Category : Beatles

Carrie Mae Weems: Reflections for Now; Paul McCartney: Photographs 1963-4 review – making history

Barbican Art Gallery; National Portrait Gallery, LondonA momentous 40-year retrospective of the African American artist builds to a damning indictment of racism, exclusion and photography itself. Plus, a joyous ringside seat as the Beatles go stratos...

Mom, How Did You Meet the Beatles? review – moving account of a Black female playwright in 60s London

Minerva, ChichesterRakie Ayola excels as Adrienne Kennedy, whose John Lennon play was taken up by Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre while she was sidelined, in this crystal-clear production of her autobiographical taleBy the mid-60s, Adrienne Kenne...

Paul McCartney: Photographs 1963-64 review – watching the world change, almost overnight

National Portrait Gallery, LondonEyes of the Storm, which collects McCartney’s pictures taken as the Beatles’ fame went stratospheric, record a pivotal moment in pop cultureFirst they were ours, for a brief and precious moment. Then, suddenly, they b...

Paul McCartney attends Eyes Of The Storm exhibition launch

Paul McCartney attended the launch of his exhibition Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes Of The Storm at London’s National Portrait Gallery on Monday 26 June 2023. pic.twitter.com/Rs4wscQa5K — Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) June 27,...

Mom, How Did You Meet the Beatles? review – an affecting memoir of a thwarted playwright

Minerva, ChichesterRakie Ayola is superb in a story about the exploitation of a Black female playwright by the great and the greedy of London’s theatreland It’s quite a title. Adrienne Kennedy – now a belatedly revered American playwright – impulsive...

‘John Lennon was violent. He’d fight about anything’: the inside story of Merseybeat, the UK’s early pop explosion

Early 1960s Liverpudlian pop may have been dominated by the Beatles, but it was a thriving scene whose acts filled the charts. Its artists explain why wild success gave way to heartbreaking failureThriving locally in Liverpool in 1961, dominating the...

Paul McCartney: “The last Beatles record will be released this year”

The Beatles are using artificial intelligence (AI) to complete what Paul McCartney calls “the last Beatles record”. Although he did not name the song, it is believed to be ‘Now And Then’, based on a 1979 John Lennon demo and w...

Chas Newby, one-time Beatles bassist, dies at 81

The British musician, who performed with the Beatles for several gigs in 1960, went on to become a high school mathematics teacherChas Newby, the British musician who played bass guitar for the Beatles during their early days, has died at the age of...

Dolly Partons and debutantes: a Welshman’s view of Arizona – in pictures

David Hurn moved from wet, socialist Wales to a scorching, rightwing state in the US – but his eye for life’s eccentricities remained unchanged Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Liverpool: the right city for Eurovision | Editorial

The home of the Beatles prepares itself for the song contest – an act of musical solidarity with UkraineAfter an extraordinary six-month commissioning spree, the city of Liverpool is opening its heart to a Eurovision song contest unlike any other. It...

The fashion craze for military uniforms, 1967

What was with all the brocade and brass on the Portobello Road? It was puzzlingLess than three months before Sgt Pepper was released, on 12 March 1967, the Observer took a bemused look at the craze for military uniforms. ‘Pop patriotics? Dandyism? Co...

The Lost Album of the Beatles review – deeply researched what-ifs

Daniel Rachel imagines what the next Beatles album might have been like, with painstaking detail and great storiesFor a baby boomer like me, 12 years old when the Beatles broke through in 1962 and a mere 19 when they called it a day in 1969, it’s cur...

It was 60 years ago today… schoolboy’s tape of the Beatles transports us to an era of optimism | Samira Ahmed

Private-school pupils unselfconsciously screamed for their working-class heroesWhat’s on the set list? Why did he only tell you about the tape now after 60 years? Two of the questions I’ve been bombarded with since I made public the existence of an a...

Please Please Us: Lost tape of Beatles school gig could be saved for the nation

Sixty years ago, a little-known Liverpudlian band took to the stage at Stowe school in Buckinghamshire• Samira Ahmed: A tape that takes us back to an era of optimismIt was a sweet slice of cultural history and, at the same time, evidence of an unlike...

Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles review | John Fordham's jazz album of the month

(Nonesuch)In a powerful live recording, the piano virtuoso brings out the boogie, blues and gospel in the Fab Four’s songsBrad Mehldau, as inquisitive a philosopher as he is a tirelessly curious jazz-piano virtuoso, believes that an alluring strangen...