Category : Beatles

Allan Williams obituary

Liverpool entrepreneur known as ‘the man who gave the Beatles away’In 1960, the Liverpool entrepreneur Allan Williams arranged for a fledgling group, the Beatles, to undertake a residency at a club in the red light district of Hamburg. It transformed...

Beatles' first manager, Allan Williams, dies at 86

The Liverpool club owner drove the band to Hamburg on their formative trip in 1960 and also handled early bookingsAllan Williams, best known as the first manager of the Beatles, has died aged 86, it has been announced. It was Williams who took the ba...

The Beatles’ first manager Allan Williams dies

Allan Williams, The Beatles' first manager, has died at the age of 86. Williams was the owner of the Jacaranda coffee bar and music venue, where The Beatles played and socialised in their early days. Williams became their booking agent, getting them...

Sam Leach obituary

Sam Leach, who has died aged 81, promoted beat dances around Liverpool in the early 1960s, including several with the Beatles. He was a firm believer in local talent and without him the Merseybeat scene would not have developed as it did.Sam was born...

‘We had silver suits specially made’: performing at the Beatles Christmas shows

John Beecham on appearing with the Fab Four at Hammersmith Odeon, London, December 1964This wasn’t the first time we’d shared a bill with the Beatles. A few years earlier, they were our warm-up band, when we headlined the Cavern in Liverpool. We real...

French Beatlemaniac sells 15,000 items of a lifetime’s memorabilia

Obsessive fan and amateur Beatles expert hopes sale of vast collection will pay for his retirementJacques Volcouve was a schoolboy fan of Jimi Hendrix in 1967 when his brother’s friend lent him a new album by a British band and urged him to listen to...

Paul Announces Reissue of ‘Flowers In The Dirt’

The long awaited 10th release in the multiple-Grammy Award-winning Paul McCartney Archive Collection has been confirmed: On March 24, 2017, Paul’s 1989 international #1 album, Flowers In The Dirt, will be the latest classic solo work from one of the...

Valerie Gell obituary

Guitarist and singer with the Liverbirds, the 60s Liverpool beat group billed as the female BeatlesIn the 1960s, Valerie Gell, who has died aged 71, was part of the all-female Liverpool teenage beat group the Liverbirds. They had their greatest succe...

Capitol Records at 75: Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and MC Hammer

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of Capitol Records in 2017, publisher Taschen delved into the company’s photographic archive for a new book that documents the label’s decades of success. From the studio to the streets of Hollywood, here’s a glimp...

George Harrison’s sister speaks out on the 15th anniversary of his death

from Daily Mail UK George Harrison’s sister has revealed her heartbreak over not being told the Beatles star was dying and in terrible pain until two weeks before he lost his battle with lung cancer. In an exclusive interview on the 15th annive...

George Harrison’s What Is Life gets new video

A new official video for George Harrison's 1970 song What Is Life has been released. The clip contains no footage of Harrison, but features dancers Emma Rubinowitz and Esteban Hernandez. What Is Life was the second single to be released from Harrison...

Divines; Ghostbusters; The BFG; Star Trek: Beyond and more – review

Houda Benyamina adds a thrilling feminist twist to the ghetto life genre with the direct-to-Netflix DivinesIt’s a big, blockbusting week on the DVD shelves, but the best new film heading to your living rooms is one you probably haven’t had the option...

Yoko Ono Didn’t Break Up The Beatles, John Lennon Did

Rooting through record bins one day at the late, great Central Records in Cambridge, Mass., I came upon a stash of Yoko Ono albums and asked the sagely aging raver behind the counter what they were like. Were they song-based records or more of he...

Ringo returns with All-Starr Band

Ringo Starr, the man who put the beat in the Beatles, returns to the Bay Area with his All-Starr Band. The 76-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is touring behind his outfit’s most recent release, “Postcards From Paradise,” with its longest-running...

In 1966, an LP cost almost a quarter of a teenage pop picker’s pay | Letters

So John Harris believes that there were once some halcyon days when “pop music was a great leveller” (Opinion, 16 November). In 1966, aged 15, when I was earning £6& 10s& 6d a week in my first job, a 45 rpm single cost about 6s 8d, and an LP £1& 12s&...