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September 1, 2012 · by solobeatles

Please help me improve future editions of the book with any corrections, comments, suggestions, or complaints.

You can add them to the comments section here or email me at:

Andrewgjackson(at)Hotmail(dot com)

So far Beatles expert extraordinaire Tom Frangione (Beatle Brunch, Beatlefan Magazine) has pointed out a couple errors. I had the good fortune to meet with him and hear some of his great stories at the Fest for Beatles Fans last August in Chicago.

Under “Give Peace a Chance,” among those in the “choir,”Al Capp was decidedly not among them. He visited John & Yoko during the bed-in, and quite famously was rude & insulting to the point where Derek Taylor asked – no, make that TOLD – him to leave. This scene has been included in several of the Lennon docs over the years (Imagine, US vs. JL, etc). Check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BV3i6ZGECc

Under “Imagine,” the date cited for Lennon’s Death is December 9^th (should be December 8^th).

1973: discussing the Wings tour of the prior year, Feb 8^th is cited as the Wings first gig on the university tour. It was actually the 9^th.

In the entry for “In My Car”, “In The City” cited as a Walsh solo record … per wikipedia: “The track was first recorded by guitarist Walsh for the soundtrack to the 1979 movie The Warriors but the band liked what they heard and decided to record it as an Eagles track for The Long Run.”

Discussing Ringo being on the Flaming Pie album, you indicate he’s “finally” on a Paul record, even though Paul appeared on many of Ringo’s. In fact, Ringo appeared on several Paul albums (Tug of War, Pipes of Peace, and Broadstreet).

P231 typo: it’s David “FISHOF” (no “middle C)

OTHER CORRECTIONS:

In talking about “Beaucoups of Blues,” I said the Jordanaires started providing backing vocals for Elvis on “Heartbreak Hotel,” but they actually started on that single’s B-side, “I Was the One.”

In the entry for “Borrowed Time” I said Bob Marley sang “Hallelujah Time” — but while the band he was in, The Wailers, performed the tune, Bunny Wailer actually sang it.

In the “Silly Love Songs” entry I said “Blackbird” had been written as a nod to Black Power, but I should have said the civil rights movement. McCartney said in his memoir MANY YEARS FROM NOW: “I had in mind a black woman, rather than a bird. Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, so this was really a song from me to a black woman, experiencing these problems in the States: ‘Let me encourage you to keep trying, to keep your faith, there is hope.’ As is often the case with my things, a veiling took place so, rather than say ‘Black woman living in Little Rock’ and be very specific, she became a bird, became symbolic, so you could apply it to your particular problem.”

Lennon Celebrates the Love of His Life in “Oh Yoko!”

August 31, 2012 · by solobeatles

The romantic songs Lennon composed in the Beatles’ early days still resonate with millions of fans, but for the most part there has not been a woman put forward as the inspiration for those classics. By the time of Beatlemania, his first wife Cynthia and he shared a warm bond of security, but not passion. Lennon was rumored to have liaisons with strong women like folk singer Joan Baez, journalist Maureen Cleave, Help! actress Eleanor Bron, and model Sonny Drake — but perhaps in the early years his real love affair was the one between him and his audience, whose adoration he certainly craved “Eight Days a Week.”

By 1967, the euphoria of success had long worn off. “A Day in the Life” found him sunk in a near-catatonic depression (likely accelerated by rampant substance abuse). Though he sang mournfully, “I’d love to turn you on” (à la Timothy Leary’s “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out”), Lennon needed someone to turn him on. He imagined a dream woman coming to save him in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” and gradually he began to realize she had arrived in the form of an avant-garde artist he first met at a London gallery in November 1966.

Lennon had envisioned himself the ultimate “Bad Boy,” but Yoko Ono was a bad girl more extreme than he had ever dared to be. She was an exhibitionist artist from New York who’d done time in a mental hospital and who might have been the prime instigator in their joint plunge into heroin. Yet she also strove to be a “people teacher” who wanted to change the world for good. She was the ultimate glass onion.

His earlier songs were not just “made to order” odes to puppy love; they expressed an ideal he’d been waiting to live out. In Ono, Lennon was electrified to discover that he had at last found his Juliet, and he sang it from the rooftops in the Let It Be film with “Don’t Let Me Down.”

The final song of the Imagine album, “Oh Yoko!” is another song that captured the intensity of his love, though from a more childlike and joyful angle. The proclamation that his love will turn her on echoes “A Day in the Life” and underscores his salvation since that tune. If he felt 100 years old then, he sounds like a little boy here, even bringing his harmonica back out from the cobwebs to express a joy he hadn’t felt since the triumphant early days in songs like “I Should Have Known Better.”

Still, there is a just a hint of bittersweet loneliness to Nicky Hopkin’s sparkling piano. Perhaps it is only producer Phil Spector’s famous echo. But perhaps it also reflects the mood of two needy children who had pushed the rest of the world away from their 72-acre estate Tittenhurst Park in 1971. After living in the spotlit fishbowl for two years, they now had to face each other truly alone for the first time, and the deal Ono had made for herself was becoming clearer. In return for the fame she had craved, she had to live with a guy who could be exceptionally moody, to say the least.

Lennon sensed her growing reservation and tried to tap back into the little girl in her who wanted to be innocently and passionately in love. But soon Ono would convince him to move to New York City with its myriad distractions, and eventually kick him out of the house for a year.

Still, despite the rollercoaster of the next few years in their marriage, by 1975 they would settle down together for good.

EMI wanted Lennon to release “Oh Yoko!” as a single but he declined, calling it too “pop.” This seems odd from a guy who stated his intention with the Imagine album was to get a “sugarcoated” hit. Maybe the song was just too vulnerable.

(Photo on home page from http://anneyhall.tumblr.com/)

Lennon Faces Off Against Li’l Abner Cartoonist Al Capp

August 30, 2012 · by solobeatles

Beatle expert Tom Frangione (Beatle Brunch, Beatlefan Magazine) pointed out that I had erroneously included Li’L Abner cartoonist Al Capp as one of the singers in “Give Peace a Chance.” He wrote:

Al Capp was decidedly not among them. He visited John & Yoko during the bed-in, and quite famously was rude & insulting to the point where Derek Taylor asked – no, make that TOLD – him to leave. This scene has been included in several of the Lennon docs over the years (Imagine, US vs. JL, etc). Check it out here:

From Wikipedia’s entry on Al Capp:

The cartoonist visited John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their 1969 Bed-In for Peace in Montreal, and their testy exchange later appeared in the documentary film Imagine: John Lennon (1988). Introducing himself with the words “I’m a dreadful Neanderthal fascist. How do you do?,” Capp sardonically congratulated Lennon and Ono on their Two Virgins nude album cover: “I think that everybody owes it to the world to prove they have pubic hair. You’ve done it, and I tell you that I applaud you for it.” Following this exchange, Capp insulted Ono (“Good God, you’ve gotta live with that?”), and is asked to “get out” by Derek Taylor. Lennon allowed him to stay however, but the conversation had soured considerably. On Capp’s exit, Lennon sang an impromptu version of his Ballad of John and Yoko song with a slightly revised, but nonetheless prophetic lyric: “Christ, you know it ain’t easy / You know how hard it can be / The way things are goin’ / They’re gonna crucify Capp! “^[32]

According to an apocryphal tale from this era, in a televised face-off, either Capp (on the Dick Cavett Show) or (more commonly) conservative talk show host Joe Pyne (on his own show) is supposed to have taunted iconoclastic musician Frank Zappa about his long hair, asking Zappa if he thought he was a girl. Zappa is said to have replied, “You have a wooden leg; does that make you a table?” (Both Capp and Pyne had wooden legs.) The story is considered an urban legend.

P.S. Please let me know any corrections or improvements in the Corrections section. Thanks!

Great Beatle Sites

August 20, 2012 · by solobeatles

For some great Beatle websites and facebook pages, pull the browser open wide enough so you can see the list on the right. (It hides if your browser if the browser isn’t opened enough.) Please shoot me an email to add your site! andrewgjackson(at)hotmail(dot com)

It was 50 Years Ago Today Ringo Joined the Band To Stay

August 18, 2012 · by solobeatles

Ringo officially became a Beatle on August 18, 1962. Here’s a great interview with Beatles biographer Bob Spitz about how it was only when Ringo replaced Pete Best that the group coalesced into the Fab Four that would take the world by storm (from FaceCulture).

Spitz: “By the time I finished working on the book eight and half years later, I realized the true hero of the Beatles’ story was Ringo Starr. He was a lovely guy, the other Beatles loved him unconditionally, he never had a bad word to say about anybody, he loved being a Beatle, he was a fantastic drummer, and he only ever wanted what was best for the group. And so Ringo, I think, is the true hero of this book and for me he came out at the end as really the character I could identify with the most. And, funnily enough, I found out that when the Beatles first came to the United States, they were selling those buttons, ‘I love John,’ ‘I love Paul.’ The ‘I love Ringo’ buttons out sold the others five to one. So maybe Ringo has all the magic of the story, maybe he isn’t just the luckiest man alive.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckufeouCOxA&feature=relmfu

Today’s Excerpt on Rolling Stone.com: George, “Wah Wah,” and “Run of the Mill”

August 17, 2012 · by solobeatles

Two classic songs in which George expressed his mixed emotions at the dissolution of the Beatles. Click here for the story at Rolling Stone.com:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/book-excerpt-george-harrison-realizes-its-time-to-move-on-from-the-beatles-20120817

Today’s Excerpt on Rolling Stone.com: Paul and “Silly Love Songs”

August 16, 2012 · by solobeatles

Paul reconquered America in 1976 ten years after the Beatles’ last tour with the help of this classic single.

Please click the link below to check out the article:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/book-excerpt-paul-mccartney-goes-from-eleanor-rigby-to-silly-love-songs-and-back-again-20120816

Rolling Stone.com is Running Excerpts From the Book. Today’s: John and “Borrowed Time”

August 15, 2012 · by solobeatles

Rolling Stone is running excerpts from the book this week for the Beatles’ 50th anniversary (Ringo joined on August 18, 1962). Click the link below to check it out:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/book-excerpt-john-lennons-last-rebirth-on-the-stormy-seas-in-borrowed-time-20120815

If You’re In Chicago, Roll Up for the Fest For Beatles Fans This Weekend!

August 9, 2012 · by solobeatles

I’ll be talking about the book this Sat. 8/11 at 7:00 pm and Sun. 8/12 at 4:45 pm, and on a panel with other authors Friday 8/10 at 6:45 pm. There are tons of events going on (bands, movies, talks, memorabilia, special guests, etc.) and the link to the schedule is below. Hope to see you at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare Hotel!

http://www.thefest.com/fest/Current/Chicago/ch.php

Harrison Celebrates the Wild Years in “When We Was Fab”

August 9, 2012 · by solobeatles

In 1984, Michael Jackson wore a Sgt. Pepper–style jacket when he collected an honor at the White House from President Reagan for his efforts against drunk driving. The following year, Jackson’s arch rival Prince tried to emulate the psychedelic vibe of Sgt. Pepper with Around the World in a Day and the “Raspberry Beret” video. XTC released Pepper-esque records under the pseudonym the Dukes of Stratosphear. In LA, the Paisley Underground bands revived the ’60s sound, with the Bangles eventually rising to mainstream success.The Beatles’ spirit obviously still pervaded the mid-1980s, so as Harrison emerged from a five-year hiatus, he decided to see if he could score another Beatles nostalgia hit in the vein of his 1981 #2 single “All Those Years Ago.”

Harrison told Creem that the “Yer Blues” drum intro came first: “Before I wrote the song, or when I sat down to write it, I thought, ‘This one’s gonna start with Ringo going, “One, two, DUHtabumb, DUHtabumb.”’ That was the intro in my head; that was the tempo it was always going to be.”

Since producer Jeff Lynne’s goal for his previous band ELO had been to take up where “I Am the Walrus” left off, he did so here with a vengeance, piling on the cellos, timpani, “oooooohs,” backward tape loops, and “All You Need Is Love” horns. Eight years later, for “Free as a Bird,” he would again try to cram in as many Beatles touchtones as possible.

Legend has it that the term “Fab Four” was originated by Brian Epstein’s press officer, Tony Barrow, in an early press release. Throughout the song the backing vocals chant, “Fab!” as well as, “Gear,” old Liverpool slang for “cool.”

Harrison sings about arriving in the U.S. like strangers in the night, evoking the Sinatra ode to one-night stands that topped the chart in 1966, as well as Robert A. Heinlein’s sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land, about a psychic human raised on Mars who returns to Earth as a messiah figure preaching free love and spirituality. To the Bible Belt, the Beatles were like the mutants from the 1963 sci-fi flick Children of the Damned, pied pipers come to lead their kids to rebellion with long hair and mind-altering drugs.

Harrison then remembers the group’s nemeses: taxes, cops and ultimately, “the bus” (death) that took Lennon away. In the middle eight, Harrison pauses to wistfully remember his lost friendship. He laments how the excessive media attention amplified the conflicts between the old group, but as the “Walrus” march resumes, life goes on and he sings snatches of songs by two of the Beatles’ biggest influences, Dylan and Smokey Robinson (“it’s all over now, baby blue” and “you really got a hold on me”).

In the video, Harrison stands in front of a brick wall strumming his guitar and singing. A van marked “Fab Gear” pulls up and Starr gets out to give Harrison a cello. A third hand comes out of Harrison’s jacket to play it and for a moment he flashes into his Sgt. Pepper suit (which he had recently reacquired). Soon the Walrus from Magical Mystery Tour is playing bass while Starr plays drums. (McCartney was asked to appear but was unavailable.) Harrison bounces an apple (their record label’s symbol) off Starr’s timpani. Lynne has a cameo playing a violin. In the end, Harrison levitates and sprouts eight arms waving like a Hindu god.

At one point, a passerby carries the Imagine album to represent Lennon. Other walk-ons include Elton John, Paul Simon, Derek Taylor, Jeff Lynne, Gary Wright, Harrison’s percussionist Ray Cooper, and Apple manager Neil Aspinall.

The song was released as a single in January 1988 with a cover updating Harrison’s image from Voormann’s Revolver cover. It was Harrison’s last top forty hit in the United States.

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