Tag Archives: Ringo Starr

Beatles, Great albums, John lennon, Music Calendar, Paul McCartney

Dec 3: The Beatles released “Rubber Soul” in 1965

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beatles-rubber-soul

There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I’ve loved them all

Rubber Soul documentary included in the remastered Box-set:

All four faces of The Beatles appear stretched on the cover of 1965’s Rubber Soul, but it is not only the picture that is mind bending, the music within stretches the boundaries of popular music, too. In my mind it is he first truly unified album by The Beatles (and their first recorded within a specified session period), it is a quantum leap compared to the band’s past work. The Songwriting is out of this world, and the instrumentation was cutting edge. A milestone in rock history.
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Sound

50 years ago today: A Hard Days Night by The Beatles was released


A_Hard_Day's_Nigth

“We were different. We were older. We knew each other on all kinds of levels that we didn’t when we were teenagers. The early stuff – the Hard Day’s Night period, I call it – was the sexual equivalent of the beginning hysteria of a relationship. And the Sgt Pepper-Abbey Road period was the mature part of the relationship.”
– John Lennon (1980)

A Hard Day’s Night is the third album by The Beatles; it was released on July 10, 1964. The album is a soundtrack to the A Hard Day’s Night film, starring the Beatles. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing. This is the first Beatles album to be recorded entirely on four-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes.

HDN

In 2000, Q placed A Hard Day’s Night at number 5 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 388 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The soundtrack songs were recorded in late February, and the non-soundtrack songs were recorded in June. The title song itself was recorded on April 16.

“…but A Hard Day’s Night is perhaps the band’s most straightforward album: You notice the catchiness first, and you can wonder how they got it later.

The best example of this is the title track– the clang of that opening chord to put everyone on notice, two burning minutes thick with percussion (including a hammering cowbell!) thanks to the new four-track machines George Martin was using, and then the song spiraling out with a guitar figure as abstractedly lovely as anything the group had recorded.”

– Tom Ewing, Pitchfork

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Music Calendar

July 7 in music history

Happy 74th Birthday Ringo Starr (read more)

Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we even met. Ringo was a professional drummer who sang and performed and was in one of the top groups in Britain, but especially in Liverpool. So Ringo’s talent would have come out one way or the other … whatever that spark is in Ringo, we all know it but can’t put our finger on it. Whether it’s acting, drumming, or singing, I don’t know. There’s something in him that is projectable and he would have surfaced as an individual … Ringo is a damn good drummer.
~John Lennon (Sept 1980)

 Ringo_Starr_and_all_his_band
 Charles Elzer Loudermilk (July 7, 1927 – January 26, 2011), known professionally as Charlie Louvin, was an American country music singer and songwriter. He is best known as one of the Louvin Brothers, and was a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1955.  charlie louvin
 Joseph William Perkins (July 7, 1913 – March 21, 2011), known by the stage name Pinetop Perkins, was an American blues musician, specializing in piano music. He played with some of the most influential blues and rock and roll performers in American history, and received numerous honors during his lifetime including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and induction into the Blues Hall of Fame.  Pinetop_Perkins
 Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006), was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and painter, best remembered as a founder member of the band Pink Floyd. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter during the band’s psychedelic years, providing major musical and stylistic direction in their early work, including their name. He left the group in 1968 amid speculations of mental illness exacerbated by drug use, and was briefly hospitalized.  Syd barret

Bruce Springsteen plays “The Roxy” – LA in 1978 (read more)

The Roxy Theatre (often just The Roxy) is a famous nightclub, on the Sunset Strip, in West Hollywood, California. The Roxy is owned by Lou Adler and Adler’s son, Nic, who operates the club.9 songs from Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s “Live/1975-85” album were recorded at the Roxy in the mid-late 1970’s. From the July 7 -1978 concert these songs were picked for the album: Adam Raised a Cain, Spirit in the Night, Paradise by the “C, Growin’ Up, It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City, Backstreets, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) & Raise Your Hand.

  Roxy 8

Spotify Playlist – July 7
Beatles, List

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 23 “Love Me Do”

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“Love Me Do” is the Beatles‘ first single, backed by “P.S. I Love You“. When the single was originally released in the United Kingdom on 5 October 1962, it peaked at No. 17; in 1982 it was re-promoted (not re-issued, retaining the same catalogue number) and reached No. 4. In the United States the single was a No. 1 hit in 1964. In 2012, the song entered the public domain in Europe. This was my first encounter with The Beatles, I got the single from an aunt (still have it!). Love Me Do was the best song in the world for me for many years and I still love it!

It was written as early as 1958:

“Paul wrote the main structure of this when he was 16, or even earlier. I think I had something to do with the middle.”

“Love Me Do is Paul’s song. He wrote it when he was a teenager. Let me think. I might have helped on the middle eight, but I couldn’t swear to it. I do know he had the song around, in Hamburg, even, way, way before we were songwriters.”
– John Lennon

But Paul remembers it a bit different:

“Love Me Do’ was completely co-written. It might have been my original idea but some of them really were 50-50s, and I think that one was. It was just Lennon and McCartney sitting down without either of us having a particularly original idea. We loved doing it, it was a very interesting thing to try and learn to do, to become songwriters. I think why we eventually got so strong was we wrote so much through our formative period.

Love Me Do was our first hit, which ironically is one of the two songs that we control, because when we first signed to EMI they had a publishing company called Ardmore and Beechwood which took the two songs, ‘Love Me Do’ and P.S. I Love You, and in doing a deal somewhere along the way we were able to get them back”
– Paul McCartney

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Beatles, Great albums, Music Calendar

Today: The Beatles Anthology 2 was released in 1996

The Beatles Anthology 2

Anthology 2 is a compilation album by The Beatles, released by Apple Records 18 March 1996. It is the second of the three-volume Anthology collection, all of which tie-in with the televised special The Beatles Anthology. The opening track is “Real Love”, the second of the two recordings that reunited the Beatles by means of magnetic tape. Like its predecessor, the album topped the Billboard 200 album chart.

Anthology 2 features outtakes, rarities, and alternative performances from the 1965 sessions for Help! to sessions just prior to their trip to India in February 1968

The Beatles – Real Love:

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