martes, 31 de marzo de 2015

Fan photos of John Lennon in London and New York

dangerousminds.net
Fan photos of John Lennon in London and New York
Posted by Paul Gallagher
03.31.2015



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Being one of The Beatles meant being mobbed, followed and even stalked everywhere you went. They quit Liverpool for London for its mix of anonymity and excitement—and because everything happened there. Eventually, John, George and Ringo moved on to the stockbroker belt to find peace, quiet and happy isolation. But even there, Lennon had unwelcome visitors who wanted a photo or to say that they understood what his songs were about, and touch the hem of his clothes.


Eventually, Lennon moved again, this time to New York where he said he could walk the streets without anyone bothering him. Going by these fan photographs of Lennon in London and New York, it’s obvious he was just as mobbed by devoted fans in the Big Apple as he had been back in the Big Smoke.
These fan snaps capture Lennon from the late 1960s, through his relationship with Yoko Ono, to just before his untimely death in 1980.
 

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John Lennon signing an autograph outside the Abbey Road Studios, 1968.
 

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Lennon visiting an antiques market with Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney.
 

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Apple scruffs—John and Yoko shopping for clothes at a market.
 

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Wedding album: mobbed by fans at Heathrow airport, March 1969.
 

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Lennon-Ono, London, 1969.
 

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Demonstrating on the streets of London against the ‘Oz’ obscenity trial, 1970.
 

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Sometime in New York City.
 

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Mobbed, circa 1974.
 

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John reunited with Yoko, who was pregnant with Sean, summer 1975.
 

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Double Fantasy, 1980.



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Via Vintage Everyday.


domingo, 29 de marzo de 2015

The Rutles – LP

beatlesblogger.com
The Rutles – LP
by beatlesblogger
The Rutles – LP
Posted on March 29, 2015

As their website says:

The Rutles are a legend. A living legend. A legend that will live long after other living legends have died. This is the semi-legendary story of the Prefab Four who made the sixties what they are today!

For such a huge cultural phenomenon the Beatles have attracted surprisingly few parodies and send-ups over the years. That is until The Rutles came along…..

We’ve just scored a nice vinyl copy of their 1978 LP The Rutles:

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Created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes for British television, The Rutles first appeared in 1975 as a sketch on the BBC TV comedy series called Rutland Weekend Television. The sketch presented a mini-documentary about the 1960s band “The Rutles”, and featured Innes singing “I Must Be In Love”, a pastiche of a 1964 Lennon-McCartney tune.

The Rutles gained more fame after their 1978 mockumentary television film, All You Need Is Cash (in which George Harrison actually appears). The Rutles LP is the soundtrack album from that film and it contains 14 of the film’s 20 songs.

The Rutles comes with a gatefold cover and pasted inside is a lavish 16-page, full colour book containing text and images detailing the history and (imaginary) releases of the band. Here’s a selection:

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And there’s an inner sleeve containing more band parodies, too:

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What we have here is the US pressing. Released on the Warner Brothers label in 1978.

If you’d like a taste of what The Rutles are about:





The cover to the American CD reissue of The Rutles. From left to right: Dirk McQuickly, Barry Wom, Stig O'Hara, and Ron Nasty.


sábado, 28 de marzo de 2015

Paul McCartney's two-line postcard from Mull of Kintyre sells for £1,000

www.dailymail.co.uk
From Me To You with love: Paul McCartney's two-line postcard from Mull of Kintyre sells at auction for £1,000
· A postcard sent by Paul McCartney has been sold for £1,000 at auction
· Message read:  'With love from the “four Macs”. Now on tour in Scotland.’
· Beatles star sent it from his Kintyre farmhouse to his housekeeper 'Rose'
By MARK HOWARTH FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 26 March 2015

Only two lines long and dashed off with a typically witty flourish, the scribbled note scarcely amounts to a hard day’s work.
But even a hastily scribbled postcard can become a valuable artefact when written by Sir Paul McCartney.
The greeting, sent by the Beatles star from his farmhouse on the Mull of Kintyre, fetched almost £1,000 at auction earlier this week.

This postcard, featuring a Scotty dog with a tartan border and the message 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?' was sent by Paul McCartney from his farmhouse on the Mull of Kintyre
This postcard, featuring a Scotty dog with a tartan border and the message 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?' was sent by Paul McCartney from his farmhouse on the Mull of Kintyre

Posted to his London housekeeper Rose, the brief handwritten message read: 'With love from the “four Macs”. Now on tour in Scotland.’
Posted to his London housekeeper Rose, the brief handwritten message read: 'With love from the “four Macs”. Now on tour in Scotland.’

Sir Paul spent weeks at his bolthole with wife Linda and daughters Heather and Mary after the band split in 1970. But he kept in touch with his London housekeeper, Rose Martin, sending a card featuring a Scotty dog, tartan, lucky white heather and the lyrics ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot?’.
A brief note on the back reads: ‘With love from the “four Macs”. Now on tour in Scotland.’
With a Campbeltown postmark and an upside-down stamp, it went under the hammer in Warrington, near the band’s native Liverpool, as part of a sale of Beatles memorabilia on Tuesday.
Organiser Omega Auctions had valued it at between £250 and £350 – but it went for £950.
Auctioneer Paul Fairweather said: ‘Such intimate, personal and unique things give Beatles and Paul McCartney collectors an insight into how life was for him back then, and very rarely come up for sale.’

Sir Paul spent weeks at his bolthole with wife Linda (pictured with him at the farmhouse) and daughters Heather and Mary after the band split in 1970
Sir Paul spent weeks at his bolthole with wife Linda (pictured with him at the farmhouse) and daughters Heather and Mary after the band split in 1970




Sir Paul, now 72, bought 600-acre High Park Farm on the Kintyre peninsula in 1966 at the height of The Beatles’ success, while living with actress Jane Asher.
He has said he was inspired to write The Beatles hit The Long And Winding Road by the estate’s ‘wandering single-track roads and sense of solace’. After he married Linda Eastman in 1969, the couple turned the modest farmhouse into a holiday retreat.
When the band broke up, the McCartneys headed there to get away from the limelight.
The couple later immortalised their love of the area in the hit song Mull Of Kintyre, which took their band Wings to the Christmas No 1 spot in 1977. The most successful single of his solo career, it went on to sell 2.5 million copies.
Sir Paul once said of the track: ‘It was a love song, really, about how I enjoyed being there and imagining I was travelling away and wanting to get back.’





viernes, 27 de marzo de 2015

RINGO NEWS : MORE SONGS FROM PARADISE

www.billboard.com
Exclusive: Ringo Starr Debuts 'Confirmation' From New Album
By Joe Lynch
March 25, 2015

Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Rob Shanahan

Less than a month from now, Ringo Starr will finally get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In anticipation of the former Beatle's induction, we're exclusively premiering a track from his 18th solo album, Postcards From Paradise, which hits on March 31.

"Postcards From Paradise is me doing what I do. It's part of my being. I play. We make records. We do the best we can," Starr tells Billboard. "It's homemade music. It starts at home with a drum pattern or a little synthesizer part. And it starts with just me and my engineer Bruce Sugar, who also contributes some good ideas. Then I take those tracks and call up my friends to help."

Ringo -- who paid tribute to Sun Records and Memphis on the 2003 song "Memphis In Your Mind" -- says this song finds him returning to the sound of that city.

"I called Glen Ballard to come on over and make a record, and I gave him a choice of two of my basic tracks I cut at home with Bruce," Starr says. "Glen chose this one and we turned it into 'Confirmation.' The original name for this track was 'Memphis' because it had that Memphis feel."

Check out Ringo's "Confirmation" below.




Postcards From Paradise is available for preorder on Amazon and iTunes.






blogs.wsj.com
Ringo Starr Gets Lovestruck in ‘Touch and Go’ (Exclusive Song)
By  MIKE AYERS
Mar 26, 2015

Ringo Starr’s 18th studio album “Postcards From Paradise” is out next week and features 11 new originals, including “Touch and Go,” premiering on Speakeasy today. Starr wrote the song with his longtime collaborator Gary Burr, who helps keep him focused.

“Gary will help make whatever we’re doing a song when I sometimes tend to wander,” the former Beatles drummer says. “He is a songwriter, and I feel I am the drummer who writes songs.”

The song is an upbeat, three-and-a-half minute organ-driven number, where Starr sings about the fluttery feelings of new love: “I knew from the moment we said hello, it had to be more than touch and go.”

Starr recorded his new album at his Los Angeles studio and credits having a gym next door as one of the things that keeps him feeling vibrant and still wanting to tour. “I do what I can to support being a healthy being,” he says.

Along with Burr, “Postcards From Paradise” features songs recorded with his touring group, the All Starr Band, as well as Joe Walsh, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench, Peter Frampton, and more.

Along with a new album, Starr is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 18 by his Beatles pal Paul McCartney.




“Postcards From Paradise” is out March 31 on Universal Music.






The last photos of John Lennon and Yoko Ono

www.dailymail.co.uk
PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: The Last Photos of John Lennon and Yoko Ono reveal couple's 'unclouded happiness' in the months before deranged gunman tragically ended ex-Beatle's life
· Before John was murdered in 1980, his days with Yoko were captured on camera by noted photographer Kishin Shinoyama
· John had been obsessed with alcohol, women and drugs, John told the photographer, until Yoko came into into his life
· The couple worked tirelessly on Double Fantasy - John's last album
· 'Coming to New York gave him freedom. I think this was the moment when he took off his armor,' writes Yoko,  in what proved to be tragic irony
By CAROLINE HOWE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 25 March 2015

In the months before John Lennon was tragically gunned down outside The Dakota in New York City on December 8, 1980, by deranged killer Mark David Chapman, life for the ex Beatle and his bride Yoko Ono was full of 'unclouded happiness'.
And those moments, during the creation of what would be their last album together, are captured in the collection of photographs of the couple, published for the first time in the book, Double Fantasy.
The photographs were taken by Kishin Shinoyama, who has now written about them in a book by him and Yoko Ono, published by Taschen Books in multiple international editions.
The touching and beautiful collection of never-before-seen photographs were shot while they were making their last album together: the Double Fantasy Album.

Woman: John confided to the photographer who shot these pictures that he had been obsessed with alcohol, women and drugs until Yoko came into into his life
Woman: John confided to the photographer who shot these pictures that he had been obsessed with alcohol, women and drugs until Yoko came into into his life

Double Fantasy, which won the Grammy award for album of the year, was a love story in song
Double Fantasy, which won the Grammy award for album of the year, was a love story in song

Cozy: John and Yoko schmooze in the outdoor patio of a Manhattan restaurant. 
Cozy: John and Yoko schmooze in the outdoor patio of a Manhattan restaurant.

'John couldn't go out anywhere while he was in the UK because of his fame,' writes Yoko. 'Coming to New York gave him freedom. I think this was the moment when he took off his armor.' Ironically, John was killed in front of the New York City apartments building behind the couple, where they lived
'John couldn't go out anywhere while he was in the UK because of his fame,' writes Yoko. 'Coming to New York gave him freedom. I think this was the moment when he took off his armor.' Ironically, John was killed in front of the New York City apartments building behind the couple, where they lived

John and Yoko leave their apartment at The Dakota and head to Central Park across the street
John and Yoko leave their apartment at The Dakota and head to Central Park across the street

The Beatles had broken up a decade before.
John had embraced a new life he described as 'househusband' and he was now focused on creative, political and musical projects. The couple had made international news in 1969 with their Vietnam War protest, the Bed-In in Amsterdam and Montreal.
The Double Fantasy album was going to be John's comeback at age forty, reflecting his personal growth in music and self that he attributed to Yoko, now 82, the first woman who told him that his previous lifestyle of wantonly pursuing women, alcohol and drugs was meaningless.
Paul McCartney and John had finally resolved a bitter rift that dissolved when both men bonded over fatherhood and baking bread. They were once again 'good friends', McCartney told Jonathan Ross on his show last December.
McCartney was one of three people that Yoko called when she returned home from the hospital that fateful night to say that John had not survived the five hollow-point bullets Mark David Chapman fired at the singer just outside their apartment at The Dakota, across the street from Central Park.
'It was just so horrific that you couldn't take it in – I couldn't take it in', McCartney said. 'Just for days, you just couldn't think that he was gone. It was just a huge shock and then I had to tell Linda and the kids. It was very difficult for everyone. That was like a really big shock, I think, in most people's lives. A bit like Kennedy there were certain moments like that.'



Beautiful boy: John relaxing with son Sean Lennon at their Dakota apartment
Beautiful boy: John relaxing with son Sean Lennon at their Dakota apartment

Hanging out: The couple, in the New York living room, loved living in the city
Hanging out: The couple, in the New York living room, loved living in the city

At work: The couple worked intensely for over a month, recording 28 songs  - 14 of John’s and 14 of Yoko’s
At work: The couple worked intensely for over a month, recording 28 songs  - 14 of John's and 14 of Yoko's

The concept of Double Fantasy was a back-and-forth dialogue, a kind of musical conversation between them
The concept of Double Fantasy was a back-and-forth dialogue, a kind of musical conversation between them

George Harrison was deeply shocked by his bandmate's murder but had had little contact with him in the years prior to the murder.
Broken up emotionally, Ringo Starr and his wife, Barbara Bach, immediately flew to New York to offer comfort to Yoko.
'They were two people in one,' Ringo said.
Lennon was the unofficial leader of the Beatles, 'the cheeky wit and sardonic soul of the Beatles', Newsweek wrote in 2014. His death was the end of an era.
Yoko remembers the last time the couple went into the studio together in 1978, the Hit Factory in New York.
Yoko introduces the collection of photos in the book.
'When John and I decided to make the album Double Fantasy, breaking a five-year silence, we wondered whom we should ask to take the photographs. As the two of us thought about it, suddenly the face of Kishin Shinoyama came to mind.
'I said, "For once, I'd really like to have a Japanese photographer." John quickly agreed, saying, "Right, that sounds good." I never expected that "for once" would turn out to be the last album John and I made together, and that "for once" would live on forever'.
Kishin Shinoyama remembers that last recording session: 'I checked in at the Hotel Lexington, and by early afternoon I was down the street at the door of The Hit Factory on West 48th Street, the recording studio where John and Yoko were working on the final parts of the record, inserting choruses and other additional layers of sounds.
'The two had been working intensely for over a month, recording 28 songs — 14 of John's and 14 of Yoko's. The concept of Double Fantasy was a back-and-forth dialogue, a kind of musical conversation between them.
'As I entered the studio, the atmosphere was of creativity and concentration. Yoko greeted me and immediatelyintroduced me to John. He was slim and dressed all in black. His demeanor was very sweet, gentle . . . almost tender. He welcomed me warmly and then returned his attention to four backup singers, directing them as they laid down the chorus to a song he had written called "Woman".





Chill: John was trying to clear away those feelings - of fame, of the past - in order to become a new person, says the photographer
Chill: John was trying to clear away those feelings - of fame, of the past - in order to become a new person, says the photographer



'Throughout the sessions, I noticed that John always spoke with the staff and the studio musicians in a quiet, clear manner, remaining calm and focused, despite the seemingly endless days and nights of work. Overall, there was a feeling of both relief and exhaustion in the air, a sense that this important and cathartic project was finally nearing completion'.
While dining later at Mr Chow's, Kishin learned that he and John were both 40 years old.John revealed 'he was at a turning point, that he wanted to forget everything that had come before and start again', Kishin writes.'He was trying to clear away those feelings — of fame, of the past — in order to become a new person.
'He explained to me that without Yoko, he wouldn't be there now -  that the first part of his life he had been obsessed with alcohol and women and drugs, and that Yoko had been the first woman to tell him that what he was obsessed with was meaningless. 
'He felt that those words had changed him, and this new album was going to celebrate that change'.
A month after Kishin returned to Japan, John was shot and killed.
'I look back at these photos, so many years later, and I feel that I captured John and Yoko at their happiest moment. They were doing creative work, working on the album, recording together. And they were raising their son and loving each other and living a full life together,' Kishin offers.
'It was such a lucky time for me to be there, a moment of unclouded happiness for John and Yoko.'


jueves, 26 de marzo de 2015

Paul To Headline Lollapalooza

www.PaulMcCartney.com

MAR
25
2015

Paul To Headline Lollapalooza

Paul To Headline Lollapalooza
Paul announced this morning that he will headline this year’s Lollapalooza music festival at Grant Park in Chicago. The appearance – set to take place on Friday 31st July - will mark Paul’s first visit to the festival.
Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell said of the line up announcement, “The heart of Lollapalooza has always been the music. The brotherhood and sisterhood of musicians is getting stronger and the unexpected surprises and collaborations are cementing magical moments that will live on in music history. Having young talented artists performing alongside legends is all I could ever ask for and I’ll be grinning from ear to ear the entire weekend”.
Other artists set to appear at the festival include Metallica and Florence and the Machine plus over 130 more. Lollapalooza 3-day general admission passes sold out on March 24th within an hour of going on sale. A limited number of single day general admission passes will be available from today. For more information on the festival head to their website by clicking HERE!
The festival appearance will form part of Paul’s 2015 tour which kicks off in Japan at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka on 21st April. Paul’s tour will then see him appearing in Tokyo and his first-ever concert in Seoul. From there he will visit the UK, France, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware.

For full details of Paul’s 2015 tour dates click HERE!