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Yesterday, a tribute to the Beatles

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03 January 2011 | 11:11 am
Yesterday, a tribute to the Beatles is billed as the world’s most authentic Beatles tribute band. Their act could more accurately be described as Beatles impersonators who play live Beatles covers. Myself having been born after the break-up of the Beatles, seeing the real thing would have proven a bit difficult so checking out the world’s best Beatles tribute band had always been on my list of things to do. Well, as luck would have it, I can finally scratch this one off my list. I had the pleasure of catching Yesterday, a tribute to the Beatles this new year’s day in Acapulco, Mexico. I had intended to see them up in Las Vegas and felt rather bad about missing the show last time so I was determined to not to miss them the next time we found ourselves in the same city at the same ... Read more»

Beatles Rock Band Songs & Track List

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17 November 2010 | 09:25 am
Title Album Year Recorded A Hard Day's Night A Hard Day's Night 1964 Ed Sullivan Theater And Your Bird Can Sing Revolver 1966 Budokan Back in the U.S.S.R. The White Album 1968 Abbey Road Studios Birthday The White Album 1968 Abbey Road Studios Boys Please Please Me 1963 Cavern Club Can't Buy Me Love A Hard Day's Night 1964 Ed Sullivan Theater Come Together Abbey Road 1969 Abbey Road Studios Day Tripper Single 1965 Budokan Dear Prudence The White Album 1968 Abbey Road Studios Dig a Pony Let It Be 1970 Rooftop Concert Do You Want to Know a Secret Please Please Me 1963 Cavern Club Don't Let Me Down Single 1969 Rooftop Concert Drive My Car Rubber Soul 1965 Budokan Eight Days a Week Beatles for Sale 1964 Shea Stadium Get Back Let It Be 1970 Rooftop Concert Getting Better Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967 Abbey Road Studios Good Morning Good Morning Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967 Abbey Road Studios Hello, Goodbye Magical Mystery Tour 1967 Abbey Road Studios Helter Skelter The White Album 1968 Abbey Road Studios Here Comes the Sun Abbey Road 1969 Abbey Road Studios Hey Bulldog Yellow Submarine 1969 Abbey Road Studios I Am the Walrus Magical Mystery Tour 1967 Abbey Road Studios I Feel Fine Single 1964 Shea Stadium I Me Mine Let It Be 1970 Rooftop Concert I Saw Her Standing There Please Please Me 1963 Cavern Club I Wanna Be Your Man With The Beatles 1963 Ed Sullivan Theater I Want to Hold Your ... Read more»

Beatles Rock Band

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17 November 2010 | 09:06 am
Beatles Rock Band helped to make 2009 a great year for the Beatles and their legacy. They were named the biggest selling artists of the decade and the launch of "The Beatles: Rock Band" on September 9, 2009 for PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 introduced the group to a whole new fan base. To top off a stellar year, the game received great reviews from critics and loads of enthusiasm from the public. More than half a million units were sold in the first month alone. For those who haven't heard, Beatles Rock Band is a music video game that lets players sing and jam along with the Beatles using fake music instruments. While this may not sound like a winning premise, much of its success is owed to Harmonix Music Systems which did a truly phenomenal job in bringing the Beatles to life on the video game screen ... Read more»

George Harrison - The Quiet Beatle

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25 March 2010 | 10:01 am
George Harrison was born in Liverpool, England on February 25, 1943, the youngest of four. He died in Hollywood Hills, California from lung cancer on November 29, 2001 at age 58. With John Lennon and Paul McCartney, he was one of the original Beatles. Harrison was most noted for his elegant lead guitar playing, his musical compositions, and his interest in Indian mysticism. He was the main force behind the introduction of the sitar, and of Indian music in general, into Western popular culture. When the Beatles disbanded, Harrison pursued a successful solo career. In the late 1980's he took part in the super group called "The Traveling Willburys" with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynn and Roy Orbison. He also produced several films and records in the period 1970-2000. He is remembered, somewhat inaccurately, as the "quiet Beatle." Rolling Stone magazine named him 21st in its list of the ... Read more»

Ringo Starr - The Funny One

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25 March 2010 | 09:48 am
Richard Starkey was the drummer for the Beatles from 1962 through 1970. He has used the stage name "Ringo Starr" since the late 1950's. He was born in Liverpool, England on July 7, 1940. After the Beatles disbanded, Starr had a solo career, recorded several records of his own, produced records for other artists, acted in films, and performed with several different musical groups. As a child, Ringo was often ill. At six he suffered a coma from complications of appendicitis. At thirteen he spent two years in a sanatorium to recover from chronic pleurisy. He did not finish his secondary schooling as a result. The long-term effects of his illness were a collection of food allergies and sensitivities that have stayed with him during his adult life. He is a vegetarian, not out of conviction so much as necessity. Whenever he traveled internationally as a Beatle, he packed food as ... Read more»

Paul McCartney - The Composer

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23 March 2010 | 03:36 pm
James Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool, England on June 18, 1942. He became famous as a member of the Beatles, and is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most successful songwriter in the history of popular music. In the UK alone he has written and/or performed on 60 hits that have been certified as gold, and has sold over 100 million single records. His song, Yesterday, is said to be the most covered and most often played popular song of the 20th century. After the Beatles disbanded, McCartney continued his musical career with records and performances. Mull of Kintyre, his 1977 hit with his group, Wings, is the top-selling non-charity single in the history of the UK. McCartney is an entrepreneur, a producer of films and records, a writer of songs and poems, a painter, and an activist for peace and animal rights. He had a long-time ... Read more»

John Lennon - The Smart One

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23 March 2010 | 10:10 am
John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England on October 9, 1940. He was murdered in the streets of New York on December 7, 1980 by a delusional fan. He was married twice, to Cynthia Lennon (1962) and to Yoko Ono (1969). He had one son by Cynthia, Julian, born April 8, 1963, and a son, Sean, born October 9, 1975. Lennon was a co-founder of the Beatles with Paul McCartney and George Harrison. He was 15 at the time. He and Paul McCartney became the 20th century's most popular, well-known and influential team of song writers and composers. After Paul McCartney, John Lennon wrote more number one hit singles than any other artist, with 27, according to Billboard. He authored three books: In His Own Write, published in 1964; A Spaniard in the Works, published in 1965, and the posthumous compilation, Skywriting by Word of Mouth (published in 1986). Yoko Ono ... Read more»

Ice Cream Changes

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20 March 2010 | 11:03 am
Question: What does the refrain in Girl (John Lennon's ballad on Rubber Soul) have in common with classics like Blue Moon and Heart and Soul, and with many hits from the 1950's such as Silhouettes on the Chaise, Teen Angel, All I Have to Do Is Dream, Duke of Earl, Earth Angel, Donna and Stay? Every Breath You Take by the Police and countless other songs display the same characteristic. Answer: They all use a chord progression called "the ice cream changes." During the 1950's, this sequence was so common that some musicians still refer to it as "the 50's progression." No one knows for sure why it was dubbed "ice cream changes," but a consensus has formed around the idea that these chords were simple, sweet and familiar – like ice cream. Technically, the progression is described as I-vi-IV-V, as in C-Am-F-G or G-Em-C-D. Lots of minor variations are ... Read more»

Twelve-Bar Blues

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20 March 2010 | 11:01 am
The Beatles recorded an improvised jam session called "12-Bar Blues." Lennon and McCartney frequently commented that they enjoyed covering songs that were basically "12.bar blues" in structure and chord progression. Most guitarists learn about the "12-bar blues" early on in their studies of the instrument. This article describes what the "12-bar blues" is all about and how it relates to the rock and roll era, which the Beatles enriched and then changed forever. "The Blues" come from African-American roots in the deep South of the US, notably New Orleans and Memphis. Urban versions sprang up in more modern times in the larger cities all over the North American continent. Genres such as gospel and jazz also enriched the creative mix, leading to "rhythm & blues," essentially an urban development within African-American culture, and later, to "rock and roll." Two prominent features of the "blues" are: Structured Lyrics: Traditional blues songs had several verses ... Read more»

Who is on the Sgt. Pepper Album Cover?

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23 January 2010 | 11:47 am
Last row: Sri Yukteswar Giri (Hindu guru) Aleister Crowley (occultist) Mae West (actress) Lenny Bruce (comedian) Karlheinz Stockhausen (composer) W. C. Fields (comedian/actor) Carl Gustav Jung (psychologist) Edgar Allan Poe (writer) Fred Astaire (actor/dancer) Richard Merkin (artist) The Vargas Girl (by artist Alberto Vargas) Huntz Hall (actor) Simon Rodia (designer and builder of the Watts Towers) Bob Dylan (singer/songwriter) Second row: Stuart Sutcliffe (artist/former Beatle) Anonymous (hairdresser's wax dummy) ... Read more»

Magical Mystery Tour May Be The Beatles' Best Album

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23 January 2010 | 11:59 am
If I were to ask you "Quick think of the best Beatles album..." Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, Abbey Road, The White Album or Rubber Soul would be the first out of your mouth. Magical Mystery Tour would probably be way down the list. Agreed, the film to which the album was devoted was interesting, but wasn’t exactly great cinema, and the cover of the album is pretty hokey (the German and UK versions were even hokier). What’s more, Magical Mystery Tour was the only album put out by Capitol that is today considered an essential Beatles studio original (it was released in Britain as an EP but, for once, the U.S. song selection proved to be better). The album is an outlier for a number of other reasons, not least of which a number of previously released singles were included. For example, Strawberry Fields Forever and ... Read more»

Pet Sounds America's Best Album?

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23 January 2010 | 11:53 am
"It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water. I love the album so much. I've just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life ... I figure no one is educated musically 'til they've heard that album ... I love the orchestra, the arrangements ... it may be going overboard to say it's the classic of the century ... but to me, it certainly is a total, classic record that is unbeatable in many ways ... I've often played Pet Sounds and cried. I played it to John so much that it would be difficult for him to escape the influence ... it was the record of the time. The thing that really made me sit up and take notice was the bass lines ... and also, putting melodies in the bass line. That I think was probably the big influence that ... Read more»

Eminem, Beatles, Shakira top decade

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25 December 2009 | 08:15 pm
Who wins the record-sale wars of the ’00s? The battle comes down to the Real Slim Shady, the Fab Four, and a perhaps less fab boy-band fivesome. According to Nielsen SoundScan (via USA Today), Eminem garners the top overall prize for album sales over the last ten years with 32.2 million copies sold, despite having a five-year gap in studio albums between 2004’s Encore and this year’s Relapse. The Beatles, however, come in a close second with 30 million, and earn the single-album ticket to ride; their greatest-hits compilation 1, released in 2000, sold 11.5 million, edging out ‘N Sync’s No Strings Attached from that same year by a mere 400,000. (The latter sold 2.4 million in its first seven days, still a SoundScan record.) Norah Jones’ 2002 debut Come Away With Me wins the bronze, taking third place with 10.5 million. As for digital music? Shakira “Hips Don’t Lie” is the decade’s ... Read more»