Tag : Culture

Tag: Culture

Beatles memorabilia worth an estimated £6m goes for auction

Items include an archive from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 peace protest and a curious birthday card sent by George HarrisonAn archive of material from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 peace protest is among the items to be sold this month at one o...

Gary Wright, singer of Dream Weaver and Love is Alive, dies aged 80

Frequent collaborator of George Harrison and synthesiser pioneer was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementiaGary Wright, the singer of pop hits Dream Weaver and Love is Alive, has died aged 80.His son Dorian confirmed the news to th...

From sorting fan mail to seeing Abbey Road being made: my life as a teenage Beatles employee

Merle Frimark was already a huge fan of the Fab Four when she started working for them. Here she recalls being in the room as they put the finishing touches on Come Together – and reveals her unseen snaps of her encounterOn the afternoon of 23 July 1...

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr team up with Dolly Parton on Let It Be

Mick Fleetwood and Peter Frampton also joined country star on her cover of the Beatles’ 1970 hitPaul McCartney and Ringo Starr have reunited to team up with Dolly Parton for her cover of Let It Be.The country music star’s piano-led version of the 197...

Top marks for Sgt Pepper | Letter

Reader John Major should have known better when he ripped off the Beatles’ lyrics for a homework assignment The lyrics from pop songs have appeared in the classroom before those of Taylor Swift (Belgian university launches Taylor Swift-inspired liter...

Photo that solves Sgt Pepper McCartney mystery up for auction

Rumours that musician was not present for album photoshoot are proved false, say UK auctioneersA vivid image of the Beatles and a memo from their record company’s PR manager busting a myth that Paul McCartney was not present at the photoshoot for one...

The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine reviewed – archive, 19 July 1968

19 July 1968: The film looks as if everybody got together, decided which of the band’s songs they were going to use, and wrote it around themThe Yellow Submarine (London Pavilion) is a rather pretentious piece of popular entertainment. Its nominal st...

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...

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...

Paul McCartney says there’s nothing artificial in new Beatles song made using AI

Musician clarifies how artificial intelligence was applied to vocals by John Lennon, amid anxiety over how the technology will affect musicPaul McCartney has clarified how artificial intelligence has been used to create a new Beatles song, saying tha...

‘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...

‘I was living in a fool’s paradise’: Adrienne Kennedy on meeting the Beatles and losing control of her play

The great American playwright, who made her Broadway debut last year aged 91, recounts what happened when she adapted a John Lennon book for Laurence Olivier’s National TheatreIn the mid-1960s, Beatlemania swept through the New York home of playwrigh...

‘Suddenly, we were in Wonderland’: Paul McCartney on his lost photos of Beatlemania

The pictures the singer took of his friends and bandmates give a Beatle’s-eye view of the mania around the band in 1964. Seen here for the first time, these extraordinary behind-the-scenes moments capture four young men on the brink of immortalitySom...