www.bbc.com Fiona Adams, photographer of The Beatles and other rock stars, dies at 84 BBC NEWS 10 July 2020 The Beatles photographed by Fiona Adams in April 1963 GETTY IMAGES
Photographer Fiona Adams, whose famous shot of The Beatles jumping in the air was used on the sleeve of the Twist and Shout EP, has died at the age of 84.
Adams captured the iconic image of the Fab Four on a London bomb site for Boyfriend magazine in April 1963.
The photo was then used on the record sleeve and has been described by the National Portrait Gallery as "the one that defined their early look".
Adams also snapped many other pop acts, from Bob Dylan to the Rolling Stones.
Adams' photo of Jimi Hendrix also features bass player Noel Redding (left) GETTY IMAGES According to the late photographer's website, The Beatles "readily agreed" when Adams asked them to pose for Boyfriend magazine. BOYFRIEND MAGAZINE
Having previously spotted an undeveloped bombsite near Euston station, she hailed a taxi and took them to the abandoned area.
"I climbed down the rubble into a bombed-out cellar, open to the sky, and had a wonderful session with the Beatles lined up on the wall above," she wrote.
Adams went on to take many more shots of John, Paul, George and Ringo, the last of whom celebrated his 80th birthday earlier this week.
Adams took this shot of Bob Dylan at London's Savoy Hotel in 1966 GETTY IMAGES
Cilla Black, Adam Faith, Sandy Shaw and Dusty Springfield were among other icons of the 1960s who were photographed by Adams for Boyfriend, Fabulous and other publications.
She later moved into travel photography before marrying and having two children.
In 2009, some of her images featured in Beatles to Bowie, an exhibition of 1960s photography at the National Portrait Gallery.
Her death at a hospice on Guernsey on 26 June was confirmed by her son Karl, who said she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February.
Adams' death comes two months after that of Astrid Kirchherr, the German photographer famous for her early shots of The Beatles.
BEATLES JUMPING SHOT The photograph chosen for the cover of the Beatles "Twist and Shout" EP released in July, 1963. "..this has become one of the key images of the 1960s. With its explosive energy, it represents an early salvo in what John Lennon later called 'A Revolution among Youth'." (extract from the Exhibition Catalogue by Terence Pepper & Jon Savage) 18 April 1963 Fiona Adams Photo session Boyfriend magazine, 15 June 1963
www.dailymail.co.uk Sir Paul McCartney, 78, holds hands with wife Nancy Shevell, 60, during amble down Hamptons beach By CIARA FARMER FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 8 July 2020
He recently called for urgent action in live music industry.
Yet Sir Paul McCartney was taking a break from his crusade over the weekend as he stepped out with his wife Nancy Shevell to celebrate Independence Day.
The Beatles rocker, 78, cut a low-key figure as he walked along the shore with his stunning wife, 60, with both of the couple donning protective face masks.
His love: Sir Paul McCartney was taking a break from his crusade over the weekend as he stepped out with his wife Nancy Shevell to celebrate Independence Day Sir Paul was keeping cool in navy tracksuit bottoms and a loose-fitting white top as he walked down the beach with his wife while holding hands. His wife-of-nine years kept things trendy in a patterned zip-up with a pair of comfy sports leggings and a skin-protecting straw hat.
Sir Paul joined The Rolling Stones and Ed Sheeran are among 1,500 acts calling for urgent action to save the live music industry.
They have written a joint letter to Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden to warn that the ‘world-leading’ sector is at imminent risk of suffering mass job losses.
Hold me close: The Beatles rocker, 78, cut a low-key figure as he walked along the shore with his stunning wife, 60, with both of the couple donning protective face masks Sweet: Amid the madness of the coronavirus pandemic, the duo took a moment for some serenity Shoes off! They removed their shoes for the amble down the shore
With concerts and festivals unlikely to return until 2021, they have asked Mr Dowden to provide a timeline for reopening venues without social distancing. They also want a business and employment support package plus VAT exemption on ticket sales.
Other musicians backing the action include Sir Rod Stewart, Coldplay, Eric Clapton, Dua Lipa, Rita Ora, Sam Smith, Liam Gallagher and Lewis Capaldi.
Many were due to play at last weekend’s Glastonbury and other summer festivals including All Points East and Parklife.
Greetings: They fondly chatted to an artist painting pictures on the beach Idyllic: The stroll looked peaceful and serene Into the distance: His wife-of-nine years kept things trendy in a patterned zip-up with a pair of comfy sports leggings and a skin-protecting straw hat Strolling along: Sir Paul was keeping cool in navy tracksuit bottoms and a loose-fitting white top as he walked down the beach with his wife while holding hands
The artists say: ‘Live music has been one of the UK’s biggest social, cultural, and economic successes of the past decade.
‘But, with no end to social distancing in sight or financial support from Government agreed, the future for concerts and festivals and the hundreds of thousands of people who work in them looks bleak.
‘Until these businesses can operate again, which is likely to be 2021 at the earliest, Government support will be crucial to prevent mass insolvencies and the end of this world-leading industry.’
Drinking it in: They gazed upon the ocean during the outing A helping hand: He has been working hard at raising awareness
www.mirror.co.uk Ringo Starr's rise to fame battling illness and poverty as The Beatles drummer turns 80 EXCLUSIVE: Often the most overlooked of the Fab Four, Ringo arguably had the most fascinating rises to stardom of them all By Matt Roper 6 JUL 2020 Stepping out on to the balcony of Liverpool’s Town Hall to the sound of ear-piercing screams from 20,000 fans below, Ringo Starr, the normally happy-go-lucky Beatles drummer, was genuinely astonished. The Beatles return to Liverpool for the northern premiere of the group's first film 'A Hard Day's Night.'
The year was 1964, Beatlemania was at its height, and the Fab Four – Ringo, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison – were back for a triumphant homecoming.
Returning from a world tour which had catapulted them to stratospheric levels of stardom, they had been given the keys to the city, and a police escort through streets lined with 200,000 hysterical fans.
From his vantage point high up on the balcony, Ringo, who celebrates his 80th birthday on Tuesday, saw more clearly than ever just how far he had come.
About a mile away was Myrtle Street, where he had spent a year in a children’s ward, the first of many hospital stays for the sickly child.
Ringo is turning 80 (Image: Reuters)
Not far from that were places where, just a few years earlier, he had worked dead-end jobs to get a start in life.
And in the distance, next to the docks under a thick cloud of coal smoke, were the terraced houses of Dingle, the working class area where he was born and grew up, and where his mother worked low-paid jobs to pay the bills.
10 Admiral Grove, a property in Dingle, Liverpool, England, is the house in which Ringo Starr lived for twenty years before he rose to fame with the Beatles.
Often overlooked by Beatles historians, the story of Ringo’s rise from poverty-blighted obscurity to one of the 20th century’s most celebrated people is the most remarkable of the Fab Four.
While he was regarded as the least important band member, the last to join and with only a few songs to his name, as he turns 80 many critics agree the drummer’s contribution to the quartet was, on the contrary, the key to its phenomenal success.
Yoko Ono, speaking at the 2015 ceremony which finally inducted Ringo into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – years later than the others – said: “No-one is probably going to believe it, but he was the most influential Beatle.”
Ringo battled illness as a child
Born Richard “Ritchie” Starkey on July 7, 1940 – just as the Battle of Britain began – his childhood was, as Beatles biographer Bob Spitz described it, “a Dickensian chronicle of misfortune”.
In the first few months of his life German bombs rained down on the docks and oil terminal near his home in Dingle, the poorest area of Liverpool.
Things got even harder when his dad Richard, known as “Big Ritchie”, walked out on the family when little Ritchie was three.
He rarely saw him after that.
Mum Elsie moved to an even smaller terraced house and took on a number of jobs to support herself and her son.
Ringo later recalled: “She did everything. Scrub steps, barmaid, she worked in a food shop. She had to earn a living.”
His first teacher, Enid Williams, remembered the young Ringo as “very quiet and rather delicate”.
She said: “He was an only child and rather coddled. He was kept out of school quite a lot, he had lots of colds and things.”
In fact, his health problems were severe.
Ringo was the last to join the Fab Four
Aged six, he was rushed to hospital with a ruptured appendix.
It developed into an internal infection, peritonitis, that left him in a coma for several days.
Elsie was told three times that her son would not make it through the night.
He spent a year in hospital, missing so much school that at the age of eight he still could not read or write.
A few months before his 13th birthday, Elsie married Harry Graves, a painter and decorator from London, who would become the father figure in Ringo’s life.
Ringo later said: “He was great. I learned gentleness from Harry.”
But just weeks after his mum’s marriage, Ringo caught tuberculosis.
He spent 10 weeks back at Myrtle Street hospital before being moved to the Heswall Sanatorium on the Wirral, where he would spend the next two years of his life, never returning to school.
It was during that stay in hospital that he found his love for the drums.
Many believe Ringo's contributions to the band were huge - and helped shape their career (Image: Mirrorpix)
Ringo recalled: “This woman would come in… and to keep us busy, she came in with percussive maracas, triangles, little drums and sticks, and she would point to the red dot and you’d hit the drum, and she’d point to the yellow dot, and you’d hit the triangle or the maraca.
“That’s when I fell in love with drums. And I only wanted to be a drummer from then on.
"I had to work on the railways, I had to work on the boats, and I had to work in a factory for several years before it all came true.”
When he left hospital, aged 15, he worked as a British Rail messenger boy then as a Mersey ferry barman before becoming an apprentice fitter at a joiners, where he stayed for four years.
But his pay never stretched to the full drum kit he dreamed of.
Instead, after buying a bass drum for 30 shillings, he cobbled a kit together from biscuit tins and firewood.
Then in 1956, stepdad Harry returned from a trip to London with an old drum kit he had bought for £25.
He was obsessed with drumming - and new it was what he wanted to do
Ringo, 16, set it up in his bedroom, Elsie and Harry constantly yelling at him to keep the noise down as the neighbours were complaining.
Within weeks Ringo had joined his neighbour Eddie Miles, who worked with him at the joiners, and two others from work, and the band began playing during lunch times in the firm’s canteen.
Called The Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group, the band played at Liverpool’s Peel Street Labour Club in early 1957, before appearing at The Cavern many times over the next two years.
After the band folded, Ringo joined local rock ’n’ roll band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in late 1959.
They soon became the hottest group in Liverpool, with Ritchie Starkey renowned as the best local drummer.
It was then that he changed his name, using Ringo, the nickname friends gave him because he wore multiple rings, and Starr, because the band always announced his drum solos as “Star time”.
Iris Fenton, sister of the band’s lead singer Rory, believes her brother helped turn Ringo into a confident showman.
Speaking to the Mirror, Iris, 75, says: “If it weren’t for Rory he wouldn’t have gone anywhere, he’s admitted that himself.
Ringo became known as Liverpool's best drummer as he performed with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes
“He was quite a shy boy, but Rory brought him out, he was the one who got him singing, and gave him the spotlight during shows with his drum solos, which let Rory to go off and change his outfit.
“The band knew he wasn’t well off so helped him with his drums and expenses. I have many memories of Ringo sitting on the stairs in my mum’s house, playing the snare drum with a cushion on top because the man next door kept banging on the wall telling us to shut up.”
Before long, the drummer had come to the attention of another local band, who had recently changed their name from The Quarrymen to The Beatles.
John, Paul and George had just got their first recording contract, but were unhappy with their drummer, Pete Best.
Paul later said: “We really started to think we needed the greatest drummer in Liverpool.
"That was Ringo Starr, who had changed his name before any of us, who had a beard and was grown up and was known to have a Zephyr Zodiac.”
They offered Ringo £25 a week, which was £5 more than another band’s offer and proved to be the deciding factor.
Iris, who dated both Paul McCartney and George Harrison and later married Alvin Stardust, remembers how Beatles manager Brian Epstein called Rory to tell him The Beatles wanted his drummer.
She says: “The band was doing a season at Butlin’s in Skegness and had three weeks left. Rory knew Ringo would be thrilled, but asked if he could stay to finish the season, and Epstein agreed.
“But as soon as he told Ringo, he started to pack.”
Ringo became a member of The Beatles after George, John and Paul became unhappy with their then drummer Pete Best
At first Beatles fans protested Pete’s sacking, but it was soon forgotten as the band released their first single, followed by their debut LP, and started to tour.
As they began to attract frenzied, screaming fans, the Daily Mirror dubbed it “Beatlemania”.
Back in Dingle, Ringo’s mum Elsie was having to cope with her son’s fame.
She remembered how girls “used to climb over the back yard wall, or sleep in the street for days. They were physical wrecks, most of them, but they were just too excited to rest or eat”.
She said: “They’d ask, ‘Which is his chair?’. They always wanted to see his bed as well. They’d lie on it, moaning.”
His “Ringoisms” inspired the titles of several songs, including Hard Day’s Night and Tomorrow Never Knows, and as the hysterical girls fainted at concerts and disabled people were brought backstage in the hope of being healed by the touch of a Beatle, it was often the funny, down-to-earth drummer who was the focus.
When, after falling ill, he joined an Australian tour a week late, he was greeted at Melbourne airport by 4,000 fans.
When The Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, the screams were loudest for Ringo's name (Image: PA)
He received the most fan mail, and during The Beatles’ famous first appearance on the The Ed Sullivan Show in the US, the announcement of Ringo’s name got the loudest screams.
But he worried he would be rejected by his home town after hearing people accuse The Beatles of abandoning the city.
He even feared no-one would turn up to greet them for that 1964 homecoming.
www.express.co.uk Ringo Starr encourages fans to wear masks with John Lennon Abbey Road meme THE BEATLES drummer Sir Ringo Starr has encouraged fans to wear face masks with a John Lennon Abbey Road meme. By GEORGE SIMPSON PUBLISHED: Sun, Jul 5, 2020 As the pandemic continues across the world, politicians and celebrities are encouraging the public to wear face masks. Now The Beatles drummer Sir Ringo Starr has joined in by sharing the Abbey Road album cover, but with a few changes. The 79-year-old wrote: “Peace and love everybody stay safe be cool. Be kind and loving peace -and love love.” The Beatles wearing masks to protect against smog before playing at the Ardwick Theare, Manchester, England on December 7, 1965
While the Abbey Road meme saw John Lennon turning around on the Abbey Road zebra crossing and walking back to the studio.
George Harrison asks him: “What happened?”
To which John Lennon replies: “I forgot my mask…”
In just two days time Sir Ringo will be celebrating his 80th birthday.
The Beatles: Ringo Starr encourages fans to wear masks with John Lennon Abbey Road meme (Image: RINGO STARR/GETTY)
Una publicación compartida de Ringo Starr (@ringostarrmusic) el
Joining Paul and Ringo are a whole host of the drummer’s friends.
They include Joe Walsh, Ben Harper, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr and Sheila E.
Proceeds from Sir Ringo’s Big Birthday Show will benefit Black Lives Matter Global Network, The David Lynch Foundation, Musicares and WaterAid.
Also to celebrate his 80th birthday, Sir Ringo invites everyone everywhere to think, say or post #PEACEANDLOVE at noon on July 7th.
The two surviving Beatles previously reunited for a special performance at Sir Paul’s final O2 Arena show of 2018.
The duo played a rendition of Let It Be’s Get Back with The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood.
Last year, Express.co.uk asked Sir Paul’s biographer Barry Miles what it takes for these Beatles reunions to happen.
He correctly predicted: “It wouldn’t take money, it would just probably be a charity that they both supported because they both give a lot of money away, particularly Paul – but he keeps very quiet about it.”
Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr & Ronnie Wood (Live at O2 Arena, London - 16-12-2018)
He added: “I could see that if it was something they both really believed in, that they might do something like that. But I don’t think it’s necessary really.
“The idea of a Beatles reunion is a myth. It’s just been so long, there is no Beatles left really, particularly with John and George dead.
“I can see that they might play on each other’s albums or something. And that’s exactly what continues to happen.”
Ringo’s Big Birthday Show airs on his YouTube channel at 1am BST on July 8, 2020.
![The Beatles wearing masks to protect against smog before playing at the Ardwick Theare, Manchester, England on December 7, 1965 [611x755] - HistoryPorn](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/75/ea/b8/75eab8dd1e666c55749f28f62642ab96.jpg)
