“The Beatles: Ultimate Quotebook Coming” plus 1 |
| The Beatles: Ultimate Quotebook Coming Posted: 25 Feb 2011 04:24 AM PST 02/25/2011 Of the countless books written on The Beatles over the past 45 years, The Beatles: Ultimate Quotebook stands alone as the first-ever book to collect the musings of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr. This is the group's definitive oral history. Music journalist, pop music expert and editor John D. Luerssen (The Beach Boys: Essential Interviews and U2 FAQ) – has sifted through all of the Beatles' essential and, in many cases, extremely rare media interactions to collect the finest anecdotes of John, Paul, George and Ringo. In doing so, he weaves the Beatles' magical, memorable ascent, artistic evolution, musical revolution and ultimate dissolution, month by month and year by year. Starting with musings from the band's first-ever radio interview in 1962 and ending with John's reflections on the group just prior to his untimely murder in 1980, The Beatles Ultimate Quotebook offers direct perspective from the Beatles themselves and is a captivating, uplifting, heartwrenching and ultimately indispensible read. Excerpts below: 1962 Q: "You composed 'P.S. I Love You' and 'Love Me Do' yourself, didn't you? Who does the composing between you?" PAUL: "Well, it's John and I. We write the songs between us. It's, you know... We've sort of signed contracts and things to say, that now if we..." JOHN: "It's equal shares." PAUL: "Yeah, equal shares and royalties and things, so that really we just both write most of the stuff. George did write this instrumental, as we say. But mainly it's John and I. We've written over about a hundred songs but we don't use half of them, you know. We just happened to sort of rearrange 'Love Me Do' and played it to the recording people, and 'P.S. I Love You,' and uhh, they seemed to quite like it. So that's what we recorded." 1964 Q: "How were you selected for Ed Sullivan? Was he in England and caught your act or something?" GEORGE: "We were arriving from Stockholm into London airport and at the same time the Prime Minister and the Queen Mother were also flying out, but the airport was overrun with teenagers. Thousands of them waiting for us to get back. Ed Sullivan arrived at that time and wondered what was going on." 1966: JOHN: "I thought I might need a gorilla suit. I've only worn it twice. I thought I might pop it on in the summer and drive round in the Ferrari. We were all going to get them and drive round in them but I was the only one who did. I've been thinking about it and if I didn't wear the head it would make an amazing fur coat-with legs, you see. I would like a fur coat but I've never run into any." 1967 PAUL: "This rumor we were splitting up was rubbish, too. One would think it is the first time any of us had done anything on his own. John wrote books on his own all along, and we all have side-lines we get on with as individuals. Besides, we're all great friends and we don't want to split up. There's never been any talk or sign of it... except in the minds of others." 1968 PAUL: "Some fella said to me, 'Have you had LSD, Paul?' And I said 'Yes.' And it was only 'cuz I was going to just be honest with him. There's no other reason. I didn't want to spread it or anything, you know. I'm not trying to do anything except answer his question. But he happened to be a reporter, and I happened to be a Beatle. So it went into that, you know." JOHN: "And it was his responsibility, or his paper's responsibility and his TV station." PAUL: "That's the thing - He immediately said 'Oh, it's this man's responsibility. He's just saying all the kids should take LSD.' And I didn't, you know. I just said, 'Yes I've taken it. Okay I own up,' you know." 1969 Q: "You seem to be the more industrious Beatle." RINGO: "No, I'm the laziest Beatle, actually. I'm quite happy to finish an LP and go and sit back. I can enjoy myself just sitting back, you know, and playing at home with all the toys, and the kids, and the wife. I enjoy playing with the wife." 1970: PAUL: "So I felt the split coming. And John kept saying we were musically standing still. One night -- this was the autumn of '69 -- Linda and I were lying there, talking about it, and I thought, 'That's what I miss, and what they miss too -- Playing.' Because we hadn't actually played for anyone for a long time. And being an actual good musician requires this contact with people all the time. The human thing. So I came into the idea of going to village halls which hold a couple of hundred people. Have someone book the hall and put up posters saying, maybe, 'Ricky and Redstreaks, Saturday Night.' And we'd just turn up there in a van and people would arrive and we'd be there. I thought that was great. John said, 'You're daft.'" 1974: JOHN: "When I slagged off the Beatles thing, it was like divorce pangs and, me being me, it was 'Blast this! F**k the past!' I've always had a bit of a mouth and when a thing begins that way you have to live up to it. Then Paul and me had that fight in the pages of MM. It was a period I had to go through. I sort of enjoy the fight at the time -- that's the funny thing. Now we've got it all out and it's cool. I can see the Beatles from a new point of view." Share this article on Twitter Click here to read today's full Day in Rock report Preview and Purchase Beatles CDs
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| Fans of Beatles come together for Rain Posted: 24 Feb 2011 09:17 PM PST ALBANY -- Toward the end of Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles on Wednesday night at the Palace Theatre, the scrupulous cover band recreating the Fab Four launched into a lickety-split version of "I've Just Seen a Face." Among the more obscure songs in the Beatles catalog, the tune, off "Rubber Soul" (at least in the U.S.; it was on "Help!" in the United Kingdom), turned out to be the most original, freeing, inspiring moment of the evening, for exactly what it was and was not. Jimmy Pou, the accomplished performer playing George Harrison in Rain, delivered a smart, catchy, flat-picking solo on his acoustic guitar to complement the song's lively two-step. It was compelling, invigorating and, for one of only two times throughout the evening, not a slavish homage to the Beatles. The ringing, original solo, which was never performed by the Beatles, brought cheers and applause from the sold-out audience, the second for Rain at the Palace in less than a year. The enthusiastic response was unequaled all night except for the only other time the band liberated itself from rote, albeit note-perfect, Beatles covers: for the final encore, of "Hey Jude," naturally. That song, a precise two hours into the show, became a celebratory anthem, as of course "Hey Jude" should be. But it also highlighted the central quandary of reviewing the performance: Is it more important for Rain, which has been doing this Beatles impersonation in varying forms on the road and Broadway for decades, to deliver slick verisimilitude or try for something more, something soulful? The creators clearly believe the former is what's wanted, and they serve up what was almost always an impressive recreation of the Beatles. The show interwove 31 Beatles songs, all but about three instantly recognizable, from the band's seven(ish)-year performing career, with news and TV clips, 1960s TV commercials and period-feeling if recreated animations, all projected on a trio of big screens on the stage behind the band. The evening is almost wholly faithful to the Beatles, starting with the band's 1964 debut visit to the United States and appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Setpieces, complete with costume changes, cover that era, followed by the spangly "Sgt. Pepper's" period and, after intermission, the hippie/peacenik incarnation that preceded the Beatles' demise. Throughout, while the physical similarities were less convincing, given the performers' ages, the vocal mimicry and harmonies were often startlingly true. Mac Ruffing was a convincing Paul McCartney, including playing bass left-handed but guitar right-handed; Jim Irizarry shone on John Lennon's vocals, guitar and piano, especially on the effects-flattened blare of "I Am the Walrus"; Pou produced extraordinary guitar tone as Harrison; and Doug Cox, as Ringo, had few vocal opportunities but was brilliant on the drums, particularly on the thudding tom-toms of "Come Together." It was, in the end, an extraordinary cover band, charging up to $50 for clonelike perfection. For hard-core Beatles fans, even the song progression contained zero surprises. Less zealous enthusiasts might not always have known what was coming next, but once each song started, spark and inspiration hadn't a chance; except during "I've Just Seen a Face" and "Hey Jude," you might as well have been at home, listening to vinyl, beneath a very good pair of headphones. It's effective nostalgia, to be sure. Whether it's good live music is another question altogether. Reach Steve Barnes at sbarnes@timesunion.com. Visit his blog at http://blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping. Concert review RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday Where: Palace Theatre, 19 Clinton Ave., Albany Running time: Two hours, including a 20-minute intermission The crowd: Sold out, 2,800 strong, preteens to septuagenarians This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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