Eves/Tina Benitez-Eves
During his recent tour of Australia – which finished on the Gold Coast last Saturday (November 4) – Paul McCartney swung by Studio 10 for a rare TV appearance on The Project.
For panellist Georgie Tunny, this was a dream come true (let’s be real though, it’s every music journalist’s dream come true), being able to personally pose a question to the iconic Beatle... On national television, no less.
But as wild as it was, the opportunity was also equally daunting; see, Tunny only had the time to ask McCartney a single question – and as any fan of his or The Beatles’ at large would agree, there’s a nigh-on endless list of topics one could want to him to expound on.
In this exclusive essay for TheMusic.com.au, Tunny explains how she decided on the one question she wound up posing to Sir McCartney…
Source: Ellie Robinson/themusic.com.au
If Paul McCartney isn’t the greatest songwriter who has ever lived, he’s right up near the top of the list. Continuing his prolific output right into his eighties, McCartney has been writing enduring melodies since the late 1950s (though audiences outside of Liverpool and Hamburg wouldn’t hear any of them until 1962). To date McCartney has written or co-written 32 songs that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s singles charts, with sales in excess of 25 million units.
Most listeners know a Paul McCartney tune when they hear one. But along the way, McCartney has embarked upon a number of unusual projects, producing results that don’t always sound like what one might expect. One of those, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest, made in a pseudonymous collaboration with Youth (Martin Glover) as The Fireman, was released 30 years ago.
Here are five notable (but unlikely-sounding) Paul McCartney releases.
Source: Bill Kopp/goldminemag.com
When John Lennon decided to come out of his five-year musical career hiatus at the dawn of the 1980s, one of the first people he enlisted to produce what would become the fifth studio album credited to the former Beatle and his wife, Yoko Ono – "Double Fantasy" – was Jack Douglas.
Looking back however, Lennon's decision was a bit of a head-scratcher – Douglas was known primarily for his work with hard rock and heavy metal bands (Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Montrose, etc.), whereas it was supposedly new wave (The B-52's, in particular) that had rekindled his desire to return to music.
But there was one band that Douglas had previously worked with that was much more in line with Lennon's work with the Beatles (and his early solo work) – Cheap Trick. So, when it was time to begin work on what was envisioned as one of the harder rocking tunes on the album ("I'm Losing You") and a tune that Ono had penned ("I'm Moving On"), Douglas immediately thought of two Trickers to lend a hand – guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos.
On Tuesday, August 12, 1980, both Nielsen and Carlos found themselves at the Hit Factory in New York City, about to begin work on the tunes – and meeting both Lennon and Ono for the first time. In the 2020 book "John Winston Ono Lennon", Carlos took a trip down memory lane – as evidenced by the following excerpts.
Source: gregprato1/ultimate-guitar.com
