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My Book “Where’s Ringo?” Is An Illustrated Beatles History

August 2, 2016 · by solobeatles

From Thunder Press, it’s a take off on Where’s Waldo with twenty double-page illustrations packed with Beatles trivia in which you have to find Ringo and other Beatles-related people and things, and fifty pages of text.

The artwork by Oliver Goddard, Takayo Akiyama, and David Ryan Robinson is beautiful, each with their own inimitable style: from childlike whimsy to outrageous psychedelia.

With the prose I did my best to cover all the bases from the boys’ early days in Liverpool to their final album, Abbey Road, all told from Ringo’s perspective.

You can look inside at Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Wheres-Ringo-Beatles-Visual-Puzzles/dp/1781312184/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=13Q6WGP1GNF2E91D42SE

Ringo realizes a dream by recording a country album with Nashville legends.

July 12, 2016 · by solobeatles

Today “Beaucoups of Blues” (1970) stands as one of his finest moments. Click the link below to check out the story:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/book-excerpt-ringo-starr-realizes-a-dream-with-his-1970-country-album-20120818

“End of the Line” — Homages to Orbison & Eras Gone By

July 10, 2016 · by solobeatles

Beatlemania ignited in March 1963 during the group’s second British package tour. The headliners were Chris Montez and Tommy Roe from the U.S., enjoying hits with “Let’s Dance” and “Sheila,” respectively. The Beatles were clearly surpassing them, but the American poor sports refused to give up the final spot of the show, saying they’d quit instead.

But in May and June, when the Beatles toured with one of their idols, Roy Orbison, he was cool with switching the order. Orbison was a founding father of rock from the Sun Records label, home to Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. The boys loved him for his operatic voice and because he wrote his own stuff, like fellow pioneers Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. The previous September, Lennon had penned their first British No. 1, “Please Please Me,” as homage to Orbison.

Twenty-five years later, the friendship led to Orbison’s membership in The Traveling Wilburys. That same year, Orbison released his Jeff Lynne-produced comeback album Mystery Girl and returned to the record charts with “You Got It,” his final hit before he died of a heart attack on December 6, 1988.

When it came time to make the video for the Wilburys’ second single from their album Volume 1, “End of the Line,” Orbison had already passed away, so the group plays the song on a train with a rocking chair reserved for him, empty save for his guitar. When his quavering, ghostly vocals come up, the lights flicker and the video cuts to his picture in a frame. The rest of the group listens meditatively, two icons from the ‘60s (Harrison and Dylan) and two worthy successors from the ‘70s (Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne) honoring a ‘50s master who blazed the trail for them all.

Harrison’s intro for the song recalls the extended intro of “I’m Looking Through You” on the American edition of Rubber Soul, and the video itself recalls the scene on the train in A Hard Day’s Night when the boys played “I Should Have Known Better” to Pattie Boyd and her friends.

The laid-back but persistent drums mirror the rhythm of a train that never stops even as one era’s innovations turn to the next era’s golden brown retro revival. The sepia tinge of the video underscores the passage of time and evokes the Western mythos that inspired the band’s name.

Perhaps even more than “Handle With Care,” “End of the Line” captures the friendship that infused the Wilburys project. Petty sings the verses and the others take turns on the chorus, except for Dylan. It’s a treat to see Dylan relaxed, happy to take the back seat and let his batteries recharge before his mid-‘90s career-reviving third act, just smiling at George like John and Paul did in their TV performances back in 1964-65.

Lennon’s Best Album: If Double Fantasy & Milk and Honey Were One

July 9, 2016 · by solobeatles

In 1980 Lennon returned to the studio for the first time in almost 6 years and recorded enough material for a complete solo album. But eventually he and Yoko Ono decided to release an album comprised of half Lennon tracks and half Ono tracks. Some biographers have speculated that Ono was getting restless in their relationship and perhaps even cheating on him, so Lennon offered her half the space as a way to revive their marriage, resulting in the LP Double Fantasy.

Thus when Lennon was murdered in December 1980, he had another half of an album left in the vaults. In 1984 the sequel Milk and Honey emerged, again consisting of half Lennon, half Ono songs. Many of the Lennon songs were superior to those that had ended up on Double Fantasy. They had only been passed over because they did not fit the earlier album’s theme of a “heart talk” between husband and wife. Thus they now poignantly served as unknowing final statements.

Had all of Lennon’s songs formed one record, it might have been his greatest solo album. In marked contrast to the angst of parental abandonment chronicled in his debut solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, his final songs were mostly happy tracks about the home he had built with his wife and son and his peaceful acceptance of middle age.

See the tunes below or play them continuously at:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA798FF33C92509CE&feature=plcp

Panthers and Politics

July 8, 2016 · by solobeatles

Between 1971 and 1972, Lennon, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan all released songs of solidarity with the Black Panthers. McCartney had already released his hymn to the civil rights movement on The White Album with “Blackbird.”

In November 1971, Dylan released his as a non-album single called “George Jackson.” In 1972, Lennon and Ono released “Angela,” their ode to Black Panther Angela Davis on their Some Time in New York City album, and the Rolling Stones sang their tribute to her, “Sweet Black Angel,” on Exile on Main Street.

(More text after the clips …)

George Jackson was a Black Panther leader imprisoned at San Quentin. His 17-year old brother Jonathan sometimes worked as a bodyguard for Angela Davis, a professor at UCLA who was fired by then-governor Ronald Reagan because she was a Black Panther and Communist.

On August 5, 1970, Davis bought three shotguns, registered in her name. Two days later Jonathan Jackson burst into a courtroom and took a judge, the Deputy D.A., and three jurors hostage in order to negotiate the release of his brother George. Jonathan was assisted by San Quentin prisoners who were about to stand trial or appear as witnesses.

The plan was to go to a radio station, demand the release of his brother and his two associates, and alert the public to the racist, deadly conditions of the prison. But the police opened fire on their getaway van. Jonathan Jackson, two of the prisoners, and the judge were killed. One of the prisoners and one of the jurors were injured, and the Deputy D.A. was shot in the back and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

On August 21, George Jackson was slipped a gun in prison. He took a number of guards hostages and told them to open the cells. Six guards were killed and found in his cell. Jackson escaped to the yard but was shot dead by corrections officers. On September 9, his death inspired 1,000 prisoners in the Attica Correctional Facility to riot and take 33 hostages. Eventually the authorities agreed to 28 of their demands.

Angela Davis was arrested and the “Free Angela Davis” campaign asked Lennon to contribute to her cause, so Lennon refashioned a song with which he’d been tinkering. It had started out orginally as “JJ,” about a lady who “couldn’t get laid at all,” then morphed into a peace song named “People.” With Yoko Ono he molded it to suit Black Panther Angela’s story, calling her a political prisoner in an era before Amnesty International would popularize the term.

They praise her as a teacher and try to comfort her with the idea that the love and hope of freedom fighters is a wind that never stops moving around the world, albeit slowly. Even though Davis is behind bars, her brothers and sisters are breathing together with her and soon she will be returned to them. (The themes of wind and breathing show this to be predominantly Ono-written lyrics.) When Lennon and Ono sing that the world watches her, they quote the famous phrase civil rights marchers would chant when Southern racists would attack them with clubs, hoses, or guard dogs. When TV cameramen captured the images of the racists’ assaults, their brutality was exposed to millions of viewers and turned the tide of public opinion against the Southern segregationists.

Phil Spector’s strings and Elephant’s Memory paint a suitably strong mid-tempo backdrop. The highlight is a sumptuous organ that sounds akin to Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work,” also from 1972. Ono’s voice duets nicely with Lennon. Her vibrato is a touch ostentatious but it is one of her nicest vocal performances on a Lennon album.

The Stones’ Angela Davis tribute, “Sweet Black Angel” from Exile on Main Street has the edge, however — assuming one isn’t offended by Jagger’s imitation of a stereotypical black sharecropper circa 1933. You have to read the lyrics on the internet to understand what he’s saying, which makes the song more accessible by making it basically meaningless to the 99% of the listeners who, 40 forty years later, have no idea who Angela Davis is. The fact that they released it as the b-side to “Tumbling Dice” also shows they were confident they’d captured a unique, earthy country-blues groove.

There is another poignant aspect to “Angela” for Lennon fans when he and Ono mourn with Davis that “They” shot down her man — never suspecting what the future would hold.

IF YOU’RE AN ELVIS FAN CHECK OUT THE PAGE FOR MY NEW BOOK

July 8, 2016 · by solobeatles

Hi all, I’ve got a new book coming out called WHERE’S ELVIS. For fans of the King, I’ve started a new Facebook page with lots of video clips, playlists, pictures, and articles. Please check it out!

https://www.facebook.com/whereselvisbook/

Also, this weekend (July 15-17) I’ll be at the Elvis Festival in Las Vegas:
http://www.lasvegaselvisfestival.com/

It’s at Sam’s Town Hotel and Casino Friday through Sunday, and will feature special guests, Elvis tribute artists, panel discussions, parties, and Elvis memorabilia. I will be in the vendor room with copies of WHERE’S ELVIS.

Elvis’ original drummer from 1955 to 1968 D.J. FONTANA will be there, along with “Memphis Mafia” member SONNY WEST.

Hope to see you there!

Decades Before U2’s Spider-Man on Broadway, Paul celebrates Marvel Comics

July 7, 2016 · by solobeatles

In the mid-60s, with Dylan saying things in lyrics that had never been said on record before, the Beatles and Stones worked hard to be intellectual heavyweights, even if they didn’t stretch out their songs to 10 verses like Dylan. (Though the Stones occasionally did for 4 or 5.) McCartney wrote “Eleanor Rigby” when his aunt chided him that he was just writing bubblegum; Jagger wrote “Sympathy for the Devil” based on a famous Russian novel his girlfriend Marriane Faithfull was reading, The Master and the Margarita.

A decade later, however, the rockers couldn’t be bothered. Instead of great plays and avant-garde poets McCartney was reading Marvel comics and enjoying a laid-back domesticity with Linda, sort of a touring/ganja-smoking “Father Knows Best” on tour with his wife and 3-4 kids. With the rock critics of the day made up of angry politicos or proto-punks, his song “Magneto and Titanium Man” seemed the embodiment of everything that was wrong about McCartney’s post-Beatles trajectory.

Today, however, after U2 has scored a Broadway Spider-Man play, it can be enjoyed for what it is. The ebullient keyboards perfectly capture the joy all young nerds feel when bopping down to the comic store for some new installments, and if you want to be pretentious about it you can say it’s pop art like Lichenstein or Ed Ruscha. McCartney would visit Marvel Comics in the ‘60s when the Beatles were in New York, and there was an issue of Strange Tales that featured the Fantastic Four’s Thing and Human Torch meeting the Beatles.

For McCartney’s 1976 tour, Marvel Comics legendary artist Jack Kirby drew images of the characters that were projected behind the group. McCartney gave Kirby’s family front row seats and after one show Kirby came backstage and gave McCartney a drawing of Magneto vs. Wings. (Pictured above.)

“Magneto”’s album Venus and Mars was not as strong as its predecessor Band on the Run, but it had an organic rock sound that would later come to stand out against McCartney’s increasingly synth-dominated music of the next decade.

For the record, Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo were Iron Man enemies and Magneto was the X-Men’s arch-nemesis. According to an anonymous fan on You Tube, McCartney was inspired to write the song after playing with his kids and their toys and talking about his favorite comic characters.

My Book “1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music”

July 6, 2016 · by solobeatles

Excerpts, videos, and more are available at http://www.1965book.com and http://www.facebook.com/1965book.

Fifty years ago, friendly rivalry between musicians turned 1965 into the most ground-breaking year in music history ever. It was the year rock and roll evolved into the premier art form of its time and accelerated the drive for personal freedom throughout the Western world.

The feedback loop between the artists and their times ignited an unprecedented explosion of creativity. The Beatles made their first artistic statement with Rubber Soul and performed at Shea Stadium, the first rock concert to be held in a major American stadium. Bob Dylan released “Like a Rolling Stone”—the quintessential anthem of the year—and went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. The Rolling Stones’ hit song “Satisfaction” catapulted the band to world-wide success. Fashion designer Mary Qaunt raised the hemlines of her skirts to above the knee, introducing the iconic miniskirt.

This was not only the year of rock as new genres such as funk and psychedelia were born. Soul music became a prime force of desegregation as Motown crossed out of the R&B charts on to the top of the Billboard Top 100. Country music reached new heights with Nashville and the Bakersfield sound and competition between musicians coincided with seismic cultural shifts wrought by the Civil Rights Movement, psychedelics, and Vietnam.

In 1965, Andrew Grant Jackson combines fascinating and often surprising personal stories with a panoramic historical narrative.

“Andrew Grant Jackson makes a powerful case…This book is a welcome reminder of some truly great music. Recommended.”—National Review Online

“Jackson’s rapid-fire jaunt through the musical highlights of 1965—the rise of Motown and Stax Records, the early music of David Bowie, the arrival of the Bakersfield sound—is a helpful survey for readers unfamiliar with the history of popular music.”—Publishers Weekly

“Jackson presents a thoroughly entertaining romp through one mighty year in pop-music history.”—Booklist

“Lively… ackson does a solid job covering the hit-makers.”—Kirkus Reviews

“From the Beatles to the Byrds, from Dylan to the Stones, from the Beach Boys to Motown, author Andrew G. Jackson brilliantly details how the year 1965 was essentially rock and roll’s coming-out party. 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music is filled with interesting insight and analysis into how a unique confluence of cultural events helped spur many of popular music’s all-time greats to reach their artistic apex, all within one, short, action-packed twelve-month period. If you weren’t there the first time around — or even if you were — sit back and prepare yourself for one heck of a ‘ticket to ride.’”—Kent Hartman, author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Best-Kept Secret, winner of the Oregon Book Award and the Audie Award

“The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Coltrane, The Dead, Velvet Underground, Motown … what wasn’t happening in 1965? Andrew Grant Jackson painstakingly chronicles this pivotal year in music with an eye for detail and the big picture – an exciting ride with a timeless soundtrack.” —Joel Selvin, author of Summer of Love and Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues

“1965 is a year that pop fans… revere [for] the sheer volume of innovative music and cultural transformation. A half-century on, it all remains astonishing but Jackson takes us through these 365 earth-changing days with steady hands and an addictive style. I started making a playlist almost immediately.”—Marc Spitz, author of We Got the Neutron Bomb and Twee

1965 IS AVAILABLE AT:

John and Paul Reunion 1974

July 4, 2016 · by solobeatles

In 1974 Lennon produced Harry Nilsson’s album Pussy Cats in Los Angeles. With Nilsson’s gift for gorgeous melodies and his peerless voice, there was speculation that he could be a new McCartney for Lennon; probably Nilsson hoped so himself.

But McCartney had been a fan of Nilsson’s for years, as well, so he and Linda dropped by the Pussy Cats sessions at Burbank Studios the same night Stevie Wonder was there. Wonder was currently in the midst of a streak of chart-topping classics following his 1972 tour with the Rolling Stones.

One could have heard a pin drop when McCartney walked in, as the Beatles’ break up had been famously acrimonious. Finally, Lennon said, “Valiant Paul McCartney, I presume?”

McCartney replied, “Sir Jasper Lennon, I presume?” referring to the roles they performed in a 1963 Christmas stage show. They shook hands and soon started jamming.

Lennon sang lead and played guitar, McCartney drummed and sang harmony, Wonder sang and played electric piano, Linda played the organ, Lennon’s girlfriend May Pang the tambourine, Nilsson sang, Jesse Ed Davis played guitar, producer Ed Freeman played bass and Bobby Keys played sax. They jammed some blues, then covered “Lucille,” “Sleep Walk,” “Stand By Me,” “Cupid,” “Chain Gang” and “Take This Hammer.”

It should have been a classic moment, but it was past midnight and everyone was coked out. On the famous bootleg, A Toot and a Snore, Lennon says to Wonder, “You wanna snort, Steve? A toot? It’s goin’ round.” A couple tunes later Lennon is looking for some more coke while repeatedly complaining about the technical difficulties he’s having with his mike and headphones.

On one hand it’s sad that the last known recording of McCartney and Lennon should be so lackluster. But on the other hand, it’s nice to hear that they were friendly again. The “Lucille” cover is almost passable, on par with some of the more coherent “Get Back” outtakes.

The Mournful Glory of McCartney’s “Wanderlust”

April 14, 2016 · by solobeatles

The stately piano and Phillip Jones Brass Ensemble give “Wanderlust” perhaps the finest sense of grandeur of any McCartney composition, which is why it was one of the newer songs he performed in his 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street (with Ringo on drums). The weariness in his vocals seems to carry the tragedy of Lennon’s recent murder.

So it is first almost disappointing to learn that lyrically it recounts the story of his near bust for pot during the recording of 1978’s London Town on the yachts in the Virgin Islands. US customs raided them and gave them a stern warning about the consequences of holding weed. The captain of the yachts then told McCartney he was not going to stand for drugs on his boats and a bad argument ensued. Seriously irritated, McCartney wanted to find another boat, and some other people in the dock said he could use their catamaran, called “Wanderlust.” Since then, the name became associated with freedom in McCartney’s mind.

A much worse experience occurred in January 1980. When Wings landed in Tokyo, security quickly discovered a 219-gram/7.7 ounce bag of pot in McCartney’s luggage. They immediately escorted him to jail and cancelled the sold out shows. There has been some dispute over the years whether it was he or Linda who packed the suitcase so blatantly, either because they were stoned or because they assumed they were untouchable. The bust carried a mandatory sentence of 5 years, and it was a scary week for Macca in prison as Japanese politicians called for his trial. He was living the opening section of “Band on the Run” for real. After nine days, Japan wanted to avoid an international incident and allowed him to return to Scotland.

As McCartney laments being harassed for what to him seems a petty crime, one can feel the stress of all his cumulative pot busts and the emotional toll it must have taken on him. In the big picture, it reflects how the counterculture’s dependence on drugs became their Achilles’ heel. From The News of the World colluding with Scotland Yard to imprison the Stones for drugs in 1967, to the Beatles’ busts, to Abbie Hoffman hiding underground for years after a coke bust, governments used drugs as an excuse to jail anyone who didn’t get with their program.

The Beatles once planned to escape the Blue Meanie cops by buying their own Greek island, one of the fantasies of 1967’s Summer of Love that never came to fruition. But you can hear the same yearning to escape in McCartney’s sad “Wanderlust” refrain. Ten years later the Band on the Run is still running because they preferred to smoke instead of drink.

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