The Beatles vs. the Taxman: A Former Manager Recalls Yesterday    

 

July 6th, 1964 -- Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon (1940-1980), and George Harrison (1943-2001) of the Liverpudlian pop group The Beatles with their manager Brian Epstein (1935-1967) at the premiere of their first film "A Hard Day's Night." 

The small, framed photograph might not strike visitors to Peter Brown's Manhattan home as noteworthy. It features indiscernible figures lounging about a grassy estate under a high sun. But those figures -- which include the four Beatles, their significant others, plus their personal assistant Neil Aspinall and Brown  -- are captured in repose at the peak of the band’s creativity and influence.

The picture was taken in July 1967 at Kingsley Hill, the country home of manager Brian Epstein in Sussex. The album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had been released six weeks earlier. The single "All You Need Is Love," which the band had performed live three weeks earlier during the first global television broadcast via satellite, would be released in the U.S. within days.
The Beatles and their inner circle gathered for the weekend of July 15 to begin planning what to do with their wealth and their future, a rare undocumented moment in the band’s biography. The photograph shows a moment of tranquility, just before the storm clouds gathered. They would soon become aware of the many shortcomings of deals that had nonetheless made them rich. The band’s management agreement with Epstein was itself due to expire toward the end of the year. That increasingly weighed on him, though there was little reason to suspect they would drop him.
After its release on June 1, 1967, " 'Pepper’ had kind of exploded the world, and Brian was very conscious they had to have a plan for the future," recalled Brown, Epstein's assistant and friend, and later an executive of the Beatles’ company, Apple Corps. Ltd. "One of the problems was this enormous amount of money" in back royalties they were to get from EMI "and what should they do with it to avoid paying taxes -- prohibitive taxes -- on it."

READ MORE... HERE

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PLEASE PLEASE ME 50TH ANNIVERSARY

The Beatles' 'Please Please Me' 50th Anniversary

50 years ago, the Beatles released their debut album. 'Please Please Me' was made during one epic day of recording and took the Beatles from Liverpool bar band to rock & roll legends

George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and John Lennon of The Beatles in their London backyard.

Before Beatlemania and The Ed Sullivan Show; before they met Queen Elizabeth and smoked pot with Bob Dylan; before they sprouted drooping mustaches, dropped acid, discovered sitars and pilgrimaged to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Himalayan retreat; before John met Yoko, before the walrus was Paul; before they took over popular music and, um, transformed Western culture – before all that, at 10 in the morning on February 11th, 1963, the Beatles were merely the world's finest little rock & roll band, gathered at Abbey Road studios in London to make a debut album. Twelve hours later, they'd done it. Of all the astonishing things aboutPlease Please Me – and there are many – the most impressive may simply be the quick-and-dirty haste with which it was recorded. In 2011, it can take a band a dozen hours to mike the kick drum. But in a single long day – with just a £400 budget – the Beatles laid down 10 songs for their album, including some of their most indelible early performances: "I Saw Her Standing There," "There's a Place," "Do You Want to Know a Secret," "Baby It's You." The day's work wrapped up, sometime around 10:45, with a shirtless John Lennon roaring himself hoarse through two takes of "Twist and Shout." "It was amazingly cheap, no messing, just a massive effort from us," Paul McCartney later recalled. "At the end of the day, you had your album."

READ MORE... HERE.

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PRODUCTORA ANUNCIA 3 SHOWS DE PAUL EN BRASIL

Marshall Arts ‏@MarshallArts41m

ANNOUNCEMENT: Sir @PaulMcCartney will be bringing his 'Out There' world tour to Brazil for 3 nights! Stay tuned for more info on Monday!

  


Publicacions en Brasil sobre presentaciones de Paul en este país:

Produtora anuncia três shows de Paul McCartney no Brasil

Shows acontecem em Belo Horizonte, Goiânia e Fortaleza, em maio.
Informações sobre ingressos vão ser divulgadas na próxima semana.

Paul McCartney se apresenta no concerto final do Jubileu da rainha em Londres

Paul McCartney vai fazer três shows no Brasil em maio, informa a assessoria de imprensa da produtora Planmusic Entretenimento nesta sexta-feira (22). As apresentações acontecem em Belo Horizonte, Goiânia e Fortaleza.
De acordo com a nota, informações sobre preços de ingressos e início das vendas vão ser divulgadas na próxima semana. Ainda não há confirmação das datas da turnê.
No início deste mês, o secretário de Estado Extraordinário da Copa do Mundo (Secopa) em Minas Gerais, Tiago Lacerda, anunciou numa rede social que Paul McCartney vai abrir turnê mundial com show em Belo Horizonte.
A apresentação estaria marcada para o dia 3 de maio no Estádio Magalhães Pinto, o Mineirão. "Ele virá falar uai. Confirmado! 1º show da nova turnê de Paul McCartney, dia 03/05 no Mineirão", escreveu o secretário no post.
LEER MAS... AQUI 
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Produtora anuncia três shows de Paul McCartney no Brasil

22/03/201

O ex-Beatle Paul McCartney vai fazer três shows no Brasil em maio, informa a assessoria de imprensa da produtora Planmusic Entretenimento nesta sexta-feira (22). As apresentações acontecem em Belo Horizonte, Goiânia e Fortaleza.

De acordo com a nota, informações sobre preços de ingressos e início das vendas vão ser divulgadas na próxima semana. Ainda não há confirmação das datas da turnê. No início deste mês, o secretário de Estado Extraordinário da Copa do Mundo (Secopa) em Minas Gerais, Tiago Lacerda, anunciou numa rede social que Paul McCartney vai abrir turnê mundial com show em Belo Horizonte.

LEER MAS... AQUI 
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A DEEPER SHADE OF BLUE:US SHOWINGS ON 28th MARCH

A Deeper Shade Of Blue: US Showings On 28th March

‘A Deeper Shade Of Blue’ - Screening on 28th March 2013 across the US for one night only

Jack McCoy’s surf film ‘A Deeper Shade Of Blue’ premiered last year at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. The documentary tells the history of surfing and will be screened for one night only on Thursday 28th March in 400 cinemas across 47 of the 50 states in the US. US fans can find their local showing by clicking HERE!

During the editing of the film Jack put one of his surfing sequences to the song ‘Is This Love?’ from The Fireman album ‘Electric Arguments’. A mutual friend, Chris Thomas, saw the footage while visiting McCoy in Australia and on his return to the UK gave Paul a copy of the sequence.

Paul thought Jack’s images would be suitable for the then unreleased track “Blue Sway” and so McCoy compiled and edited footage filmed off Tahiti's Teahupoo reef to create what became the ‘Blue Sway’ video. See the final result below:

The special ‘Blue Sway’ video, directed by Paul and Jack, will be screened alongside the film ‘A Deeper Shade Of Blue’ which also features The Fireman on the soundtrack. Other musicians featured in the film include Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Iggy Pop and Jack Johnson.


(Click for larger image)


Jack has told us the film is for, “Anyone from 8 - 80 years old, male or female, families... Everyone!”. For your chance to catch the music video and film on the big screen, get your tickets HERE!

‘Blue Sway’ was released on ‘McCartney II’ in 2011 as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection. Fans can get their copy from Amazon and iTunes. 

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THE BEATLES ARE ON THE NEXT COVER OF Q322

The Beatles are on the next cover of Q

Here's a preview of  50th anniversary special - Q322 is out Tuesday March 26,2013 featuring The Beatles with: new features, previously unseen pictures and an exclusive new interview with Paul McCartney.

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"PLEASE PLEASE ME" THE BEATLES DEBUT ALBUM WAS RELEASED 50 YEARS AGO TODAY years on

Please Please Me, The Beatles' debut album, was released 50 years ago today.

The Beatles in 1963, shortly after Please Please Me went to number one in the album chart

On March 22 1963 The Beatles' released Please Please Me, their first studio album. The release was recorded quickly to capitalise on the success of the single Please Please Me, which had come out two months earlier, and went to number two.

Please Please Me changed the face of modern music, and cemented The Beatles as a phenomenon. At a time when the UK album charts were dominated by film soundtracks and easy listening vocalists, this pop record stayed at number one for 30 weeks in 1963, only to be replaced by the band's second album, With the Beatles.

The BBC celebrated the 50th anniversary of the album's recording by challenging modern artists to re-recordthe album in the space of one day – as the Beatles did on 11 February 1963. The results were broadcast on Radio Two.

Here are some little-known facts about Please Please Me:

1. The band's marathon recording session lasted nine hours and 45 minutes, starting at 10am on a Monday morning. This exceeded record producer George Martin's expectations, who had originally only booked two sessions for the band – they ended up running into a third one in the evening.

2. Twist and Shout, a cover of the Phil Medley and Burt Russell song, was the last track to be recorded because John Lennon had a cold on recording day; Martin feared the song's challenging vocals would ruin Lennon's voice for the rest of the recording if it was performed earlier.

3. The total session time cost £400, the equivalent of £10,000 in 2013. Each Beatle was paid £7.50 for each three-hour session.

4. Martin originally wanted The Beatles to pose outside the insect house of London Zoo for the cover of Please Please Me. However the Zoological Society of London refused and the shot ended up being taken over a stairwell inside EMI's London headquarters.

5. The original vinyl release of Please Please Me is the only Beatles album where the original songs are credited to McCartney-Lennon. Afterwards, including on CD releases of the album, the songs are attributed to Lennon-McCartney.

6. Please Please Me's sleeve notes were written by the band's press officer Tony Barrow, and mention The Beatles' rivals at the time, The Shadows.

7. Please Please Me was not released in America until The Beatles' catalogue was standardised for CD, in 1987.

8. The album was almost recorded at the Liverpool venue the Cavern, in front of a live audience. However, due to time pressures the EMI studio was booked instead.

9. Please Please Me was nearly called Off the Beatle Track instead, but this changed with the release of the single of the same name.

10. One of the original tracks on the album, Misery, was written for British teen sensation Helen Shapiro to perform, but her producer, Norrie Paramor, turned it down.

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PLEASE PLEASE ME AT 50 !

Please Please Me

"One-two-three-FOUR!!!"

The first sound on the first album. Paul McCartney's impromptu count-off that became the fanfare of a new British Empire that would engulf the world and leave no free nation untouched.

Fifty years ago, on March 22, 1963, EMI released Please Please Me, the debut LP by its newest budding act, The Beatles. Though no one knew at the time, it was the first stage of the showbiz equivalent of an Apollo Saturn V moon rocket, bigger, faster and stronger than anything that had come before. It spent thirty weeks at the top of the British album charts, which had previously been dominated by easy-listening vocalists and film soundtracks. The torch was passed from the old pop guard to a new youth movement to be known as Rock.

Barely a year earlier, the group had performed their first major label audition for Decca only to be rejected, as they would be many times by other labels in the ensuing months. Eventually, in the summer of 1962, they charmed producer and A&R man George Martin into signing them to EMI's Parlophone label. By year's end they had cracked the top twenty on the British charts with their first single and they had a second one on deck. Not bad for a group who had started the year off with little more than a local following in Liverpool and Hamburg, and was shuffling drummers like Spinal Tap.

The following year, they would spontaneously combust in a good way. Shortly after its Jan. 11 release, the "Please Please Me" single (recorded the previous November) began climbing the charts rapidly, catching Mr. Martin by surprise. "Suddenly we had a hit group on our hands and I wanted to get an album out as quickly as possible. And the obvious way to do it was to record pretty quickly." The original idea was to take a mobile recording unit up to Liverpool and tape the group performing live at the Cavern Club, capturing the excitement of this hot new band in their element. But when that was deemed too much of a hassle that wouldn't guarantee a good sounding result, Martin settled for having the boys run through their Cavern set in London's Abbey Road studio 2 on Feb. 11, picking the best numbers and adding them to the singles and B sides they had already cut. But how could they hope to convey the infectious energy of a live Beatles show in the calm atmosphere of a studio without a stage or an audience?

Studio engineer Norman Smith, the unsung hero of the Beatles' first six albums (who would later produce Pink Floyd), had an idea. The standard method of recording bands was to partition each instrument and place microphones up close so they wouldn't pick up nearby sounds. Smith did away with this practice, removing the sound baffles and pulling back the mics to let the sounds "bleed" from one to the other. He set the Beatles' equipment close together like a jazz combo, and placed ambient mics several feet away to get the sound of the room. The atmosphere was set and the rest was up to the band.

"It was done in twelve hours because they wouldn't spend any more money," John Lennon explained. In those days it was common for a pop group to track an album's worth of material in a single day. What was uncommon was for that one day to produce so much world-class material. The Beatles were not in the best shape, having slogged through one of the harshest winters on record with little downtime. They had colds, which inflamed their sinuses and altered their voices. In spite of this, they were well rehearsed, tight and polished, and from the first song, they were on. With each hour, they grew increasingly more at ease and the energy kept building, as if they had conjured up their own stomping, sweaty audience out of thin air. Several tracks ("I Saw Her Standing There", "Boys", "Twist and Shout") were nailed on the first take. "I don't know how they do it," Martin was heard to say. "We've been recording all day and the longer they go, the better they get."

By the evening session, they were flying through their favorite cover tunes and having a ball, racing to a thunderous, stunning climax with "Twist and Shout." After that, Lennon's larynx was in shreds. "I was bitterly ashamed of it," he said later, "because I knew I could sing it better." Lennon would spend the rest of the decade backing up that statement, from "Money" all the way up through "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." But "Twist and Shout" remains arguably his most iconic performance, because of the youthful determination found in it. Perfect in its imperfection, that track alone delivers the essential truth about the Beatles -- the instant knowledge that John, Paul, George and Ringo put forth everything they had in them and left it all on the field, from the first album to the last.

Please Please Me hit number one on May 11, 1963 and stayed there until the first week of December, yielding to its followup, the mania-inducing juggernaut With The Beatles. Although tracks from Please Please Me were issued at various times in the U.S. on different labels, the album itself, with complete tracks and artwork, didn't appear in the U.S. until its worldwide CD release in 1987. It is now available everywhere on remastered vinyl, capturing a day in history that changed music forever.

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SALE A LA VENTA GUITARRA UTILIZADA POR JOHN Y GEORGE EN 1967

La casa de subastas espera recaudar entre 200.000 y 300.000 dólares por la pieza, que nunca antes había sido subastada.

La guitarra eléctrica que va a ser subastada

La casa de subastas Julien's Auctions va a vender el próximo mes de mayo una guitarra eléctrica que fue utilizada por John Lennon y George Harrison cuando los Beatles estaban en la cima de su fama, por la que se espera recaudar entre 200.000 y 300.000 dólares.

La guitarra, hecha a medida por la marca VOX, fue utilizada por estos artistas durante la grabación del álbum 'Magical Mystery Tour'. En concreto, Harrison la utilizó en 1967 para practicar la canción 'I am the Warlus (Yo soy la morsa)', mientras que Lennon la tocó ese mismo año cuando grababan en vídeo 'Hello, Goodbye'. Ambas canciones fueron incluidas en el mencionado álbum.

La guitarra estará expuesta desde el 16 de abril hasta el 5 de mayo en el Museum of Style Icons en Newbridge (Irlanda), antes de su venta. Según la casa de subastas, la guitarra es un regalo que se le entregó en 1967 a Yanni 'Magic Alex' Mardas, el ingeniero electrónico de la banda, del sello discográfico Apple Records.

Para el director ejecutivo de Julien's Auctions, Martin Nolan, esta guitarra es una de las piezas históricas más memorables de la música, nunca antes ofrecida por una casa de subastas.

Otros artículos subastados

Otros de los artículos que se van a vender en la subasta, que tendrá lugar el 18 de mayo en Nueva York, será una copia del álbum de 1963 'Please Please Me' firmado por los cuatro miembros de la banda, estimada entre 30.000 y 50.000 euros.

Una copia del extravagante libro 'In His Own Write' de Lennon, con historias y dibujos realizados en 1964, y que también está firmado por todo el grupo también será subastada por 30.000 dólares. 

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JOHN AND GEORGE's 'MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR' GUITAR UP FOR AUCTION

Custom-built Vox could be yours for $200,000 (or more)

Vox electric guitar used by John and George will hit the auction in block in May.

Julien's Auctions will offer the custom-built instrument to the highest bidder as part of a "Music Icons" series on May 18 in New York City. According to the Beverly Hills-based auction house, Lennon and Harrison both worked with the guitar during the Fab Four's Magical Mystery Tour days. Harrison reportedly practiced 1967's "I Am the Walrus" on the ax, and Lennon played it that same year during a video session for "Hello, Goodbye." Julien's expects the item to pull in between $200,000 and $300,000.

Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien's Auctions, described the Vox guitar as "one of the most historical pieces of musical memorabilia" in the auctioneers' catalog. The California company's "Music Icon" collection also includes a copy of the Beatles' 1963 debut, Please Please Me, signed by all four bandmembers (hopefully the estimated $30,000 to $50,000 price tag means the autographs are legit); an edition of In His Own Write, a book of drawings and stories by Lennon (also signed by every Beatle and predicted to fetch around $30,000); personal clothing and jewelry that once belonged to Elvis Presley; a "Beat It"-inspired jacket autographed by Michael Jackson; as well as memorabilia linked to Madonna, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, and many more.

Prior to the NY auction, Lennon and Harrison's old guitar will be on display in Ireland's Museum of Style Icons from April 16 to May 5.

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INTERVIEW: DENNY SEIWELL (EX-WINGS)

Denny Seiwell had played with Zoot Sims and J.J. Johnson before joining Paul McCartney and Wings. His work on 1971′s Ram, in fact, arrived even as he played dates with Billy Joel and James Brown, among others.

Elsewhere, Seiwell worked with Art Garfunkel, Rick Danko of the Band, Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin and the Who. Still, it’s his time with McCartney, which included a stint through 1973 in the first lineup of Wings, that remains his signature moment in rock.

Appearing on both Wings’ debut album Wild Life as well as the follow up Red Rose Speedway, Seiwell would be part of the charttopping “My Love” and the Oscar-winning “Live and Let Die” singles before leaving on the eve of McCartney’s sessions for Band on the Run.

In this SER Sitdown, Seiwell talks about that seminal association with Wings, even while going deeper into some of other fascinating career intersections — and his belated return to jazz, always Seiwell’s first love... 

READ MORE... HERE. 

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TEMPLE WHICH WAS ASSISTED BY GEORGE CELEBRATES 40 ANNNIVERSARY

  

Prabhupada, Patti Boyd and George

 

The Bhaktivedanta Manor is hold an ancient Adivasa Puja ceremony to mark its fourtieth anniversary.

One of the most elaborate Havans ever to be held at Bhaktivedanta Manor with 100 priests and over 500 invited guests, will celebrate forty years of the “Home of Lord Krishna”. The celebrations take place this Sunday March 24.

Famous for holding the largest festival for Krishna, Shri Krishna Janamastami, outside India, Bhaktivedanta Manor has been regarded by many as a pilgrimage site.

1969 was the year that the late George Harrison of the Beatles produced the chart-topping "Hare Krishna Mantra" single, and the Hare Krishnas made their first appearance on British television, singing live on Top of the Pops.

Harrison, who was deeply impressed by the founder of the Hare Krishna Movement outside of India, Srila Prabhupada, was concerned that their temple in Bury Place near the British Museum was overcrowded.

He offered to donate a much larger property ‘somewhere in the countryside but within easy travelling distance from London’.

In January 1973 Harrison donated Piggott’s Manor and estate and after the exchange of contracts, 25 enthusiastic devotees moved in and renamed the estate Bhaktivedanta Manor.

And so a great Temple was established, with a devotional legacy now spanning 40 years.

One of the first devotees to know George Harrison was Dhananjaya Das and he said “it was a time of great significance and recognition to be given such a generous gift for the worship of Krishna in the UK”.

The current Temple President His Grace Sruitdharma Das said “this is time of serving those who have made it possible for us to continue serving their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Gokulandanda, Sita Rama Laxman Hanuman and Gaura Nita”

The Havan will be followed by the spectacular Festival of Colours,Holi and the celebration of Gaura Purnima the Appearance of Lord Chaitanya, who is the Krishna Himself coming to show us how to serve in the mood of Radha Rani.

The Manor continues to be a focal point for devotees of Lord Krishna and the initial approval of the planning brief by Hertsmere Council for a Haveli, will mean Bhaktivedanta Manor will provide more facilities to its congregation and pilgrims for the next generation, building on the legacy of those who helped to secure the Temple in 1973

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