Postcard kindly supplied by Alan Chrisman.
Acknowledgements to Cavern City Tours who hold an annual International
Beatles Convention in Liverpool. Phone 0151-236-9091
This is a LIFO system - latest items come at the top
The cultural
impact of George Orwell’s impenetrably bleak Nineteen
Eighty Four has extended to almost all
forms of media. Wherever you look, you can find
movies, TV shows, podcasts, and music that
reflect the autocratic regimes and burned out
ruins of the world detailed within the pages of
Orwell’s masterpiece. There’s even a term for it
now: Orwellian. It just goes to show how
thoroughly Orwell’s work has penetrated into the
public’s consciousness.
Of all the artists who
were to take inspiration from the hellscape of
Nineteen Eighty Four, perhaps the least
likely would be one James Paul McCartney.
Although he occasionally got his kicks on death
and destruction, most of his works were on the
sunnier side. How could the man who wrote ‘Good
Day Sunshine’, ‘Mother Nature’s Son’, and ‘Mull
of Kintyre’ take a radical left turn into the
burned-out ruins of humanity?
Well, for one, McCartney
was a voracious reader. Secondly, the former
Beatle was always keen to take his inspiration
from relatively novel resources. Whether it be a
speech given by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a
headline in a paper, or the last words of a
legendary painter, McCartney could find a hook
in just about any work, whether it be fanciful
or fatalistic.
Not unlike ‘Live and Let
Die’, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five’ finds
McCartney taking what would ostensibly be a
negative subject and finding the light in it. In
this case, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five’
uses the setting of a wrecked dystopia to create
the kind of tune that McCartney excels at: a
silly love song.
“The idea behind the
song is that this is a relationship that was
always meant to be,” McCartney explains in
The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. “No one in
the distant future is ever going to get my
attention, because I’ve got you. But when it was
written, 1985 was only twelve years away; it
wasn’t the very distant future — only the future
in the song. So, this is basically a love song
about the future.”
McCartney goes on to
explain why he’s always brought back to writing
love songs. “‘Love’ is a staggeringly important
word, and a staggeringly important feeling,
because it’s going on everywhere, in the whole
of existence, right now,” he says. “The point
I’m making is obvious — that this ‘love thing’
is global, really universal.”
In that way, the song
also doubles as an ode to the undying love
McCartney had for his wife, Linda. Written while
Wings were making the Band on the Run
album, McCartney was well within the world of
marital bliss during the song’s creation.
Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to keep it
that way, with Linda’s death in 1998 triggering
a wave of grief that McCartney was ill-equipped
to handle on his own.
Still, as he proclaims
within the songs lyrics, the love he would
continue to have for Linda transcended time and
even life. “I didn’t think / I never dreamed /
That I would be around to see it / All come
true.”
Pink Floyd’s 1973 album
Dark Side Of The Moon was a seminal
moment in the history of music, one that would
influence countless other artists who, like most
at the time of its release, were taken aback by
the record’s groundbreaking new sound,
all-encompassing vision and the kind of
innovative creation that would define Floyd as
legends.
The band had a
pioneering attitude throughout the process of
creating the album and, at one point, even asked
The Beatles songwriter and serial creator Paul
McCartney to be interviewed as part of an
ambitious contribution to the LP. At the time of
forming their psychedelic sonic creation, Pink
Floyd were planning to sample Macca on the
record. However, despite The Beatles founder
obliging and sending across his addition, they
would leave his contribution off the record.
The collaboration came
about after McCartney declared openly that he
was a fan of Pink Floyd’s work and was intrigued
by the thriving psychedelic scene. It was a
space in which Pink Floyd had played a huge part
in curating across swinging London in the late
1960s. A new trippy facet to their upcoming
release, Floyd decided to carry out a series of
interviews for their record, which they would
use sporadically on the new material. After the
prospect of grabbing the enigmatic Paul
McCartney for a special guest spot became a
realisation, the band jumped at the chance.
Macca, who at the time
was working on his 1972 album with Wings,
Red Rose Speedway, was present at Abbey
Road during the same period that Pink Floyd were
also busy working away on Dark Side Of The
Moon—a convenient turn of events which made
his inclusion a seemingly straightforward
process. For the interviews, the band had a set
of provocative questions that they hoped would
evoke deep and thoughtful answers from their
interviewees such as ‘when was the last time you
were violent?’ or ‘does death frighten you?’.
Some of the questions
asked were less emotional, in fact, they were
somewhat banal offerings such as requesting
their favourite foods and colours, amongst other
things. Getting the former Beatles man to answer
any inquiries was quite the coup, however,
McCartney’s attitude towards the questions
managed to annoy one member of the band — Roger
Waters.
Not a difficult man to
annoy, the band’s serial songwriter Roger Waters
was irritated at McCartney’s contribution
because it undermined Pink Floyd’s vision of the
piece. Waters would
later tell Pink Floyd biographer John
Harris: “He was the only person who found it
necessary to perform, which was useless, of
course, I thought it was really interesting that
he would do that. He was trying to be funny,
which wasn’t what we wanted at all.”
McCartney would still go
on to have a brief cameo on the record, however,
even if it is perhaps so subtle that he himself
may not have realised it upon first hearing the
album. At the very end of the album’s epic
closer ‘Eclipse’, you can just about make out a
snippet from an orchestral version of The
Beatles song ‘Ticket to Ride’.
The Beatles classic was
allegedly playing in the background at the
studio while Abbey Road doorman Gerry O’Driscoll
delivered the poetic line of: “There is no dark
side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it’s
all dark. The only thing that makes it look
light is the sun.”
However, the former
Beatles man doesn’t seem to hold a grudge about
Pink Floyd deciding his contribution didn’t have
a place on the record. In truth, he appears to
agree that it was probably the right decision as
he labelled it the greatest concept album of all
time.
July 29, 2022
Double Exposure
with Ringo's "Photograph"
‘Photograph’: A Snapshot Of Ringo Starr’s
Amazing 1973-1974 Season
‘Photograph’ was co-written by Starr with George
Harrison, as their close post-Beatles working
relationship
continued.
by Paul Sexton for Udiscover Music
Early in his solo career, Ringo Starr told us
that “it don’t come easy.” But in 1973 and early
1974, he made a
nonsense of that title with two American No.1
singles in precisely nine weeks. Both featured
contributions by
former Beatles colleagues, and the first, the
thoroughly genial “Photograph” — co-written by
Ringo with
George Harrison — entered the Hot 100 on October
6, 1973. The two friends had been enjoying a
close working relationship in their own names;
closer, perhaps, than had
even been possible in the final chapters of The
Beatles’ time together. Starr had played on
Harrison’s 1970
epic All Things Must Pass and 1973’s Living In
The Material World, and George more than
returned the favor
by producing Ringo’s first two big solo hits,
“It Don’t Come Easy” and “Back Off Boogaloo.”
As the vocalist-drummer
made his new album Ringo between March
and July of 1973, with producer Richard Perry,
Harrison was a frequent visitor to the studio.
He played on five tracks on the LP and sang
backing vocals on two. He did both on
“Photograph,” providing harmony vocals and
12-string guitar on their co-write. The single
was released on September 24, and was just about
the hottest thing on American pop radio by the
time the album followed on November 2.
Ringo featuring
John, Paul and George
The Ringo
album, indeed, was a full Beatles reunion of
sorts, in that it also had Paul McCartney
playing on two tracks and giving Starr his
composition with wife Linda, “Six O’Clock.” The
John Lennon song “I’m The Greatest” was also
part of the LP, featuring John himself on piano
and backing vocals. The truly remarkable guest
list on Ringo also included Marc Bolan,
Steve Cropper, Harry Nilsson, Martha Reeves,
Billy Preston, and all of The Band except for
Richard Manuel.
The line-up on
“Photograph” was particularly stellar, also
featuring the ever in-demand Bobby Keys on tenor
saxophone, Nicky Hopkins on piano, Klaus
Voormann on bass and Jim Keltner on drums. Jack
Nitzsche supplied the orchestral and choral
arrangements. The single entered the Hot 100 at
No.74, and was in the Top 20 three weeks later.
By November 24, it was succeeding Eddie
Kendricks’ “Keep On Truckin’” at No.1.
In no time, Ringo was
offering up a second chart-topper in the form of
his cover of Johnny Burnette’s 1960 hit “You’re
Sixteen,” featuring Paul on kazoo, no less. The
album went gold in the UK and platinum in the
US, as Starr’s memorable 1973-74 season
continued.
Just announced on Facebook: "Ringo EP3 Out Sep
16"
July 28, 2022
Fender’s new George Harrison Rocky Stratocaster
is a psychedelic masterpiece
by Rod Brakes for Musicradar.com
This hand-painted replica captures the ‘60s vibe
of the original Beatles guitar
Following up the release of the George
Harrison Rosewood Telecaster earlier this
year, Fender has just
unveiled the similarly iconic George Harrison
Rocky Stratocaster.
While the Fender
Custom Shop has previously
created replica models of the Beatles
guitarist’s famous Strat, this Artist Signature
version falls into a significantly more
affordable price bracket.
When Harrison first
acquired his 1961 Fender Stratocaster in
‘65, it was sporting a Sonic Blue custom
colour finish.
Both he and John
Lennon had matching Sonic Blue Strats at
this point, and Harrison used his extensively on
numerous Beatles recordings of the ‘60s.
Come ‘67, and with the Summer of Love in full
swing, the guitar was given a distinctive
psychedelic paintjob.
“I got some Day-Glo paint, which was quite a new
invention in them days, and just sat up late one
night and did it.”
The new Fender George Harrison Rocky
Stratocaster features an alder body with a
hand-painted replica finish
that mimics the Beatle’s famous guitar in fine
detail, from concentric Day-Glo patterns and
pickguard motifs
to the Grimwoods music shop decal on the
headstock rear.
In keeping with the original instrument’s ‘60s
heritage, the George Harrison Rocky Stratocaster
has been
fitted with vintage-style tuners and a 6-saddle
Synchronized Tremolo with bent steel saddles.
A 3-ply mint green pickguard (fitted on Strats
from 1959 to 1965) along with aged white control
knobs and
an aged white pickup selector switch tip add to
the ‘60s vibe.
Period-correct for Strats made between 1959 and
1962, this guitar sports a 21-fret, 7.25” radius
slab
rosewood fingerboard atop a solid maple neck
(Fender describes the profile as a '60s "C"
shape).
Three ‘60s-style Stratocaster pickups provide
the kind of clear, chiming tones that made this
classic Fender
solidbody such a success following its release
in 1954.
The Jacaranda Bar will
honour its connection with The Beatles by
celebrating its 64th birthday with a
letter-writing campaign called ‘When I’m 64’.
The venue is asking
people to send in letters featuring their
memories of the Slater Street bar from over the
years. The letters will then line the walls of
the three storey building from August 22 until
August 28 - when there will be an
open-to-the-public birthday celebration.
A number of letters have
already been received, including one from Emma
Johnson who met her husband at the Jacaranda.
She wrote: “On 22nd October 2010 my best friend
told me to go to the Jac, there was someone she
wanted me to meet.
“Emma Lemming was
performing an acoustic set in the basement which
was a plus, but I only had a fiver to my name
and it was a school night. Reluctantly I headed
to town, grabbed a pint at the Jac when my blind
date showed up.
“He reeked of garlic as
he’d just come from the restaurant round the
corner, and he laughed at my theories on the
space time continuum. 10 years to the day of
that night in the Jac we got married. Two kids
later and still going strong. It’s amazing what
a good pub is capable of.”
The campaign takes
inspiration from the ‘send us a postcard, drop
us a line’ lyric of When I’m 64. Paul McCartney
wrote the song in 1956 when he was just 14 and
two years before the opening of The Jacaranda.
It was later released on The Beatles
era-defining 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band.
Graham Stanley, managing
director at The Jacaranda said: “We’re hoping to
hear brand new stories from every decade and
even some new perspectives on old ones – I was
once told a story that Bob Dylan got kicked out
of The Jac for looking too scruffy in the ‘60s.
I’ve never got to the bottom of that one.”
He added: “Hundreds of
bars around the world use The Beatles as an
influence. The Jacaranda is one of the few bars
that can say that we were an influence on The
Beatles. That’s something we’re really proud
of.”
Veso Mihaylov, head of
events and marketing at The Jacaranda said:
“Part of our job is to honour the importance and
continue the legacy of one of the most iconic
music venues in the city. We do that by
providing a stage to young and often unknown
talent and giving them their first opportunity
to play live shows in front of an audience.
“In the past three years
we’ve seen the number one artists The Lathums,
we’ve also hosted Mercury-award nominees
Porridge radio and one of Liverpool’s most
exciting rising stars Zuzu.”
Thank You Girl is a song by The Beatles written by John
Lennon and Paul McCartney. The song was released as a single in
1963.
"Thank You Girl" is
... the
B-side of "From Me to You", which was recorded on the same day (5
March 1963). It wasn't on a British Beatles album, but was featured
as the second track on The Beatles' Second Album in the US. As the
B-side to "Do You Want to Know a Secret", it hit #35 on the
Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1964.
Originally titled "Thank You, Little Girl", John Lennon and Paul
McCartney wrote the song as a tribute to the band's many female
fans. McCartney said, "We knew that if we wrote a song called,
'Thank You Girl' that a lot [sic] of the girls who wrote us fan
letters would take it as a genuine thank you. So a lot of our songs
were directly addressed to the fans."
Lennon said the song was originally intended as a single: "'Thank
You Girl' was one of our efforts at writing a single that didn't
work. So it became a B side or an album track." In April 1972 he
told Hit Parader, "[This was written by] Paul and me. This was just
a silly song we knocked off." Paul McCartney, the song's
co-composer, seemed to agree describing it as "a bit of a hack song,
but all good practice."
The song was recorded in thirteen takes, the same number of takes
needed to perfect "From Me To You." This recording session is also
notable because it marks the first studio appearances of two
Lennon/McCartney songs that would not be released until much later
in the band's career: "One After 909" from Let It Be, and "What Goes
On" from Rubber Soul. Although both songs were rehearsed, only "One
After 909" was recorded, and even then the results were deemed
unsatisfactory for release.
The original stereo mix of the song is noticeably different to
the mono mix (which is the mix used on Past Masters, Volume One) in
the middle 8, where a couple of extra harmonica lines can be heard.
Both "From Me to You" and "Thank You Girl" were credited to
McCartney-Lennon, as were all the songs on the Please Please Me
album. The songwriting credit would be permanently changed to the
more familiar Lennon/McCartney for their next release, the "She
Loves You" single.
John wrote it as a follow-up to "Please Please Me." At the time
they recorded the song, John was proud of it, but in 1971 he
dismissed it as a "Just a silly song that we knocked off."
Credits:
John Lennon: Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar (1962 Gibson
J-160E), Harmonica (Hohner Chromatic)
Paul McCartney: Bass Guitar (1961 Hofner 500/1),
Backing
Vocals
George Harrison: Lead Guitar (1962 Gibson J-160E)
Ringo Starr: Drums (1960 Premier 58/54 Mahogany)
The Oxford Beatles do their cover
version of "Michelle"
July 25, 2022
John Lennon: What really happened in his
childhood
We
thought we knew every detail of John Lennon's
life. But his half-sister kept quiet about what
really
Each unhappy family, as Tolstoy remarked, is unhappy in its own way -
but the great Leo could never have anticipated how a family's
unhappiness could be worsened by the accretion of half-truths and
Chinese whispers in the celebrity media and publishing circuit.
Julia Baird knows this all too well. As the half-sister of John
Lennon, she's had to monitor a blizzard of inaccuracies about her
beloved sibling. "Our hidden histories have been hung up across the
giant screen of the sky," she writes, "inviting inspection and criticism
from all and sundry, and dissection from Beatles experts and John
experts." Now, though, she has made a valiant stab at setting things to
rights.
It's a tragic story, and at its centre is Julia's and John's mother,
also called Julia. She was one of the five Stanley sisters - Mimi,
Betty, Anne, Julia and Harriet, all born in the shadow of Liverpool's
Anglican Cathedral. Julia Stanley - red-haired, exuberant, musical and
headstrong - was only 14 when she began seeing a hotel bellboy, Alfred
Lennon, to her parents' chagrin. Alf became a ship's steward and spent
long periods at sea, but their romance survived his absences. They were
married in a register's office in 1938 with no family members present;
Alf put to sea the following day. When war broke out, the Liverpool
shipyards were bombed but the family (now living in Penny Lane)
survived. Alf, now a merchant seaman, came home long enough to make
Julia pregnant, then decamped across the Atlantic. The baby was named
John Winston Lennon. With the child's father mostly out of the picture,
Julia and John moved in with her disapproving father. Julia became
pregnant by a passing Welsh soldier and was persuaded to give up the
baby girl for adoption. Then, while waitressing, she met "Bobby" Dykins,
a demonstrator of invisible mending, and they fell in love.
What followed has been the stuff of much confusion. As several Lennon
biographies will tell you, the five-year-old John went, by arrangement,
to live with his aunt Mimi in a house nearby called Mendips, while his
mother started another family with Bobby. Unable to marry, because the
chronically absent Alf was still alive, they had two children, Julia and
Jackie, while John would pay the occasional visit. That's the
representation of life that Baird is anxious to overturn in Imagine
This: Growing Up with my Brother John Lennon.
She has been a tenacious guardian of his flame since 1985. "Only five
years after he died, there was a BBC 'celebration' of John's life that I
watched and it was so badly wrong," she says. "I felt I had to do
something, so I put together a handwritten, limited-edition copy, using
all the family photographs. I got it properly published in 1988. But the
story is still escalating. I still hear and read things." Such as? "That
my mother gave John away. That she went to live with a man who had two
children from a previous relationship - [her eyes blaze with
indignation] as if my sister and I weren't born to our mother at all!"
The truth, it seems, involves the grotesque, condemnatory figure of Aunt
Mimi, who waged a bitter war with her own sister for possession of the
little boy, claiming that Julia and her new man were disgraceful public
sinners; their house an unfit arena in which to bring up a child. She
effectively kidnapped John and barred the door against poor, distraught
Julia when she called to see her son.
What brings a tremble to Baird's voice are the revelations she
unearthed in researching the past. She discovered, for instance, the
existence of her half-sister, the baby sent away for adoption. And
through a fog of mutterings and hints by her Aunt Georgina (known as
Nanny), Baird gradually revealed that Mimi, the sainted,
hell-and-damnation moralist, had for years been sleeping with her lodger
(she in her fifties, he in his twenties). Baird contacted the ex-lover,
whereupon he confirmed the affair, and the fact that Mimi, despite being
married, years before, had been a virgin when they got together.
This opens a whole can of psychological worms about the reasons for
Mimi's appropriation of John. "People come to terms over relationships,
don't they?" said Baird. "Mimi and her husband obviously came to that
agreement [ie not to have children] before their wedding day. But I've
come to the conclusion that her taking John away was an act of
opportunism."
Her book is an act of worship to a brother she clearly adored, but is
also a tenderly evoked memoir of a Liverpool childhood - the noise, the
music, the skipping, the Meeting Tree, the jam-buttie picnics, the
street games they played - and a glowing tribute to her sainted mother,
who seems to become younger and lovelier as Baird describes her role in
teasing out the teenage John's interest in music. Julia taught him to
play his first instrument, the banjo, standing behind him with her hands
on his. She played the ukulele (she did a good George Formby impression)
and the piano accordion, and, in the music explosion that followed the
appearance of Lonnie Donegan and Elvis, she welcomed into the house
umpteen friends bearing drums, washboards and rudimentary bass guitars.
Baird's book is full of lovely vignettes about the pre-Beatles
period: John singing the lachrymose "Nobody's Child", the rise of The
Blackjacks in their monochrome shirts and pants, the famous
back-of-a-lorry gig at Woolton fête when, "The Quarrymen arrived on a
lorry, and would leave that evening as half the Beatles"; the first
Quarrymen gig at the Cavern, which Paul McCartney missed because he had
to be at Scout camp in north Wales. Lennon's adored mother features so
centrally in this chronicle of growing success that when the defining
event of Lennon's life occurs - Julia was run over by a car outside
Mimi's house and killed when he was 17 and his sister 11 - we feel a
corresponding ache and loss, and a furious sympathy for the author and
her little sister, who were kept from the funeral and not told of their
mother's death for 10 weeks because they were illegitimate and shamed
the family.
It has taken Baird a lifetime to put herself together after the
tragedy that ruined her childhood; it's not surprising she has spent so
long picking over the past, trying to tease out the family secrets and
straighten out the facts. It's also not very surprising to find that she
became a special needs teacher, working for many years with "excluded
adolescents". Her favourite person in the world was a brother who became
an excluded adolescent at 17, and disappeared forever into the big world
where feelings count less than renown.
Does she think the death of his mother led indirectly to his success?
"Of course. Many of his songs were chronicling his life and feelings.
John said once in an interview, 'I'm not one for doing autobiography,
I'd never do anything like that.' and I thought, 'John, all your songs
are autobiographical.' Didn't he see it? Or did it come from depths he
wasn't aware of?" Does she wish he'd never picked up the guitar? She
gives a weary grimace. "Yes. Definitely. He'd be here, wouldn't he? So
yes."
'Imagine This: Growing Up with my Brother John Lennon' by Julia Baird
is published by Hodder, priced £18.99.
Bob Rafelson, ‘The Monkees’ Co-Creator and ‘Five Easy Pieces’
Director, Dead at 89 Maverick filmmaker had longtime collaboration with Jack Nicholson
and produced indie classics like The Last Picture Show
by Daniel Krepps for Rolling Stone
Bob Rafelson, the Oscar-nominated maverick filmmaker who directed
Seventies classics like Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens in
addition to co-creating The Monkees, has died at the age of 89.
Both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety reported that Rafelson died of natural causes Saturday at his
home in Aspen, Colorado.
A veteran television producer in Hollywood before
he was a filmmaker, the New York City-born Rafelson had the idea to make a
television show about the fictional pop band in the early Sixties amid the
British Invasion; the idea finally came to fruition after the release of
the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, with Rafelson and his producing partner
Bert Schneider putting out a casting call for what would become the
Monkees.
Although the series only ran for two seasons, the “band” itself became a
hit-making machine with singles like “Last Train to Clarksville,” “I’m a
Believer” and “Daydream Believer.” After the sitcom was canceled, the
Monkees starred in the 1968 now-cult classic Head, co-written and directed
by Rafelson.
“[Head] wasn’t so much about the deconstruction of the Monkees, but it was using the deconstruction of the Monkees as metaphor
for the deconstruction of the Hollywood film industry,” the Monkees’ Micky
Dolenz told Rolling Stone in 2016. “I think it was restricted to 17 and over.
Many of our fans couldn’t even get in. From a commercial perspective, it
was totally the wrong movie to make. But we didn’t want to make a
90-minute episode of the Monkees TV show. Also, these were the guys that
were going to go off and make Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. They had an
opportunity to really stretch here.”
Much to the Monkees’ chagrin — “If I had been living in L.A. and seeing
Bob and Bert and all their fucking money, it would have driven me crazy,”
Dolenz told Rolling Stone — the earnings that Rafelson and Schneider’s
Raybert Productions made off the band wasn’t directed back to the four
members; instead, the producers, along with Stephen Blauser, founded BBS
Productions, an independent film company focused on the making films –
like Head – counter to those being made in Hollywood at the time.
Although
BBS Productions was only in business for four years, it made an
immeasurable impact on generations of independent filmmakers: After
scoring a counterculture hit with em>Easy Rider, the company gave
opportunities to young directors like Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture
Show, which was nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture), Henry Jaglom (A Safe Place), and Jack Nicholson,
who directed and co-wrote BBS’ 1970 release Drive, He Said.
Rafelson is
credited with helping to launch Nicholson’s superstar career, as they
worked on seven films together. Nicholson, who at the time was a
struggling actor focused on writing and directing, first collaborated with
Rafelson on Head, which the pair co-wrote. The following year, Nicholson
had his acting breakthrough by sheer luck in 1969’s Easy Rider, produced
by Rafelson.
“Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson thought I was a good actor
but had me out with them all the time on locations, primarily to help with
production,” Nicholson
told Rolling Stone in 1986 of his Easy Rider role.
With Rafelson behind the camera, he cast Nicholson in the starring and
star-making role in Five Easy Pieces, which earned Academy Award
nominations for both Best Picture and Best Actor. The director and actor
would later reunite for 1972’s The King of Marvin Gardens, the 1981 noir
The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1992’s Man Trouble and 1996’s
Blood and
Wine.
In addition to his run of Nicholson films, Rafelson also directed
1976’s Stay Hungry (featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his earliest
roles), 1987’s Black Widow, and the music video for Lionel Richie’s “All
Night Long.” His last feature film as director was 2002’s No Good Deed.
I'm Looking Through You - The Beatles - Full
Instrumental Recreation (4K)
by Michael Sokil
July 24, 2022
The Beatles 'Get Back' Blu-ray Full Review +
Breaking News
by Parlogram Auctions
After a long and
tense wait The Beatles 'Get Back' Blu-ray and DVD is finally on the
shelves (in most
countries). Is it as good as the Disney Plus stream which wowed Beatles
fans back in November 2021 and
what, if any, extra does it give to the collector? In this video we take a
close look at both the packaging,
video and audio quality of this release, with not a single second of
unboxing in sight!
July 22, 2022
Peter Jackson is working on anther Beatles film
that's "not really a documentary"
Jackson also talked about his role in providing
McCartney with the cleaned-up vocals from John
Lennon's rooftop performance of I've Got A
Feeling.
by Scott Ng for Guitar.com
Lord of The Rings director
Peter Jackson has revealed he is currently
working on another Beatles film
following his Disney+ three-part docuseries, The
Beatles: Get Back.
In a new interview with Deadline,
Jackson revealed the project is “not really a
documentary”, explaining he
was in conversation with surviving Beatles Paul
McCartney and Ringo Starr “about another
project, something
very, very different than Get Back”.
“We’re seeing what the possibilities are, but
it’s another project with them,” Jackson hinted.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jackson also talked
about his role in providing McCartney with the
cleaned-up
vocals from John Lennon‘s rooftop performance
of I’ve Got A Feeling, revealing he had
the idea of McCartney
being able to ‘perform’ alongside Lennon again
when he first started work on Get Back four
years ago.
“We had access to all that footage, and to do
something like that, you need the footage,”
Jackson
explained. “The shots have to be right. I didn’t
mention it to Paul. I thought, ‘Suggesting to
Paul that he sing
onstage with John, he’s going to think I’m a
fanboy geek idiot.’”
Jackson eventually attended a concert of
McCartney’s before the pandemic forced lockdowns
worldwide,
filming the performance for I’ve Got A
Feeling so he could head to the studio and
piece together a “simple CGI
proof of concept” to pitch to McCartney. In the
ensuing lockdowns that followed, however,
Jackson did not
have the opportunity to pitch his idea to
McCartney.
“I’d gotten cold feet because I thought, ‘How
many harebrained suggestions like this has Paul
gotten over
the years? I don’t want to appear too geeky,’”
Jackson explained. “Finally, I thought, ‘I’m
going to regret this
for the rest of my life if I don’t even suggest
it.’ I sent him a text.”
McCartney was thrilled by the idea, and has
currently incorporated it in his ongoing tour
after debuting it
at
his Glastonbury set this year.
In an interview with Guitar.com last
year, Jackson talked about the “demixing”
process he had developed to isolate instruments
and vocals from footage of the band rehearsing
and performing, explaining, “So the big
breakthrough for us was actually not [restoring]
the pictures, even though that’s what you
obviously look at, it was the sound. The way
that we managed to split off the mono recordings
in the mouldable tracks.”
Jackson utilised
AI-based machine learning for the process, which
allowed him to also isolate private
conversations between the Beatles that were
hidden by the sound of instruments.
July 21, 2022
Julian Lennon Explains Why He Legally Changed
His Name: 'For Me, It's a Whole Other World'
Julian Lennon speaks candidly about how
constantly being called John Lennon during the
pandemic impacted
him
by Amethyst Tate, Digital News Writer, People
Speaking on the podcast, Word in Your Ear, the son of the late Beatles star turned solo
artist John Lennon
admitted that the pandemic played a big role.
"It was in 2020, just before we all got locked in a cage that I
finally actually decided to legally change my name by default. Because
originally my name was John Charles Julian Lennon, and the crap that I
had to deal with when traveling and security companies and this and that
and the other."
"Whenever you had to present yourself, especially on like boarding
passes, just as an example, you know they only use your first name, and
so it would always be 'John Lennon, John Lennon," the 59-year-old
singer-songwriter explained.
"So I became quite fearful and anxious about those scenarios, because
there would always be wise cracks or jokes, and most of the time people
didn't even recognize me. So it became really uncomfortable over the
years because I've always been known as Julian and so it [being called
John] never felt like it was me. So finally I just decided in 2020,
'Yeah, I wanna be me now. This is it, it's time for a change.'"
But Julian is making sure to still honor
his parents, John and Cynthia Powell.
"I want to respect
the legacy and the wishes of my parents, but
all I did was switch the 'John' and 'Julian'
so I'm Julian Charles John Lennon. It's as
simple as that, but for me, it's a whole
other world, it really is. Not that I'm
ashamed or have disrespect. I needed to be
me. I needed to finally be heard as Julian.
This is what Julian does, not 'John's son,'
so that has been a part of the path and...it
just made sense for me."
Julian said the positive reception toward
the performance has also altered his
feelings toward the experience of being
viewed as the son of a Beatle. "I feel,
probably for the first time ever, that I can
walk around not being afraid with my head
held high," he shared during an interview
with the iHeartRadio
podcast Inside the Studio,
recalling awkward stories of being
recognized. "You know, on the road in the
older days, we'd stop at a diner and they
just put Beatles songs on to see if I
reacted to see if it was me. 'Really, that's
all you've got!? Can't you just come up and
say, 'Hey, Julian!'?'"
"I used to have to deal with that crap
all the frigging time. It was so
frustrating. Anyway, I'm over all of that
now," Julian continued. "I think I've laid
my foundation on many levels of what I do
and I'm proud to be doing everything that
I'm doing now. So it's a different world,
you know? I'm feeling like maybe just a
little bit of an adult now… It's been
magical. It's been magical probably for the
first time ever."
July 20, 2022
Song of the Week – Tired of Midnight Blue,
George Harrison
by
Tom Muscarella for Rock 'n' Roll Remnants
(text below has been edited from the original
report for brevity sake.)
In late 1974, George
Harrison released Dark Horse,
his fifth solo album that coincided with a
concert tour. Anyone who is familiar with
this album or witnessed the tour knows that
Harrison sounded different than he had ever
sounded before. His voice was suffering
from laryngitis, the result of alcohol, drugs
and over working.
His next album, Extra Texture,
has often been considered as an inconsequential
effort that was produced with little focus
simply to take advantage of time available in
A&M studios that would otherwise have gone
unused (and to satisfy his contractual
commitment to Apple/EMI).
But Extra Texture has a few highlights, like
its lone single, “You,” that reached #20 on the
Billboard
Hot 100. Another is “Tired of Midnight
Blue.”
The
song’s backstory is that Harrison wrote it after
a night out in LA where he was bored with the
phony club scene and wished he had simply stayed
at home instead.
The sun came into view As I sat
with the tears in my eyes The sun
came up on you And as you
smiled, the tear-drop it dried.
I
don’t know where I had been But I know
what I had seen Made me
chill right to the bone Made me
wish that I’d stayed home – along with you Tired of
midnight blue.
The track
has a beautiful piano intro, played by Leon
Russell. In fact, it has one of Russell’s
finest performances throughout. Jim
Keltner was on drums (and cowbell) and session
man Paul Stallworth played bass.
Even
Harrison’s least important records had some very
worthwhile music to hear, and “Tired of Midnight
Blue” is a textbook example.
July 19, 2022
In My Life - The Beatles - Full Instrumental
Recreation (4K) by Michael Sokil
On October 13th, 1965, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr
drove over to John Lennon’s Kenwood home in Weybridge,
Surrey with one important order of business. This was to
compose a three-way collaborative effort for inclusion
on their upcoming album “Rubber Soul.” They all sat down
at the kitchen table with paper and pens and, with
guitars in hand, wrote what would become the first and
only three-person Beatles composition, the results being
the Grammy-award winning song “What Goes On?”
Well…OK, it didn’t really happen that way. In fact this
is the farthest from the truth. While the real story is
hardly as glamorous, it has become a piece of history if
only for the reason of it being an indelible component
of The Beatles catalog. Not the topper of anyone’s
“favorites” list and considered by most as “album
filler,” examination shows the song as effectively
conveying a convincing message within the framework of a
well-written melody line and chord structure. Maybe we
all need to reconsider its worth.
Songwriting History
When asked in 1972 by
Hit Parader magazine who wrote “What Goes On?,” John
Lennon answered: “Me. A very early song of mine.” In
1980, he explained to Playboy magazine, “That was an
early Lennon, written before The Beatles, when we were
The Quarry Men, or something like that.”
“The Quarry Men,” named
after Quarry Bank High School where John and most of the
original members attended, had a performance life
between 1957 and 1960. Paul McCartney joined the group
in July of 1957 as did George Harrison in 1958. By 1960,
the band's name changed various times (“Johnny And The
Moondogs,” “The Silver Beetles”), so the song “What Goes
On?” was apparently written during this four year time
period, although it was never performed by the group.
However, it was
apparently quite different from what we’ve come to know
it as. Lennon told Playboy in 1980 that the song was
“resurrected with a middle-eight thrown in, probably
with Paul’s help, to give Ringo a song and also to use
the bits, because I never like to waste anything.” John
and Paul usually referred to a song's bridge as a
“middle-eight” but in this case, “What Goes On?” doesn’t
have one. It has a repeatable chorus (“What goes on
in your heart…”) and a set of verses (“The
other day I saw you as…”). It can easily be assumed
that what John claims to have written during the Quarry
Men days was the chorus while the verses were added by
Paul in 1965 to complete it for the “Rubber Soul” album.
This hypothesis brings
us to a puzzling conclusion, though. It seems very
unlikely that John would only have a repeatable chorus
and claim it was a complete song. And since, as we’ll
discuss later, the song was auditioned as a contender to
be recorded in EMI Studios in 1963 before Paul
contributed anything, it must have had at least a little
more substance to it early on.
This is cleared up with
John’s further comment to Hit Parader
magazine in 1972: “Ringo and Paul wrote a new
middle-eight together when we recorded it.” Since what
was written to complete the song in 1965 was termed a
“new middle-eight,” John must have written one in the
song’s early version, one that was replaced in 1965 just
before it was recorded.
Also clarified here is
that Ringo did in fact contribute to the song’s writing,
Paul and himself putting together the verses. Barry
Miles, in his co-authored autobiography of Paul’s career
entitled “Many Years From Now,” states about the song:
“John dusted it off and Paul and Ringo wrote a new
middle eight for it.” When asked in 1966 about his input
to this collaboration, Ringo replied, “I contributed
about five words to ‘What Goes On.’ I haven’t done a
thing since.”
Recording History
“I was always saying to The Beatles, ‘I want another
hit, come on, give me another hit.’” This comment from
George Martin was particularly valid in the early months
of 1963 when a follow-up to their first British
chart-topper “Please Please Me” was needed. Therefore,
on March 5th, 1963, at around 2:30 in the afternoon, the
group assembled for a session in EMI Studio Two to show
him what they had.
George Martin remembers, “I would meet
them in the studio to hear a new number. I would perch
myself on a high stool and John and Paul would stand
around me with their acoustic guitars and play and sing
it – usually without Ringo or George, unless George
joined in the harmony. Then I would make suggestions to
improve it, and we’d try it again. That’s what is known
in the business as a ‘head arrangement.’”
On this occasion, The Beatles premiered four songs to
George Martin for consideration for their next single,
two newly written compositions and two written many
years before. The two first chosen by Martin were the
recently written numbers, “From Me To You” and “Thank
You Girl,” the former becoming their next British #1
single and the latter becoming its b-side. With a little
studio time left, one of the older written songs began
life in the studio, this being “One After 909,” although
this was never finished nor released at the time. The
other older written song that they didn’t have time for
that day was the early incarnation of “What Goes On?,”
at this time a full John Lennon composition. At this
point, this song was the least suitable for recording
and apparently didn’t get past the George Martin “high
stool” test.
With just over half of the “Rubber Soul” album completed
by November 4th, 1965, and with a December 3rd release
date fast approaching, the group prepared “What Goes
On?” to finally be suitable for recording and release.
With a new set of verses written by Paul and Ringo, they
entered EMI Studio Two on this day at 11 pm for a late
night session to get more needed work done for the
album.
Much preparatory work was first needed, so with all the
arrangement bugs worked out they recorded only one take
of the rhythm track, which was deemed good enough. The
instrumentation consisted of John on electric rhythm
guitar, George on lead guitar, Paul on bass and Ringo on
drums, as well as an off-microphone guide vocal. Also
noticeable on the rhythm track are off-the-cuff remarks
and voices from the other group members, such as John
yelling out “I already TOLD you why” after
Ringo sings “tell me why” at the end of the
second verse, most likely a reference to their 1964
composition “Tell Me Why.”
With this rhythm track complete, overdubs commenced.
First was Ringo’s lead vocal which remained
single-tracked (his fiasco double-tracking “Matchbox” in
June of 1964 showed him not too capable with this
procedure) and John and Paul’s harmonized background
vocals. A brief lead guitar flourish at the conclusion
of the song was the only instrumental overdub necessary.
By approximately 2 am the next morning, “What Goes On?”
was complete, leaving the remaining hour-and-a-half
hours of the session for attempting the recording of an
ad-libbed instrumental tentatively titled “12-Bar
Original” which was eventually discarded as a bad idea
and never saw the light of day (until “Anthology 2,”
that is).
Both the mono and stereo mixes of “What Goes On?” were
created on November 9th, 1965 in Room 65 of EMI Studios
by George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Jerry
Boys. Interestingly, the overdubbed lead guitar
flourish, which presumably was recorded on a separate
track, was inadvertently left out of the mono mix. They
remembered to turn up this track during the stereo mix
which also gives more clarity to Ringo humming/singing
the chorus during the guitar solo and his off-mic twice
repeated “in your mind” at
the end of the song. The stereo mix features most of the
rhythm track and Ringo’s lead vocal primarily on the
left channel with George’s lead guitar and the
overdubbed harmony vocals primarily on the right
channel.
In 1986, George Martin created a new stereo mix of the
song in preparation for the “Rubber Soul” album
appearing on compact disc for the first time. Although
somewhat clearer, the mix is essentially the same as the
1965 stereo mix except that both Ringo’s vocal and the
background vocals are slightly panned a little bit more
to the center.
On July 16th, 2006, Ringo and his “All-Starr Band” had a
live rendition of the song recorded in Uncasville, CT,
for inclusion on his live album “Ringo Starr And His All
Starr Band Live 2006.” Also, in 2008, a recording was
made of the song during Ringo’s live set at the Greek
Theatre in Los Angeles, California, the result appearing
on the album “Live At The Greek Theatre 2008.”
Song Structure and Style
The Beatles seemed to
go to great lengths to infuse some creativity into the
structure and arrangement for this song which, to many
ears, appears to be a let-down in comparison to the
sparkling and innovative songwriting that surrounds it
on the album. I heartily implore you to take a closer
look at the results so as to show that this is in fact a
well-written song with many elements of an impressive
performance. I’m not trying to give anyone the "hard
sell," but I don’t think that it should be considered a
“bad song,” per se, as may be the general opinion. The
unfortunate thing here is that, surrounded by the
contents of either British or American album that
contains it, it sits among the framework of brilliance.
American Beatle fans of the 60’s had a hard transition
to the British track listing of the compact disc when,
where they expected the beautiful “It’s Only Love,” they
got what they considered a "clunky" album-filler sung by
Ringo.
Although the structure
of the song was no doubt in place back in the late 50’s,
we see here another case of a chorus being used as the
primary feature, something that was less than usual in
their catalog up to this point. The format of the song
is ‘chorus/ verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus (solo)/ verse/
chorus’ (or abababa). Three separate verses with their
own lyrics show that a lot of work was put into the
writing of the song in getting it to this finished
state, Ringo’s “five words” intermingled somewhere
within.
A brief four-measure
introduction, started off by three leading notes from
George before the downbeat, establishes the key of E
major and begins what has developed into a true
country-and-western flavored piece. Being what Ringo has
claimed at the time as being his favorite genre of
music, the group was undoubtedly bowing to his favor,
possibly purposely altering the previously-written
composition to his style. In fact, the habit up to this
point had been to cater to a “hillbilly” sound for most
of his vocal contributions, which were a Buck Owens
cover and two Carl Perkins “rockabilly” classics. (The
unreleased “If You’ve Got Trouble” wouldn’t have fit
into this mold.)
The one-beat of the
introduction introduces the full band arrangement as
we’ll hear unaltered throughout the song, consisting of
John on electric rhythm guitar, Paul on bass and Ringo
on drums. George plays an interesting introductory
guitar phrase not unlike what we’ll hear almost non-stop
throughout the remainder of the two minutes and
forty-four seconds.
Just before the first
twenty-measure verse begins, we hear the three-part
harmony of Ringo, John and Paul come in with the title
of the song, which continues in this fashion for the
entire verse. In actuality, John and Paul apparently
miss the first word, just singing “goes on” the
first time around. Just after the first phrase ends with
the words “in your heart,” we hear an
unidentified voice from the rhythm track give a quick “yelp”
of some sort, the first of many during the song.
The first verse, like
the other three, is fourteen measures long. It features
Ringo stepping into the spotlight to tell us his story
while John and Paul sing background “ooh”s, not
unlike those in the recently recorded “Michelle.” The
melody line used is quite wordy in comparison to the
simple phrases contained in the chorus, which sets off a
nice contrast. The verse actually appears to have been
cut short in structure after the phrase “tell me why,”
a sixteen measure format seeming to be more expected.
However, extending it another two measures would have
been even more awkward so it's best as is.
An identical repeat of
the chorus comes next, with Ringo hitting his snare
unusually hard for the first beat. John and Paul once
again come in late with the background harmonies,
singing only “goes on.” During the breathing
space of the last two measures of this chorus we hear
some more unidentified mumbling from the rhythm track.
The second verse then
appears which follows the same pattern as the first, the
most noteworthy feature being what seems to be the voice
of John from the rhythm track saying “tell me why?”
just after Ringo sings “a girl like you to lie.”
And then afterwards, Lennon’s’ infamous exclamation “I
already TOLD you why!”
What appears to be
another repeat of the chorus comes next, although they
cleverly just sing the first phrase in three-part
harmony and, after a “wooh” from Paul, they
continue the structure of the chorus with George vamping
an ad-lib solo rather high in the mix for the remainder
of the measures. The only problem here is that the
listener probably doesn’t understand the structure of
this solo section and it becomes somewhat disorienting,
not delineating the chord changes from the chorus and
wondering when it’s going to conclude. Also disorienting
is the solo itself which meanders through some phrasings
as heard elsewhere in the song, leaving the listener
feeling that he’s not sure what he’s doing. Ringo is
also heard, presumably in the rhythm track,
humming/singing along to the chorus to keep himself and
the group in time.
A final
identically-structured verse now comes in which has as
its feature the erratic rhythm guitar playing of John
Lennon, his playing habitually going into loud staccato
“chops” throughout its duration. George just plays quiet
assorted fills in the background as if he’s not sure
what to do.
This is followed by the
final chorus which is characterized by Ringo banging
away loudly on his snare drum, noticeably different from
the rest of the song. While this doesn’t appear to be an
edit in the rhythm track (as could be suggested), it is
probably just his way of winding the song down
climactically. This last chorus is actually followed by
another four-measure section that acts as a conclusion
to the song. George’s guitar playing goes diminished
while Ringo quietly repeats the final phrase “in
your mind” from, presumably, the rhythm track. An
overdubbed ending guitar flourish from George (unheard
in the mono mix) brings the song to a conclusion with a
mighty crash on a syncopated beat. The unfortunate final
chord sounds out-of-tune but, with the time constraints,
was deemed suitable enough.
Ringo’s drum playing
keeps the country swagger going without variation
throughout the proceedings except for the ending cymbal
crash. His forte on this song is his vocal work which,
within the small amount of range written into his part,
is done amazingly well. He keeps on pitch very well with
some slight reaching for the notes in the choruses that
actually works nicely with the country feel of the song.
Arguably his best vocal performance up to this point.
George is very much to
the fore on this song, channeling Carl Perkins for his
flavored runs that ooze throughout the arrangement. His
"high in the mix" guitar work, while not always
confidently played, shows him being able to ad-lib a
little more closely to what he was used to in the
Cavern/Hamburg days which were seemingly a million years
before. Guitar solos were much more structured in their
recent recordings of that day, Paul even playing them
himself at times.
Speaking of Paul, his
"walking" bass work is phenomenal on this song, as are
his usual harmony vocals. John’s harmonies are also
spot-on, expected from someone proud to have an early
songwriting attempt finally see the light of day. John
declines the use of the expected acoustic guitar in
favor of electric while playing an unusual staccato
rhythm pattern which does get a little patchy at times.
Lyrically, the song
fits Ringo’s persona perfectly, depicting the "sad and
lonely" type who is being mistreated somehow by his
significant other. Except for the rockers “Boys" and "I
Wanna Be Your Man," his vocal songs up to this point are
of this nature.
This time around he
sees his “future fold” when he spots his girl
with another guy. And, to top it off, he had just been
with his girl that “morning, waiting for the tides
of time” (this Dylan-esque phrase suggested by Ian
MacDonald to be the lyrical contribution from Ringo as
read in “Revolution In The Head”). The illusion was that
everything was fine with their relationship, only to
find that it was “easy for (her) to lie.”
He wonders “what goes on” in a heart and mind
that would cheat so openly. He feels that she didn’t
even think of him “as someone with a name,”
wondering whether she really wanted to maintain their
romance on the sly or whether she meant 'to break his
heart and watch him die.' Poor guy!
At least the next time
he sings, he’ll be in a happy “Yellow Submarine!”
American Releases
On February 15th, 1966, America got its first glimpse of
“What Goes On?” as the b-side of Capitol’s first and
only make-shift single of the year, pairing it with
“Nowhere Man” as the a-side. While this a-side peaked at
#3 on the Billboard pop chart, “What Goes On?” did get a
placement on the chart as well, although it only made it
up to #81.
Because of force of habit, Capitol printed the
songwriting credit as “John Lennon – Paul McCartney”
before they were informed that Ringo was also involved
in the writing of the song. Later pressings showed the
credit as “Lennon – McCartney – Starkey,” but since the
popularity of the record had peaked by that time, the
majority of the circulated copies have the earlier
credit, making the “Starkey” copies much rarer today.
A little over four months later, on
June 20th, 1966, “What Goes On?" got its first US album
release on Capitol’s “Yesterday…And Today.” Positioned
in the not-so-flattering position of next to last on the
album, in between the powerhouse tracks “We Can Work It
Out” and “Day Tripper,” it was much easier to dismiss as
album filler than it was in Britain where it started off
side two of “Rubber Soul.” "Yesterday...And Today" was
then released on January 21st, 2014, as an individual
compact disc, both the mono and stereo versions of the
album being included on a single CD. Incidentally, this
release featured both the "trunk" cover and the
"butcher" cover.
Sometime in 1967, Capitol released Beatles music on a
brand new but short-lived format called "Playtapes."
These tape cartidges did not have the capability to
include entire albums, so two truncated four-song
versions of "Yesterday...And Today" were
released in this portable format, "What Goes On?" being
on one of these. These "Playtapes" are highly
collectable today.
The first time the original
British "Rubber Soul” album was made available in the US
was the "Original Master Recording" vinyl edition
released through Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in June of
1984. This album included "What Goes On?" and was
prepared utilizing half-speed mastering technology from
the original master tape on loan from EMI. This version
of the album was only available for a short time and is
quite collectible today.
Speaking of “Rubber Soul,” its first compact disc
release was on April 30th, 1987 and featured the new
1986 George Martin stereo mix of “What Goes On?” This
fourteen-track version of the album also received a
vinyl release in the US on July 21st, 1987. This album
was then remastered and re-released on September 9th,
2009 on CD and on vinyl on November 13th, 2012.
On January 24th, 1996, the Capitol single was
re-released in the Cema series “For Jukeboxes Only.”
This original single was printed on green vinyl and is
quite the find today.
September 9th, 2009 was the release date for the box set
“The Beatles In Mono,” on which, as in the case of all
of the “Rubber Soul” tracks, “What Goes On?” is featured
in both the original 1965 mono and stereo mixes.
In promotion of the
2014 box set "The US Albums," a 25-song sampler
CD was
manufactured for limited release on January 21st, 2014,
this containing the mono mix of "What Goes On?".
On July 7th, 2008, a live performance of the song was
included on the album “Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band
Live 2006.” Also, his album “Live At The Greek Theatre
2008,” which came out on July 27th, 2010, features a new
rendition of “What Goes On?”
Live Performances
Although The Beatles continued to feature a Ringo vocal
during their live performances after “Rubber Soul” had
been released, they continued playing “Act Naturally” in
late 1965 and then delved back to the 1963 rocker “IWanna Be Your Man” throughout 1966. They apparently
didn’t feel “What Goes On?” had the required
enthusiastic stage presence and decided to bypass the
song entirely in live performances.
Even Ringo himself omitted the song from his live
"All-Starr Band" set lists for many years. He began
these tours in 1989, but didn't think to include "What
Goes On?" until 2006, reprising it on stage in 2008,
during his 2012-17 tour, and then during his 2018-19
tour.
Conclusion
It seemed only natural that, given Ringo’s penchant for
country music, the group would take their new "original
compositions only" policy and concoct a C&W song for him
to sing for their current album. The previous album's
“Act Naturally” worked well enough for Lennon and
McCartney to adapt a previously written song to that
genre of music, going as far as mimicking the rhythm and
style of the Buck Owens classic right
down to the three quarter-note guitar introduction.
Although “What Goes On?” lacks the confidence and sheen
of the previous Ringo song, it still stands as testimony
to The Beatles’ chameleon-like ability to convincingly
tackle any task needed.
Song
Summary
“What Goes On?
Written by: John Lennon /
Paul McCartney / Richard Starkey
Song Written: 1957 to
November 4, 1965
Song Recorded: November 4,
1965
First US Release Date: February
15, 1966
US Single Release: Capitol
#5587 (b-side to “Nowhere
Man”)
Highest Chart Position: #81
First US Album Release: Capitol
#ST-2553 “Yesterday…And
Today”
British Album Release: Parlophone
#PCS 3075 “Rubber
Soul”
Length: 2:44
Key: E major
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Norman Smith, Ken
Scott, Graham Platt
Instrumentation (most likely):
Ringo Starr – Lead Vocals,
Drums (1964 Ludwig Super Classic Black Oyster
Pearl)
George Harrison – Lead Guitar
(1963 Gretsch 6119 Tennessean)
Paul McCartney - Bass Guitar
(1964 Rickenbacker 4001S), Harmony Vocals
John Lennon - Rhythm Guitar
(1964 Rickenbacker 325), Harmony Vocals
July 18, 2022
Your Beatles questions answered
by Parlogram Auctions
In this first Q&A session, I answer 11 questions
from channel members about various topics in the
Beatles collecting world, from best pressings to
what I have in my collection.
The playing and non-playing surviving
members who attended the reunion gather
around the Linda McCartney memorial.
From left they are Ian McKerral, Tommy
Blue, Ian McCallum, John McGeachy,
Duncan Ramsay, Archie Coffield, Ian
Campbell, Jimmy McGeachy, Peter McCallum
and John Brown.
Watch Paul McCartney perform "Mull of Kintyre"
with the Ottawa Police Services Drum & Pipe Band
on
July 7, 2013
July 16, 2022
Keith Richards on how The Rolling Stones were
“envious” of The Beatles during their early
days:
“They were doing what we wanted”
by Liberty Dunworth for Guitar.com
It has recently been
revealed that The Rolling Stones were initially
“envious” of The Beatles during the early days
of their career. Speaking about how Keith
Richards in particular was infatuated by the
band, the members discuss how they were inspired
to sound more like the Liverpool legends shortly
after they first formed.
Speaking as part of the
second episode of the newly-launched BBC
documentary,
My Life As A Rolling Stone, both Keith
Richards and Mick Jagger have admitted to
feeling jealous of the immense success received
by The Beatles during the early 1960s.
Keith Richards ...
states that The Rolling Stones were
predominantly playing covers at the time, and
felt pressure to try and create their own songs
after seeing the overwhelming acclaim given to
the Liverpool-based pop stars.
“We were working the clubs in London and The
Beatles just came out and had a hit, Love Me Do…
And
we said, ‘Oh man, what a great record’” Richards
reflects. “Our job [at the time] was to be like
the premier
rhythm and blues band in London and we managed
that! But we had no idea of progressing beyond
that
stage [until then].”
The band’s frontman Mick
Jagger also recalls how Keith Richards first
became “obsessed” with The Beatles and claims
that the band reinvented the music scene and
changed the expectations for new artists.
“The Beatles suddenly explode and there you are
going: ‘Oh, yeah, but we’re a blues band! The
Beatles
changed this whole thing,” he claims. “Keith,
he’d play The Beatles all the time [and] it’d
drive me absolutely
batty! Why he was playing The Beatles wasn’t
because he didn’t want to listen to anything
else; [it was
because] Keith wanted to write these pop songs.
We [were] undeniably the blues band, but we knew
we had
to be a pop band.”
The
guitarist continues to elaborate on why he felt
so personally impacted by The Beatles’ success,
stating that it was because of the band’s
ability to achieve success by writing their own
records, unlike The Rolling Stones, who were
releasing mostly covers at the time.
“We were just envious,
too, man. I mean, they’re doing what we wanted –
they got it!” he insists. “They could make
records. The Holy Grail was to make records, to
be able to get into a studio. […] You’d think it
was a gold mine, which in a way it was, y’know
what I mean? You’d think you were invading Fort
Knox just to make a record.”
This discussion of The Beatles comes in light of
comments made by the members during the
first episode of
the series. Discussing the controversial image
they were given throughout their career, both
Jagger and
Richards elaborated on how, behind the scenes,
The Beatles were behaving in the same way as
they were –
stating that their more respectable image was
formulated to make them more appealing to the
public.
Watch all episodes of My Life As A
Rolling Stone now on
BBC iPlayer.
More on the Rolling Stones...
Watch: The Rolling Stones Play “You
Can’t Always Get What You Want” With
Ukrainian Choir
The Rolling Stones sang
an ode to Ukraine amid their ongoing war with
Russa with a special performance of “You Can’t
Always Get What You Want.” Near the end of their
Friday night (July 15) concert in Vienna,
Austria the legendary rock outfit showed
solidarity with the embattled nation by inviting
a boys and girls choir to join them for the
number.
The Dzvinochok boys
choir and Vognyk girls choir traveled from
Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to join in on the 1969
Stones’ classic. As they shuffled out onto the
stage, Mick Jagger noted “they came a long way
to be here tonight. They drove all the way.”
Choirmaster Ruben
Tolmachov added, “This is a very special night
for the two choirs and a chance of a lifetime
not to be missed. I’m so glad we made it here to
Vienna, a night to remember for all of us.”
Though the Stones
usually play the song early on in their set,
they saved it for the first encore of the Vienna
show to make the collaboration all the more
special. As the choir began to sing the iconic
opening lines, they swapped the original lyrics
for their Ukrainian counterparts before lulling
back into English.
As the song’s breakdown
came along, the choir began clapping to the
beat, bringing the audience in to join them for
the refrain, you can’t always get what you
want. Watch the triumphant performance
below.
The choir’s
appearance was just the latest Stones’
surprise amid their ongoing Sixty Tour
which celebrates their 60-year milestone
as a band. Other highlights from the
Vienna show included a cover of Bob
Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” and their
1966 classic “Out of Time,” which had
never been played live prior to this
tour.
The European run will continue on
July 19 at Groupama Stadium in Lyon,
France before wrapping up on August 3
in Berlin, Germany. No other legs
have been announced as of yet.
Fans can join in on the
60th-anniversary celebration with the
impending four-part docuseries,
My Life as a Rolling
Stone. Each of the four
episodes will focus on a different
member of the group and features
exclusive interviews
with Mick Jagger, Kieth Richards, and
Ronnie Wood.
July 14, 2022
"McCartney 3, 2, 1" documentary is up for
3
Emmy nominations. From the Official Paul McCartney Facebook
pages...
The McCartney solo albums to be released on
August 5, 2022, as a
limited edition boxset
from
Udiscovermusic.com
The eponymous solo albums written, performed,
and produced by Paul McCartney from 1970, 1980,
and 2020. Includes 3 CDs with 3 limited
edition photo prints and an introduction from
Paul in a beautiful slipcase box.
Written, performed, and produced entirely by
Paul McCartney, his three eponymous
career-spanning solo albums (1970’s McCartney,
1980’s McCartney II, and 2020’s McCartney
III) will now be packaged together and
available in one special boxset for the first
time.
McCartney I II III box
set will be available in three different formats
– Limited Edition Color Vinyl, Black Vinyl
Edition, and CD – each including three special
photo prints with notes from Paul about each
album. The newly created boxset cover art and
typography for the slipcase are by Ed Ruscha.
Bookending 50 years of
unparalleled work, each album demonstrates Paul
McCartney’s restless creativity and adventurous
artistic spirit. McCartney, the Number
One Album was Paul’s first solo album released
in 1970 and features timeless tracks “Every
Night” and “Junk,” along with the immortal
classic “Maybe I’m Amazed.” This album saw a
global music superstar pioneer a novel homespun
approach to recording that would, in time,
become a sought-after sound and the highly
influential precursor to the “lo-fi” alternative
genre.
Just as McCartney marked
the end of an era with Paul’s first release
after leaving the biggest band in history, Paul
did it again in 1980, this time signaling the
end of 70s rock giants Wings. Taking a fresh
approach to things, Paul wrote, performed, and
produced the avant-garde masterpiece McCartney
II, which reached Number One in the UK, and
Number 3 in the US, producing such classics as
“Coming Up,” “Waterfalls,” and “Temporary
Secretary.”
With McCartney III Paul
went back to basics again to create some of his
most revealing work to date. Released in
December 2020, just two years after Paul’s
Billboard-topping Egypt Station album, “Rockdown,"
saw Paul turn unexpected time on his hands into
an opportunity to get into the studio on his
own. An intimate and loose record featuring
“Find My Way” and the now live favorite “Women
and Wives,” McCartney III features Paul’s
melodic gift at its forefront throughout. Upon
release, McCartney III charted at Number
One on the UK’s Official Album Charts and Number
One on Billboard’s Top Album Sales Chart.
In an unrivaled career,
Paul has always been willing to take risks and
have fun along the way – his musical projects
have included classical albums, electronic
albums, ballet scores, writing for video games,
and left-field collaborations — along the way,
breaking chart records, box office records,
winning countless awards and remaining one of
the world’s most influential and revered artists
of all time. McCartney, McCartney II,
and McCartney III captured and documented
landmark moments of his singular career, each
offering a personal snapshot of a unique artist
at a particular moment in time.
Tracklist
McCartney
1. The Lovely Linda
2. That Would Be Something
3. Valentine Day
4. Every Night
5. Hot As Sun
6. Glasses
7. Junk
8. Man We Was Lonely
9. Oo You
10. Momma Miss America
11. Teddy Boy
12. Singalong Junk
13. Maybe I'm Amazed
14. Kreen-Akrore
McCartney II
1. Coming Up
2. Temporary Secretary
3. On The Way
4. Waterfalls
5. Nobody Knows
6. Front Parlour
7. Summer's Day Song
8. Frozen Jap
9. Bogey Music
10. Darkroom
11. One Of These Days
McCartney III
1. Long Tailed Winter Bird
2. Find My Way
3. Pretty Boys
4. Women And Wives
5. Lavatory Lil
6. Slidin'
7. Deep Deep Feeling
8. The Kiss Of Venus
9. Seize The Day
10. Deep Down
11. Winter Bird / When Winter Comes
I've been thinking --
and writing -- a bit about The Beatles lately,
as the past few years have seen the 50th
anniversary of their late-period albums -- "Sgt.
Pepper," "The Beatles" (aka "The White Album"),
"Abbey Road" and "Let It Be" have come and gone.
Next week, Peter Jackson's "The Beatles: Get
Back," the immersive and somewhat revisionist
documentary series about The Beatles' final
sessions will be released on DVD. (I've written
about that for the Sunday newspaper.)
With The Beatles so much
on my mind, I've decided to kick off my annual
summer Lifequest summer movies series by going
back to the start, to Richard Lester's
remarkable "A Hard Day's Night," which was set
over the course of 36 fictional hours in the
life of the world's most famous rock 'n' roll
band at the height of its popularity, with a
soundtrack peppered with their music (including
instrumental versions performed by "the George
Martin Orchestra," which consisted of The
Beatles' producer and classical sidemen).
While there is a
tendency to overpraise the rediscovered artifact
-- nostalgia interferes with any calm
assessment. But in 2022, "A Hard Day's Night"
holds up as an intensely pleasurable experience.
For those of us who
remember The Beatles -- not the icons they
became but the first jarring blast of cool fresh
Beatlemania -- "A Hard Day's Night" is a reel of
black and white and silver ghosts, a kind of
trick mirror in which we can see how young we
were and how old we have become. It is a
chiaroscuro shadow play, an engagement of
almost-forgotten-yet-naggingly-familiar dreams.
It's deja voo doo.
IMPORTANT DOCUMENT
It seems silly to talk
about something so featherweight and charming as
this 1964 musical comedy as an important
document, but that is what it has become. It is
the source of the music video, and a remnant of
nouvelle vague, with its four lead actors living
for those mock French tilted cameras. It is a
tumble of noise and image and if it doesn't seem
quite so spontaneous and structureless as it did
the first time we saw it, blame it on our jaded
souls.
Lester, an American
expatriate, had come to the attention of some
critics with his grainy 11-minute short from
1959, "The Running Jumping & Standing Still
Film," a collaboration with Peter Sellers. The
"Can't Buy Me Love" segment in the film borrows
stylistically from this short which pioneered
the now common technique of cutting the images
to the beat of the music. The "Can't Buy Me
Love" sequence is an obvious precursor of
MTV-style music videos, which led to some
suggesting that Lester is the father of MTV.
The director wasn't
impressed by that. In the mid '80s, when someone
referred to him as MTV's daddy, he asked for a
paternity test.
But whether or not "A
Hard Day's Night" can be credited or blamed for
MTV, it directly led to the idea for "The
Monkees," a television sitcom that started out
as four musicians-turned-actors portraying
musicians in a struggling rock band. (While I
would argue that the Monkees became one of the
most important bands of rock 'n' roll's second
generation -- their influence is hard to
overestimate and their records, regardless of
who was playing on them, are very good -- we
will leave that discussion for another time.)
'A NEW GRAMMAR'
Even more importantly,
with "A Hard Day's Night," Lester created what
Roger Ebert called "a new grammar" of filmmaking
that embraced quick cuts, obviously hand-held
cameras and pop music playing over documentary
(or faux documentary) action. "A Hard Day's
Night" is a genuinely iconoclastic film, and it
ushered in an identifiable modern pop style.
And while Lester saw "A
Hard Day's Night" as a comedy, he also wanted to
say something about the political and commercial
power of the kids -- particularly the
middle-class youth who formed The Beatles' core
constituency. He also had the sense to recognize
the band as something more than the latest craze
and to allow their particular alchemy to infuse
the film.
That's not to say The
Beatles were simply naturals -- much of the
credit for their droll and snappy dialogue goes
to actor and playwright Alun Owen, who, though a
generation older, had grown up down the street
from where John Lennon lived in Liverpool. Owen
wrote most of the lines The Beatles deliver, yet
he knew them well enough to write for them. Some
of the lines were echoes of -- or echoed in --
The Beatles' press conferences. It is a very
Beatle-ly movie, regardless of whatever outside
agencies may have contributed to the boys'
assured performances as themselves. While they
weren't, as some of the critics misleadingly
commented at the time, "the new Marx Brothers,"
they were the defining pop phenomenon after
Elvis in the last part of the 20th century. They
were bloody special and "A Hard Day's Night"
shows why.
AHEAD OF THE GAME
It isn't exactly as we
remember it -- Lester's camera isn't quite so
frantic and pushy as we remembered; after the
opening scenes it settles down a bit, though
there are a few wonderful overhead aerial shots
and some of the chase scenes -- there are
several -- are reminiscent of Truffaut. Lester
was ahead of the game by recognizing the
synesthesia between rock and television and
cinema -- it seems that in every other shot the
guys appear on TV monitors. When they sneak off
to a disco they dance to their own music. It's
all self-reflexive and insidery, to the point
that one probably has to be a Beatle to get all
the running in-jokes. (Look, John's pretending
to snort something from a Pepsi bottle! What's
that all about?)
While the experience of
watching "A Hard Day's Night" today is
necessarily different from 1964 -- we know how
the story ends, we know that despite all
expectations, The Beatles persist -- the film
still has the power to convey a sense of
innocence. It's a story about friendship, about
the confounding and confusing nature of sudden
fame. Lester cuts from The Beatles to their fans
-- mainly adolescent girls screaming, with tears
tracking their cheeks. What's that money can't
buy?
All in all, it seems
like a glorious accident, though there were
safety rails. The film is buttressed by a couple
of splendid performances by character actors
Wilfred Brambell as Paul's rebellious
grandfather and Victor Spinetti as a foppish
television director. Their roles would have been
larger had it turned out The Beatles couldn't
act. And maybe they couldn't, but they -- and
only they -- could be The Beatles.
July 12, 2022
Peter Jackson and the Beatles Get Back
documentary is up for 5 Emmy Nominations From the Beatles Official Facebook
pages...
MonaLisa Twins featuring Mike Sweeney do the
Beatles cover of "Money (That's What I Want)"
July 11, 2022
Parlogram Auctions examines 10 of the rarest
Beatles records
In this video, we
present 10 of the rarest and most value Beatles records. The list could be much
longer and some it would be easy to argue for items not included in the list. We
hope you will enjoy looking at them and hearing the stories behind them and how
much they are worth. If you have any Beatles rarities in your collection, we'd
love to feature them on the channel. You can send a photo of them via email to:
andrew@parlogramauctions or even a video via this site:
https://wetransfer.com/
You don't have to appear in the video if you don't want to ;)
Rare archival footage, recordings and
photographs, eye-witness accounts and expert
comments along with
location shoots across India, bring alive the
fascinating journey of George, John, Paul and
Ringo from their
high octane celebrity lives in the West to a
remote Himalayan ashram in search of spiritual
bliss that
inspires an unprecedented burst of creative
songwriting. It is the first serious exploration
of how India
shaped the development of the greatest ever rock
band and their own pioneering role bridging two
vastly
different cultures.
Director Ajoy Bose was a teenage
rebel in Calcutta in love with the Beatles when they came to India. His long mop
and the psychedelic flowers painted on his shirt imitating the Fab Four led to
fierce fights with his bureaucrat father. In an interesting quirk of fate half a
century later as an established journalist and author, Bose was writing a book,
Across the Universe to mark the 50th anniversary of The Beatles historic trip to
Rishikesh for the world’s largest publishing house Penguin Random House.
Inspired by Ajoy Bose’s book, British
Indian music entrepreneur Reynold D’Silva has now taken the amazing saga of The
Beatles and India further by producing Bose’s directorial debut. Bose and
cultural researcher, co-director, Pete Compton, have created an audio-visual
presentation that stands apart from the many documentaries on the band, delving
deep into the most crucial period of their evolution from the world’s most
famous pop stars into multi-faceted pioneering musical artists.
Video Quality
The Beatles and India comes to Blu-Ray with a very lovely high
definition master that suits the film as well as you might hope. As is typical
with documentaries on subjects from decades ago, the film features a lot of
different material in varying degrees of quality. The new interviews look
incredibly solid and clear with natural skin tones and some detailed facial
features on the subjects. The archival footage features a variety of different
sources that seem to be in the best shape possible given the filming
limitations. Some footage appears to be authorized within the compound while
other is taken from far away as people tried to get a glimpse of the Fab Four.
Much of this footage is pretty ragged, but it helps bring a glimpse of
history into the modern world. The colors featured in the film have a decent
degree of vibrancy to them. The transfer has not fallen victim to any
compression artifacts or digital nuisances of the sort. MVD Entertainment has
delivered a great presentation for fans.
Audio Quality
This Blu-Ray disc comes with a DTS-HD 5.1
Master Audio and a LPCM 2.0 track which perfectly suits the source material.
Since this is a film focused on world famous musicians, you might expect
wall-to-wall classic tunes, but most of the music featured in the film comes
from Indian musicians rather than The Beatles themselves. Nevertheless, the
sound quality is pristine and fills the room in a wonderful way. With this being
such an interview showcase with talking heads aplenty, it is nice to note that
dialogue comes through flawlessly in the center channel. The archival clips do
not feature much in the way of age-related wear, thankfully, but you can tell
there were some limitations to recording in certain situations. The surround
channel presentation is not pushed to the limits, but it sounds terrific here.
There are optional English subtitles provided on this release.
Special Features
Ajoy Bose Interview:
A full 21-minute interview in which the
director discusses what it was like being a
Beatles fan in the 1960s, why he
decided to write his book on The Beatles, the research that went into that
endeavor, his experience going to a Beatles convention in the US, how he
tracked down people from the time
documented in the film, the appeal of
Maharishi, the Indian music scene, the larger story the film tells about
India and more.
Ashram Map: A six-minute look at the ashram
that the Beatles stayed and practiced at and the
continued
appeal it has to Beatles fans.
Production Photo Diary: A three-minute collection of photos taken
along the journey to the ashram.
Trailer: The
two-minute trailer is provided here.
Final Thoughts
The Beatles and India
is an immensely entertaining documentary detailing a unique period of time in
the career of one of the greatest bands of all time. Hardcore fans of the group
may already know quite a bit about this period, but even they should find a lot
of value in the unique archival footage and the larger context you get from the
interview subjects. If you are completely fresh to this information, get ready
for a different side of the Fab Four which more clearly defined what exactly
mattered to each of them at this point in their lives. MVD Entertainment has
released a Blu-Ray featuring a strong A/V presentation and a nice array of
additional material. If you are a Beatles fan, you are going to have a lot of
fun. Recommended
The Beatles and India is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray
and DVD.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image
quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: MVD Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of
charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions
of the author.
And on this date, this announcement from Ringo
Starr's Official Facebook pages...
The ever popular MonaLisa Twins cover George
Harrison's "Here Comes The Sun"
What George Harrison said about his song
"The other song I wrote on Abbey Road is
'Here Comes The Sun'. It was written on a nice
sunny day in early
summer in Eric Clapton's garden, because, with
the Beatles, we'd really been through hell with
business and it
was really heavy. And on this day, I just felt
that I had been slagging off from school. I just
didn't come in
one day and the release of being in the sun,
made the song just come to me. It was like 'If I
Needed Someone', you know, the basic riff
going through it, you know all those 'Bells Of Rhymney' Byrds type things.
So, that's how I see it, anyway. It's quite
vintage."
Quoted from the book "the Beatles Off The
Record" by Keith Badman.
At noon California time
on Thursday, July 7, Ringo Starr, joined by
friends and family, will make his annual “Peace
and Love” exclamation in honor of his 82nd
birthday. [Note: Having seen Ringo up close a
couple of years ago, I can attest he is the
best-looking octogenarian I’ve ever met. Okay,
him and his mate Macca. When I asked him about
how he maintains his useful look, he replied
“Blueberries!”]
He’ll be joined in this
celebration by the team on the International
Space Station, which will also broadcast his
message into the cosmos, with a little help from
the Artemis Music Space Network.
On Ringo’s signal, the
Artemis Mission Control Center in Houston will
beam his message and two songs out into Earth’s
orbit and beyond. The songs include “Let’s
Change the World,” which he released in 2021,
and “Star Song,” a new piece described as “the
music the stars made upon his birth as mapped
out by Artemis.”
When you’re a Beatle,
and you go by the name Starr, this is what you
do.
Joining Ringo and his
wife, Barbara Starkey, will be a collection of
famous friends, including Richard Marx, Matt
Sorum, Ed Begley Jr., Linda Perry, Diane Warren,
Roy Jr and Alex Orbison, along with All Starrs
Steve Lukather, Edgar Winter, Colin Hay, Warren
Ham and Greg Bissonette.
Before his galactic
message, Ringo will be celebrated by
performances from Langhorne Slim and Sawyer
Fredericks.
There are
celebrations happening around the globe,
including Sydney, Australia; Tokyo and Osaka,
Japan; Moscow; Athens, Greece; Jerusalem,
Israel; or, a little closer to North America,
New York City, Cleveland, Ohio at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and at the
Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.
While this party has been open to the public in
the past, he is not yet able to invite fans to
join in the fun in person, but there will be
special programming on the Beatles Channel on
SiriusXM from July 7-10 and 10,000 Starbucks
locations will be playing Ringo playlists.
Strange to think about it now, but when Ringo
Starr launched Ringo and His All-Starr Band in
1989, he hadn’t been a touring musician since
1966.
The drummer had been in this really good band
that only toured for four years before deciding
it wasn’t for them and that they were just going
to make records.
They were called The Beatles, and it turned out
to be a pretty good move because the very next
year, they released “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band,” which some contend is the greatest
album of all time.
After the breakup of The Beatles in April 1970,
Ringo had about four good musical years during
which he played on solo albums by John Lennon
and George Harrison, performed at The Concert
for Bangladesh, released two successful albums
of his own — 1973’s “Ringo” and 1974’s
“Goodnight Vienna” — and scored five top 20
singles: “It Don't Come Easy,” “Back Off
Boogaloo,” “Photograph,” “You're Sixteen” and
“Oh My My.”
That he had any solo success at all was a bit of
a surprise given that drummers rarely emerge
from bands as hitmakers and that Ringo, although
having sung such Beatles songs as “With a Little
Help From My Friends” and “Yellow Submarine,”
had only written two Beatles songs on his own —
“Don’t Pass Me By” and “Octopus’s Garden” — and
by his own admission was a vocalist of limited
ability.
Music aside, his humble and happy-go-lucky
personality led to acting roles in the
post-Beatle years, including the movies “Son of
Dracula” (1974) and “Caveman” (1981) and as
narrator of the kids show “Thomas and Friends”
in the ‘80s.
With the shocking murder of John Lennon in 1980,
the already rare shot of a Beatles reunion was
out the window, so it was going to take
something rather extraordinary to get Ringo back
on the road as a touring drummer and singer.
Enter David Fishof, an Orthodox Jewish talent
agent from New York who had created the 1984
Happy Together Tour for The Turtles and the 1986
Monkees 20th Anniversary Reunion, among other
packages. Knowing that the former Beatle was at
his best with about three ace singer-songwriters
by his side, he flew to London in March 1989 to
pitch Ringo on the idea of an All-Starr Band
Tour with the drummer joined by a supergroup of
legends, in some cases, just slightly past their
prime.
Ringo and His All-Starr Band launched its maiden
tour on July 23, 1989, in Dallas with the
enviable lineup of Joe Walsh (James Gang,
Eagles), Nils Lofgren (Crazy Horse, E Street
Band), Rick Danko and Levon Helm (The Band), Dr.
John, Billy Preston, Clarence Clemons (E Street
Band), and Jim Keltner.
Helm and Keltner made it three drummers, giving
Ringo freedom to grab the mic and shuffle
around, as he does, at center stage. He took the
lead on 10 songs in the two-hour show that
featured hits from the other stars (although no
Springsteen songs).
In a 1989 New York Times story, Ringo, less than
a year removed from a stint in alcohol rehab,
talked about overcoming serious jitters the
first few nights. He also said, “It’s great
being down front. I’ve never done that before.
I’ve always been behind the kit. After the first
show, I read some stuff about my voice. But I’m
not Pavarotti. People know who I am, and I’m
giving them my best shot on my songs.”
Ringo in the Burgh
The ‘89 tour skipped Pittsburgh, pushing the
Pittsburgh debut of the All-Starr Band to its
second trip, in 1992, which stopped at Star Lake
with Walsh, Lofgren, Todd Rundgren, Burton
Cummings (The Guess Who), Dave Edmunds (Rockpile)
and Timothy B. Schmit (Poco, Eagles).
It was his first performance here since the
Beatles played the Civic Arena in September
1964.
The Amphitheater at Station Square shows in 1995
and 1997 featured the likes of Peter Frampton,
Randy Bachman (BTO), Felix Cavaliere (Rascals),
Jack Bruce (Cream), Mark Farner (Grand Funk
Railroad), Dave Mason (Traffic) and John
Entwistle (The Who).
Almost 20 years passed before his Pittsburgh
return, at Heinz Hall, in 2015 and 2018 with a
mix of Rundgren, Steve Lukather (Toto), Gregg
Rolie (Santana, Journey), Richard Page (Mr.
Mister) and Colin Hay (Men at Work).
The All-Starr Band was set to return in 2020,
and then 2021, for PPG Paints Arena shows, but
the pandemic
pushed it to 2022. On board are Lukather, Hay, Edgar Winter, Hamish Stuart
(Average White Band), Gregg
Bissonette and
Warren Ham. Due to Winter and Lukather testing
positive for COVID-19 last week, the PPG
Paints
Arena show, scheduled for June 18, will be
pushed to a date in September.
In a recent All-Starr Band Zoom call with the
media from a casino near Toronto, the former
Beatle expressed his excitement to get back on
stage.
“Two and a half years …,” he said. “It’s been a
really difficult period for me. I love to play.
I put the All-Starrs together 32 years ago. I
was in a couple of other bands before that. For
me, that’s what it’s all about, playing in front
of an audience. A long time ago we’d play
weddings, we’d play anywhere we could just so we
could play together as a band.”
“I wouldn’t be a musician if it weren’t for
Ringo and the Beatles,” said Bissonette, a
62-year-old drummer with a long resume of studio
work along with tours backing David Lee Roth.
“My dad was a jazz drummer in Detroit. We went
to the Olympia hockey arena where the Red Wings
played, and he said, ‘Kids, we’re going to see
the Beatles tomorrow night.’ My brother and I
just flipped out.
“That started me going, being in the same room
and hearing that music and hearing Ringo’s
groove. I would come home every day after school
and put on the headphones with my record player
and just want to play along with him and try to
get in that pocket. Now every night, 5 feet
away, I get to look at his bass drum pedal and
his snare, and I try to get in that Ringo
pocket, that swing that he’s given drummers,
There’s nothing like it, and what an honor,
greatest gig of my life ever ,and I hope it goes
a long, long, long, long time.”
The 75-year-old Winter, who had his biggest
success in 1972 with the Edgar Winter Group hits
“Frankenstein” and “Free Ride,” is on his third
trip with the All-Starr Band since joining in
2006 and his first since 2011.
“I never dreamed that I would even get to meet
these people,” he said, “much less share the
stage with so many incredible, talented
musicians.”
Beatle talk
While the plan for the media call was to keep
the focus on the current tour, Ringo, 81, was
kind enough to field questions about that old
band he joined, as the successor to Pete Best,
in 1962, when he was 22. He had been around the
Liverpool scene, playing in skiffle bands since
1957, and being a few months older than Lennon,
he would become the oldest Beatle.
Running through some quick Beatles history, he
said, “We were lads when we started, and as it
went on, we had wives and children. And we
stopped touring and made great records. But we
didn’t make good records while we were touring.
We played well together, and we got on with each
other. That’s just how it was. We came to a
point, eight years later — it blows me away that
we did all that in eight years — that it was
time to leave.”
Last winter, along with Beatles fans across the
world, the drummer watched with interest “The
Beatles: Get Back,” the Disney+ documentary
directed by Peter Jackson that used footage
caught during the making of Michael Lindsay
Hogg’s 1970 film “Let It Be.”
“The original documentary, I never liked it,” he
said. “It was so narrow. It was on one point of
an argument and all these down parts. We were
laughing and we were having fun as well, and we
played great and we did all this in a month.
Michael Lindsay Hogg’s, I felt, was just too
down. I spoke to Peter [and said], ‘I was there.
It was lots of fun as well.’ He certainly
brought that up. I’m ever grateful to Peter for
doing such a great job.”
The one thing missing for him in “The Beatles:
Get Back” was the evolution of the title track
of the documentary.
“The only thing I was grasping and desperate for
is, when we did ‘Get Back,’ if you look at the
early sort of getting it together, [the
drumming] is just like straight rock. I wanted
to know how I got to that rock shuffle thing,
just playing the snare drum. Because I have no
idea why I changed that. I thought, ‘I’ll see it
on film.’ But it just happened the cameras were
off when we did that.”
Reflecting on how far this long and winding road
out of Liverpool has taken him, he went to his
early teen years and getting turned on to music.
“I was inspired at age 13, and that has never
left me, the dream and the joy,” he said. “I
only ever wanted to be a drummer. I got a kit of
drums, and I was in a couple of really good
bands. When I was in those Liverpool bands, my
mother had this great line. She said, ‘Son, I
always feel you’re at your happiest when you’re
playing.’ And deep inside, I am. I just love it.
“People ask about retirement. Well, I’m a
musician, I don’t have to retire. As long as I
can pick up those sticks, I’ve got a gig.”
Winter echoed that sentiment, saying, “If it’s
Madison Square Garden or the club down the
street on the corner, I’m gonna be playing for
me.”
Listen to the Paul McCartney Glastonbury concert
on the BBC
Released On: 25 Jun 2022 and is streaming
on-line
for 23 days
In 1977,
Billy Preston and the Rolling
Stones performed at the El Mocambo in Toronto
by John Whelan for the Ottawa Beatles Site
In March 1977, Billy Preston
performed with the Rolling Stones.
Previously and in this photo of May
1976,
Billy Preston (second from the left) are in their hotel room after
performing at a British concert.
Sunrise Records is store that I frequent when it
comes to collecting vinyl records and DVD's and
it just so
happens that on a recent visit that an album
that was displayed in the centre isle caught my
attention. It
was "April Wine Live at El Mocambo". The album
cover is nicely designed art work and the album
itself was
pressed in green with yellow swirl vinyl. April
Wine is a Canadian group and I consider them to
be on par as
Badfinger in terms of pop music. April Wine has
had it's share of hits with songs like "Tonight
Is A Wonderful
Time To Fall In Love", "You Won't Dance With Me"
and "You Could Have Been A Lady" which are on
the
album.
While making my purchase of "April Wine Live at
El Mocambo", the sales clerk at Sunrise Records
pointed out
that the concert that April Wine did was the
"opening act" for the Rolling Stones and that
the Stones
recently released their performance on vinyl and
CD formats entitled "El Mocambo 1977." The
salient point
that the sales clerk made is that by owning both
concerts by April Wine and the Rolling Stones it
would a
pretty unique piece of rock history to have in
your collection. At this point I delayed getting
the Stones until
I heard what the sound quality was like on the
April Wine album.
And so I played the April Wine concert on my
turntable. What surprised me was how excellent
the acoustics
were at Toronto's El Mocambo. April Wine's
performance showcased a warmth and charm of pop
sounds in
front of a small bar before an audience of 300. Both the Rolling Stones and April
Wine did two
performances at the El Mocambo: the 4th and 5th
of March 1977. Based on that listening, it
prompted me to
go back a week later and purchase the limited
black vinyl edition of the Rolling Stones
performance.
In attendance on both nights was Margaret
Trudeau (wife of then Prime Minister Trudeau)
which made a bit
of a media splash just by being there at the El
Mocambo. There was no hanky-panky between the
Stones
and Margaret: Margaret just wanted to hang out
at the club and watch the band. Paul Sexton
writes in his
liner notes for the album: "Margaret attended
both shows, leaping up and down near the mixing
desk.
Curtains twitched, editors frothed. Back home,
News At Ten ran a report: "She just wanted to
see the
shows, and that's the end of it," Mick told the
CBC.
While it was many decades wait for the Rolling
Stones to release the "El Mocambo 1977" concert,
the "April
Wine Live at El Mocambo" was issued in 1977.
There are clues on the album about April Wine's
connection to
the Rolling Stones performance at "El Mocambo"
venue...
Part of the April Wine back cover
which provides acknowledgement from
the Rolling Stones.
Another clue from April Wine's
protective vinyl sleeve: Cockroaches =
The Rolling Stones.
It was deliberately planned to keep the Rolling
Stones appearance at the El Mocambo a secret
from the
media as much as possible. They were billed as
the Cockroaches along with April Wine. On March
4, 1977,
the Stones did a 4:30 p.m. sound-check which
surely clued in the passers-by on Spadina Avenue
that the
Rolling Stones might surely be performing at the
Mocambo.
After playing their first gig at the venue, the
word went out about the band to perform a second show
on
March 5, 1977, at the Mocambo.
The Rolling Stones line-up for those two nights
are as follows:
Mick Jagger: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica
Keith Richards: Guitar, Vocals
Bill Wyman: Bass Guitar
Ronnie Wood: Guitars, BV
Charlie Watts: Drums
Ian Stewart: Piano
Billy Preston: Keyboards
Ollie Brown: Percussion
The Rolling Stones "El Mocambo 1977" is worthy
live album, on par with their "Flashpoint".
El Mocambo
features five tracks from their "Black and Blue"
album: the funky "Hot Stuff," "Fool To Cry",
"Crazy Mama",
"Melody" and "Hand of Fate." The album set
is a very good cross-section of what the Rolling
Stones were
recording in the mid-1970s that also presented a
future consideration "Worried About You" on
their
August 24,
1981 release album entitled "Tattoo You."
The band also dives into their classic covers of
"Route 66", "Mannish Boy", Chuck Berry's "Around
And Around"
and "Little Red Rooster" composed by Willie
Dixon.
Paul Sexton, the music reviewer declared: "Then came the first
trip back to the days when the rhythm met
the
blues in the
Stones' original club days, as they recreated
Bobby Troup's 'Route 66,'their opener the night
before. Three
hundred disciples, already in wonder at they
were part of, duly got their kicks." And so it
was.
John Whelan's rating for The Rolling
Stones "El Mocambo 1977" is *****/5 stars.
Click on the above image for the
complete track listing.
June 30, 2022
"I'M A MAD GENIUS...and that's the way I'll
stay..!"
JOHN LENNON, THE EX-BEATLE TALKS TO JUNE
FINLETTER for the Weekender, August 3, 1972
“Eleanor Rigby” was released by The Beatles in 1966 as part of their
Revolver album roll-out. A unique offering for the famed group,
the song features only a string arrangement and vocal from Paul
McCartney across the verses. The full group joins in on the chorus for a
few moments of classic Beatles harmony.
Paul McCartney recounted the song’s origin and meaning in a 2018
interview with GQ, saying “Over the years, I’ve met a couple of others,
and maybe their loneliness made me empathize with them. But I thought it
was a great character, so I started this song about the lonely old lady
who picks up the rice in the church, who never really gets the dreams in
her life. Then I added in the priest, the vicar, Father McKenzie. And
so, there were just the two characters. It was like writing a short
story, and it was basically on these old ladies that I had known as a
kid.”
Behind the Lyrics
McCartney, who penned most of this song, got the name from the
actress Eleanor Bron, who appeared in the 1965 Beatles film Help!.
“Rigby” came to him while in Bristol, England when he spotted a store
named Rigby and Evens Ltd. Wine and Spirit Shippers. He liked the way
the two names ringed together because it sounded natural and matched the
rhythm he wrote.
As the opening chorus makes perfectly clear, the song is a sort of
character piece about “all the lonely people.” The song’s intricate
string arrangement underscores the narrative Paul McCartney sings about
across the track’s three verses. The two characters, Eleanor and Father
McKenzie, are both isolated in their own lives before finally “meeting”
after Eleanor’s death, with the priest burying her.
Eleanor RigbyMeaning
The first verse follows the titular Eleanor as she tidies up after a
wedding send-off and peers through the window at her house.
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for
When McCartney first introduces us to Eleanor she is living in a
“dream” world of her own, picking up rice from a wedding that was thrown
over the happy couple. With the opening lines, he quickly lets the
listener know that the closest Eleanor comes to getting married herself
is tidying up after everyone has left.
Eleanor Rigby, died in the church
And was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
Later it’s revealed that Eleanor died, leaving no one to carry on her
name. McCartney adds a bit of irony towards the end of the song by
having the song’s two characters cross paths a little too late. If the
two had met earlier they might have become friends with something in
common, but it was too late. Eleanor died leaving Father McKenzie to
“meet” her while officiating the funeral. He also implies that
McKenzie’s sermon “saved” no one given that nobody attended.
Father McKenzie
The second character featured in the song’s lyrics is Father
McKenzie. Without having much of a congregation, McKenzie is forced to
write sermons that “no one will hear.” He later talks about darning his
socks. Question is, if no one else will see if his socks are darned, why
does he care? The second verse’s lines speak to the priest’s isolation
and lack of companionship.
Father McKenzie, writing the words
Of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks
In the night when there’s nobody there
What does he care
McCartney spoke about this section of the song in a November 2020
piece for Rolling Stone saying, “Father McKenzie is ‘darning his socks
in the night.’ You know, he’s a religious man, so I could’ve said, you
know, ‘preparing his Bible,’ which would have been more obvious. But
‘darning his socks’ kind of says more about him. So you get into this
lovely fantasy.”
More Popular Than Jesus
“Eleanor Rigby” was released just weeks after John Lennon made the
widely controversial claim that “Christianity will go. It will vanish
and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved
right. We’re more popular than Jesus now.”
With the addition of a priest and the many mentions that “no one was
saved,” the song could be seen as a swipe at Christianity and the
concept of being saved by Jesus.
Despite the controversy still brewing around the band thanks to
Lennon’s comments, the song largely evaded any criticism, possibly
because of the lilting string section making the song’s dark lyrics
easier to handle.
Eleanor Rigby’s Gravestone
Fans can actually go to Eleanor Rigby’s gravestone in St. Peter’s
Churchyard in Woolton, England—the suburb of Liverpool where McCartney
and Lennon first met.
The gravestone bearing the name shows that she died in October of
1939 at 44. Elsewhere in the cemetery is a gravestone with the name
McKenzie written on it. Despite the two names appearing in such close
proximity, McCartney has denied that the gravestones were the source of
the names. Although he has agreed that they may have registered
subconsciously.
The Beatles may never
have played a live show in Cornwall, but the
most celebrated band in British history did
immortalise a rather weird and wonderful version
of the duchy in their experimental TV movie
Magical Mystery Tour.
In 1967, following the
release of their iconic Sgt Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band album and just weeks after
losing their beloved manager Brian Epstein to a
drug overdose, Paul McCartney, John Lennon,
George Harrison and Ringo Starr embarked on a
journey like no other. These rarely seen photos,
unearthed from the archives, reveal what
happened when the Fab Four and their distinctive
yellow and blue coach, packed with cast and
crew, descended on Newquay for three days and
nights that September.
They set out from London
with no plan, no script and only a vague plot
based on Paul’s vision of mystery coach trips
run out of their home city of Liverpool, and
influenced by Ken Kesey and the Merry
Pranksters’s psychedelic bus in America.
Travelling through Somerset and Devon, they
rocked up in Newquay and decided to base
themselves at the Atlantic Hotel, Newquay,
filming at various locations including the hotel
pool, the Huer’s Hut and locations near
Watergate Bay.
Word soon got around and
The Beatles' Cornish fans, as well as
holidaymakers staying locally, were thrilled to
meet their idols during filming. They band
mostly seemed happy to sign countless autographs
and even hired some locals to play background
roles in the film, which was first screened on
BBC1 on Boxing Day 1967. It’s currently
available to watch on Apple TV.
Adoring fans pursue Paul McCartney for
his autograph in Newquay where The
Beatles were filming Magical Mystery
Tour
June 27, 2022
The Making of The Beatles LIVE @ The BBC Albums
1994 & 2013
by Parlogram Auctions
At the time of its release, this album contained
the first previously unreleased recordings of
The Beatles since 'Let It Be' 24 years earlier.
It was also the first release of Apple's new-era
which would continue the following year with
'Anthology'. It was also an album designed to
'beat the bootleggers', but instead of putting
them out of business, the demand for more BBC
material actually increased the number of
bootlegs on the market. In this video, we look
at all these things and more and how a chance
conversation with a fan led to the recovery of
the best sounding BBC material in history.
June 26, 2022
Highlights from Paul McCartney's performance at
Glastonbury
Paul McCartney shows his solidarity with war-torn Ukraine by waving the country's flag during his
Glastonbury set - after scrapping Beatles hit Back in the U.S.S.R. from all his shows
by Laura Fox for the Daily Mail online
Paul McCartney showed his support for
Ukraine during his historic headline show at
Glastonbury on Saturday,
as the country remains gripped by a war with
Russia.
The
Beatles legend, 80, returned to the stage
for an encore performance brandishing the
country's flag,
earning a huge cheer as he waved it over his
head.
It comes after it was reported Paul had removed
the song Back In The USSR from his planned
Glastonbury
set and all future shows in the wake of Russia's
invasion of Ukraine.
Sensational: The Beatles legend returned
to the stage for an encore performance
brandishing the country's flag,
earning a huge cheer as he waved it over
his head
After a stunning performance of his song Hey
Jude, Paul bide farewell to the crowd and left
the stage, but
following calls for an encore returned to the
stage with a flag in his hand.
As he waved the flag over his head,
the hitmaker, who has made a similar gesture during shows on his tour,
earned a
huge cheer from the crowd.
It was reported last week that Paul had chosen to
axe The Beatles song Back In The USSR from all future
shows in the wake of
Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The satirical Cold
War-themed track pokes fun at Chuck Berry and
the Beach Boys' odes to America, and is told
from the perspective of a Russian spy returning
from America.
A source told
The Mirror: 'It would be perverse to be
singing a jaunty rock ’n’ roll song about
Russia.
'Paul couldn’t in all
conscience sing those lyrics when so many are
being brutally massacred at the hands of Russia.
'The song is such a
massive crowd favourite but with the horrors
unfolding in Ukraine, it was a simple decision
by Paul to make.'
Paul's historic Glastonbury set was lauded by fans as the music legend wowed
with his vast medley of hits, just a week after celebrating his 80th birthday.
Taking to the stage for his first performance at
the festival in 18 years, Paul performed hits ranging from his Beatles heyday to
his time with the band Wings.
The pop icon earned a thunderous reception from
the crowd of thousands watching the show, with many millions also watching the
show air on BBC One.
To no surprise Paul's set earned an overwhelmingly
positive reception from viewers, with many taking to Twitter to share their
reaction.
One wrote: 'Anyone criticising Paul McCartney
tonight can f**k right off, he's 80 and is most culturally important bloke this
country has produced in a hundred years, he's beyond critcism, so b****x off.'
Another added: 'Why are people
complaining that Paul McCartney is
playing songs they don't recognise. He
has
a back catalogue going back more than 60
years, he can't please everyone. Also
he's 80 years old and
smahing it, so f**k off!'
'I don't think people understand how
important it is that Paul McCartney is
headlining the Glastonbury Festival
'That's some real iconic stuff. He
really is in his league. Unbelievable,'
one delighted fan added.
'Paul McCartney has earned the right to
play whatever songs he wants, even if
his voice might not be what it once
was.
'Most 80-year-olds couldn't even stand
up this long let alone remember all the
words and play the guitar and bass as
well as anyone,' one viewer praised.
'I want to
be like Paul McCartney when I'm 80. What
a legend,' another tweeted.
'Paul McCartney is simply extraordinary
- 80 years old, looks 60, captivating a
crowd of 100,000+ : Amazing life,
amazing man and an amazing artist. Quite
astounding. So so impressive,' a viewer
also posted.
Elsewhere during his set, Paul
showed his allegiance to his pal
Johnny Depp while performing his
2012 track, My Valentine, as he
projected a clip of the actor
from the song's music video onto
the screen behind him.
He recently used the footage in
his recent US Get Back tour,
while the Pirates Of The
Caribbean star was in the midst
of his defamation trial against
his ex-wife Amber Heard, which
he later won.
Also featuring Natalie Portman,
the black-and-white video sees
the Hollywood star playing
guitar and translating the track
into sign language.
Paul did not address Depp's
$100million court case against
Amber directly during the
concert but as soon as the
images of the actor appeared on
stage, the crowd cheered.
The Love Me Do hitmaker also got
the crowd to cheer for his home
city of Liverpool, as well as
his late bandmate John Lennon,
to whom he dedicated Here Today
to.
The show proves a poignant
moment in Paul's lengthy career,
as it also came 55 years to the
day since The
Beatles reached the largest
audience in their history, when
they performed on the world's
first global TV broadcast.
Some video coverage:
June 25, 2022
George Harrison VS The Hollies | The Feud of
December 1965
June 24, 2022
Paul McCartney lovingly defends The Monkees!
(1967)
Beatles John Lennon 1964 Hull interview to be
auctioned in Scarborough by the BBC
A never-broadcast interview with John Lennon,
recorded by a Hull art student in 1964, is to be
auctioned.
On the tape, Lennon tells 18-year-old John Hill
he does not think The Beatles are "very good
musicians" and
admitted he got a friend to sit his art exam
because the group were touring.
Mr Hill, who was studying at Hull Art College,
recorded the reel-to-reel interview before a
Beatles gig.
He found the tape in 2014 after it spent 50
years in a drawer.
Graham Paddison, of David Duggleby Auctioneers
in Scarborough who are selling the lot, said
that Mr Hill
"bluffed" his way into the room where the
Beatles were talking to the press.
"I was the youngest person in the room and the
only one with a microphone," Mr Hill later
recalled.
"Lennon was really interested in the
[reel-to-reel] machine... we ended up in a
corner doing an interview with
passing newsmen throwing in the odd question."
The eight-and-a-half minute interview, which has
never been broadcast, will be auctioned along
with the
recording machine, photographs and student
magazine articles.
"One of the most striking things is just how
relaxed the two of them were together, just two
art college
students chatting," the auctioneer said.
"Lennon was as friendly as could be, not
flippant or jokey or clever dick, treating his
young interviewer's
questions with respect, which of course makes
his answers interesting."
When asked if The Beatles regarded themselves
primarily as musicians or entertainers, Lennon
mused, "I've
never thought about it really but I suppose, we
don't count ourselves as good musicians, so I
suppose we're
entertainers, but we don't entertain much cos we
just stand there, so I suppose we must be
musicians.
"We're in the Union anyway." Mr Hill who later
worked as a schoolteacher and Leeds University
lecturer, found
the recording during a clear-out and sold it to
the current owner, a collector of Hull
antiquities and
memorabilia.
The lot is due to be auctioned at David
Duggleby's on Vine Street in Scarborough on
Friday.
June 23, 2022
Paul McCartney's band set to play their 500th
rock show!
"Jet" video filmed by Michael Sokil
June 22, 2022
Flashback to Rave's satirical review of John
Lennon's second book "A Spaniard In The Works"
June 21, 2022
In Conversation with Olivia Harrison streams
today, 3pm ET on SiriusXM
In 1972, Paul McCartney owned a Lamborghini
Espada car
And here is Paul's car located in a
theme diner!
June 20, 2022
Paul McCartney had to fight James Bond producers
to save his Live and Let Die theme song
PAUL MCCARTNEY's Live and Let Die James Bond
theme is one of the best-loved of the franchise,
however,
the 007 producers of the Roger Moore classic
really didn't believe in it and wanted to drop
it.
by George Simpson for the Express
Back in 1973, Roger Moore starred in his first
James Bond movie and producers Cubby Broccoli
and Harry
Saltzman called on Paul McCartney to write a
theme song for Live and Let Die. The Beatles
legend was
rumoured to have been approached to write 1971’s
Diamonds Are Forever, but that opportunity had
fallen
through. So the star, who turns 80 today, jumped
at the chance and was sent a copy of the Ian
Fleming
novel to inspire the lyrics and score.
Around the time,
McCartney recalled: “I read the Live And Let
Die book in one day, started writing it that
evening and carried on the next day and finished
it by the next evening. I sat down at the piano,
worked something out and then got in touch with
George Martin, who produced it with
us. Linda wrote the middle reggae bit of the
song. We rehearsed it as a band, recorded it and
then left it up to him.”
On working on Live and
Let Die’s score, McCartney said: “I wouldn’t
have liked it if my music was going to replace
John Barry’s, that great James Bond theme. I
know I’d miss that. I go to see him turn round
and fire down the gun barrel. Our bit comes
after he’s done that and after the three
killings at the beginning. I’m good at writing
to order with things like that. I’d like to
write jingles really, I’m pretty fair at that, a
craftsman. It keeps me a bit tight, like writing
to a deadline, knowing I’ve got two minutes
three seconds with a definitive story theme.”
He recorded Live and Let
Die with Wings at the end of their sessions for
Red Rose Speedway, however, there were a couple
of problems.
According to Far Out
Magazine, McCartney remembered: “The film
producers found a record player. After the
record had finished they said to George, ‘That’s
great, a wonderful demo. Now when are you going
to make the real track, and who shall we get to
sing it?’ And George said, ‘What? This is the
real track!’”
On top of this, Saltzman
didn’t want the Beatle and his band to sing the
track but someone else, preferably a black
female artist.
In response, McCartney
said that he would only allow EON Productions to
use Live and Let Die if it was his version with
Wings.
Saltzman had passed on
producing the Beatles movie A Hard’s Day’s Night
in the early 1960s, so knew it wasn’t a good
idea to pass on Macca a second time.
Despite agreeing to use
the original version, the producer was much more
of a fan of BJ Arnau’s cover, which is heard
during the movie.
Nevertheless, the Live
and Let Die theme massively paid off, with the
track being the first Bond theme nominated for a
Best Song Oscar.
June 19, 2022
The incomparable Paul McCartney at 80
The former Beatle's long and rich musical career
is marked by a refusal to rest on his artistic
laurels by Kenneth Womack for Salon
As we celebrate Paul McCartney's 80th birthday, it is
positively staggering to note the many ways in which he has eclipsed the norms
and expectations of his genre. When the former Beatle first heard the raucous
sounds of Elvis Presley in the mid-1950s, rock 'n' roll wasn't a profession. It
was a scourge. A decade later, when the Who declared "I hope I die before I get
old" in "My Generation," no self-respecting rocker set his sights on retirement,
much less living into middle-age.
And yet McCartney
abides. In the new century alone, he has
released chart-topping LPs and played sold-out
stadiums across the globe. By all rights, he
should be marking time as a pensioner, renting a
cottage in the Isle of Wight or some such thing.
While he contemplated that very fate in "When
I'm Sixty-Four," tending the garden and mending
a fuse were never really his bag.
Incredibly, McCartney
has been in public life for nearly the whole of
his adult years. He was barely 21 when British
Beatlemania came into vogue in the autumn months
of 1963. And he was working like a dog long
before he glimpsed his name in the bright lights
of a theatre marquee.
Indeed, if there is a
constant in McCartney's story, it is the
artist's journey — a rage to toil in the service
of an unquenchable creative drive. He reportedly
composed his first song — "I Lost My Little
Girl" — after the untimely death of his mother
Mary in October 1956, and he'll likely be trying
to capture the music playing in his head until
the day he dies. And, true to his creative
energies, he will never quite be satisfied.
After all, it's not the arrival at some hallowed
place that excites our most enduring artists.
It's the getting there that matters.
Across his long career,
McCartney has enjoyed the rare air of being
commercially and critically successful.
His work both within and without the Beatles has
positioned him as his genre's greatest outlier.
Any comparison to his level of attainment is
futile at best. The same composer who
reconceived the rock album in 1967 with "Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"was
still mining out new sounds in 2020 with
"McCartney III." And still he persists in
searching out uncharted creative vistas — and,
whenever possible, showing off.
Take last Thursday night
at MetLife Stadium, where McCartney closed out
the Stateside leg of his "Got Back" tour. For
the past several years, he has made a point of
performing Jimi Hendrix's epic guitar lick for
"Foxy Lady" during the outro for "Let Me Roll
It," a Wings-era track from "Band on the Run."
As you raise a glass in honor of McCartney's
80th birthday, consider his motives for breaking
off the same guitar pyrotechnics virtually every
time he steps on stage. Wailing away on his
Gibson Les Paul, with its custom paint job in
full flower, he's not doing it for us. He does
it because he can.
Hard to think of a better way for
Paul McCartney to
celebrate his 80th birthday than by singing “Glory Days”
onstage with
Bruce Springsteen or
being serenaded by some 60,000 well-wishers.
That’s right, the “cute Beatle” turns 80 on Saturday. It’s one of those
cultural milestones that bring a sharp
intake of breath — has it been THAT long?
— along with an appreciation of what he still has to offer.
For it has been more than a half-century now since the
Beatles broke up, a
realization that hits you like that
1970s-era joke about young people saying,
“Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”
Like several other
members of the “hope I die before I get old”
generation, including Bob Dylan, the Rolling
Stones and former Beatles mate Ringo Starr,
McCartney keeps working, keeps sharing his music
from the stage. Another 1960s icon, Brian Wilson
of the Beach Boys, is scheduled to play at the
Starlight Theatre in Kansas City on his 80th
birthday Monday.
“He has a youthful
exuberance that is ageless,” said Bob Spitz, a
Beatles biographer. “There’s still some of that
21-year-old boy that shines through in all of
his performances.”
It would be a cliche —
and wrong — to suggest time hasn’t taken a toll.
The fragility in his voice was evident while
singing “Blackbird” on Thursday night at MetLife
Stadium, the final night of a brief U.S. tour.
He struggled for the high notes in “Here Today,”
his love letter to John Lennon, who was robbed
of a long life by an assassin’s bullet.
The skill of a
sympathetic band, along with the imagination and
voices in the audience, patches over the rough
spots.
“Yeah, yeah, right, I’ve
got a birthday coming up,” McCartney said,
scanning signs in the audience that reminded
him. “I’m not trying to ignore it, but…”
The crowd offered a
spontaneous “Happy Birthday” serenade, even
before Jersey guy Jon Bon Jovi brought out a
fistful of balloons during the encore to lead
them in another verse.
That other Jersey guy,
Springsteen, joined McCartney for the duet on
“Glory Days” and a version of “I Wanna Be Your
Man.” He later popped up to join the guitar duel
from “Abbey Road.”
For most artists, the
appearance of such local royalty would be a
hard-to-top moment. Most artists can’t
immediately whip out “Let it Be” and “Hey Jude”
to follow it.
To mark the birthday,
Stereogum magazine asked 80 artists to pick
their favorite McCartney song, and the choices
were remarkable in their breadth — from the
pre-Beatles 1958 cut “In Spite of All the
Danger” (which McCartney performed at MetLife)
to his 2016 collaboration with Rihanna and Kanye
West “FourFiveSeconds” (which he didn’t).
David Crosby and Dan
Auerbach of the Black Keys both chose “Eleanor
Rigby.” Master showman Wayne Coyne of the
Flaming Lips picked “Magical Mystery Tour.”
Steve Earle selected “Every Night,” while Def
Leppard’s Joe Elliott went against type with the
gentle “Little Lamb Dragonfly.” Mac DeMarco
picked the “Ram” epic, “The Back Seat of My
Car.”
Many remarked upon the unfairness of having
to pick just one.
Stereogum’s feature
illustrated the varied entry points musicians of
different generations have into a living,
breathing catalog. For example, it revealed that
a largely overlooked album like 1980’s
“McCartney II” had a far greater impact on
developing artists than its reception at the
time would have foreshadowed.
On Friday, McCartney’s
team announced that it was packaging “McCartney
II” with his other DIY albums, “McCartney” of
1970 and 2020’s “McCartney III,” into a boxed
set that will go on sale in August.
How vast is the
songbook? McCartney performed 38 songs at
MetLife, 20 of them Beatles songs, and even
managed to miss an entire decade. Remember the
1990s?
With the help of Peter
Jackson, who reimagined the “Get Back” sessions
for last year’s television project, McCartney
was able to perform a virtual “duet” with Lennon
singing his part of “I’ve Got a Feeling” from
the Apple rooftop concert.
McCartney also paid
tribute to George Harrison, who died in 2001,
with a version of “Something” that began with
Paul on a ukulele George gave him and built to a
full band version.
Spitz recalled a
Beatles-era film clip of Lennon telling an
interviewer that he’d be flabbergasted if it
lasted more than 10 years. McCartney stood next
to him laughing.
Lennon was right about
the Beatles as a unit, but not about the music.
He couldn’t have imagined that in 2022, one
adult standing in line to get into MetLife being
overheard asking a companion: “Where are Mom and
Dad?”
Advanced birthday be
damned, the irrepressibly cheerful McCartney
left with a promise when the last firework burst
and he walked offstage.
Ringo Starr and
Brian Wilson wishing Paul a Happy Birthday
(photos culled from the Official Beatles
Facebook page)
Joel Whitburn, Tireless Researcher of
Music Charts, Dies at 82
His numerous books delved deeply into the
Billboard charts, developing what an admirer
called “the de facto
history of recorded music.” by Richard Sandomir for the New York Times
Joel Whitburn, who relentlessly mined
Billboard’s music charts to fill reference books
that tell the statistical stories of pop, rock,
country, R&B, hip-hop and dance hits since 1940,
died on Tuesday at his home in Menomonee Falls,
Wis. He was 82.
His death was confirmed by Paul Haney, a
longtime researcher and editor at Record
Research, Mr. Whitburn’s publishing company. He
did not specify a cause.
Mr. Whitburn was a music lover whose personal
collection — meticulously curated in his
basement and, later, in a vault — totals more
than 200,000 records, including every single
ever to make a Billboard chart.
“I go in that library alone — all these records — and it’s like
they’re all my old friends,” he said in an interview with The
Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1986.
Mr. Whitburn published nearly 300 books (counting updated editions),
most of them highly detailed chart histories of hit records and
albums. He started cataloging records on index cards and turned that
project into his first volume, “Top Pop Singles,” published in 1970.
Computers came much later.
Disc jockeys and record collectors were among his first customers.
But his books also became important additions to other music fans’
libraries. Nearly all used Billboard charts, but Mr. Whitburn also
dug into those that were published by the trade magazines Cash Box,
Record World and Radio & Records.
“He had a profound impact on the music industry as a whole,” Silvio
Pietroluongo, Billboard’s senior vice president of charts and data
development, said in a phone interview. “He was the first person to
catalog the history of charted music, and by doing so it became the
de facto history of recorded music.”
He
added, “Joel’s chronicling of the Hot 100 gave it a significant
stamp of approval nationally.”
His books, with generic titles and alphabetical listings by artist
or group, covered vast musical territory: “Top R&B Singles,
1942-2016,” “Hit Country Records, 1954-1982,” “Across the Charts:
The Sixties.”
The ninth edition of “The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits” (2010)
listed 52 Beatles songs, with the dates each song entered the Top
40, from the first (“I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “I Saw Her
Standing There” on Jan. 25, 1964) to the last (“Real Love,” made by
the surviving Beatles from demos cut by John Lennon, on March 23,
1996); their peak chart positions; how long the songs stayed on the
chart; how long they remained in the No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 spot;
informational nuggets (like the fact that “Please Please Me,” the
band’s fourth Top 40 hit, was recorded in 1962); and the record
label (usually Capitol, later Apple, but also a few others in the
early days).
He also published books containing a given decade’s worth of
charts.
In his review of “Top Pop Singles, 1955-2006” (2007), the Los
Angeles Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn noted that Mr.
Whitburn augmented his updates to the book with new elements. “This
time,” he wrote, “he borrows a page from baseball batting averages
and assigns a ‘hit average’ to recording artists.”
Mr. Whitburn explained his fascination with Billboard’s charts — and
the reason for his venture’s success — in an interview with that
magazine in 2014.
“I’m
just a huge music fan, and I love the charts,” he said. “I enjoy
following artists’ success. There’s just a joy in that. It’s a
weekly thrill. And there are millions more like me all over the
world.”
Joel Carver Whitburn was born on Nov. 29, 1939, in Wauwatosa, Wis.
His father, Russell, worked for a local electrical company. His
mother, Ruth (Bird) Whitburn, was a homemaker.
Joel was already a music lover when, at age 12, he saw copies of
Billboard for sale at a bus station in Milwaukee. His mother gave
him a quarter to buy it, and while reading it at home he was
gobsmacked by the information it offered.
“All of a sudden, I knew what the No. 1 song in the nation was,” he
said in an interview in 2009 with the music journalist Larry LeBlanc
for the entertainment website CelebrityAccess. “I had no idea that
there was a chart that told you that information.”
He later became a subscriber, and he held on to every issue.
Mr. Whitburn attended Elmhurst College (now University) in Illinois
and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, but did not graduate. He
worked at several jobs before he was hired to represent RCA Records,
having told a company distributor in Milwaukee how much he loved
music. He was told of a new venture featuring eight-track tapes and
got a job setting up eight-track departments at stores in Wisconsin
and Illinois. While working for RCA, he met artists like Chet Atkins
and Charley Pride.
By then he was deep into his Billboard research as a hobby, using
stacks of the magazines that he had collected since 1954. He focused
his work on the Hot 100 chart, which began in 1958, jotting down
artists’ names and record information on index cards.
“The first card I wrote up,” he told Mr. LeBlanc, was ‘Nelson,
Ricky, “Poor Little Fool.”’ That was the first No. 1 song on the
first Hot 100.”
He quit his job at RCA in 1970 to devote himself full time to his
books.
When the first edition of “Top Pop Singles” was completed in 1970,
he took out a tiny advertisement in Billboard that promised buyers a
history of the Hot 100. Hal Cook, the magazine’s publisher, spotted
the ad and called Mr. Whitburn.
“You can’t be using the Hot 100 in an ad,” Mr. Whitburn, in the 2014
interview, recalled Mr. Cook telling him. “Not without our
permission.” Rather than threaten Mr. Whitburn with a lawsuit, Mr.
Cook asked to see the book.
Two
weeks later, Mr. Whitburn said, Mr. Cook called. “He said: ‘Joel, we
got the book. It’s amazing. We love it.’” And he conceded that
Billboard’s attempts to develop a similar book had failed. He paid
for Mr. Whitburn and his wife, Fran, to come to Los Angeles.
After three days, Mr. Whitburn returned home with a 26-page
licensing agreement that gave him the exclusive right to use the
Billboard charts in his books, in return for royalties he would pay
Billboard.
With that permission, Mr. Whitburn built an empire of music research
unlike any other.
He is survived by his wife, Frances (Mudgett) Whitburn; his
daughter, Kim Bloxdorf, a vice president at Record Research; his
sisters, Joyce Riehl and Julie Rae Niermeyer; his brothers, Charles
and David; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
The veteran disc jockey Scott Shannon, currently heard on WCBS-FM in New York,
said he bought his first
copy of “Top Pop Singles” when he was working at a
radio station in Mobile, Ala., in the early 1970s. He has
bought some of the
updated editions since, keeping one copy at the station and one at home.
“There was no other place to go for information about artists, and I wanted to
be the authority on the music
we were playing at the time,” Mr. Shannon said in
a phone interview. “If you use it properly, you sound
smarter than you are to
the listener and sharper than the next jock.”