Beatles Archives - Page 20 of 34 - Ramblin' with Roger

L is for Lennon: John and Yoko

Lennon’s lead guitar work on Walking on Thin Ice, which he recorded 8 December 1980, was his final creative act.

John Lennon met Yoko Ono at an art gallery in November 1966. Very soon, the thing that would really bug Paul, George, and Ringo was that SHE was in the studio with John and them; this had been the Beatles’ nexus, but now he’s bringing in his girlfriend?

Her vocals would eventually show up on Beatles songs, notably Revolution 9 from the white album, and the very strange song What’s The New Mary Jane [LISTEN, if you want] which actually never made it onto a legitimate record until the third Beatles Anthology album, released in the 1990s.

They did a number of albums together, including two avant-garde albums called Unfinished Music. Two Virgins had the infamous nude cover; the CD release added the Yoko song Remember Love [LISTEN], the B-side to the Plastic Ono Band single, Give Peace A Chance [LISTEN].

The Life with the Lions, which corresponded with Yoko’s miscarriage, also had extra material for the CD release. This was followed by The Wedding Album, with side 1 filled with John yelling “Yoko!” and Yoko screaming, “John!”; at least side two was an informative interview.

Live Peace In Toronto was interesting, with Eric Clapton and “Revolver” cover artist Klaus Voorman playing with John. Side two was all Yoko, mostly experimental stuff. LISTEN for yourself to the whole album.

Almost saw John & Yoko at an antiwar demonstration in 1972 or 1973. We had taken a charted bus down from New Paltz, NY to NYC, but we had to get back at the appointed hour. While we were on the bus, still in Manhattan, we heard John on the radio at the rally we had just left only minutes earlier. Speaking of war: Yoko and a bunch of kids appear on Merry Xmas (War is Over) [LISTEN]. Likewise, John regularly appears as guitarist and/or producer on songs she recorded in the 1970s.

They had their famous breakup, the “Lost Weekend”, but got back together in late 1974, then had a son together, Sean, on John’s 35th birthday, October 9, 1975.

When John decided to go back into recording in 1980, Yoko was inarguably an equal musical partner, with their songs alternating on Double Fantasy and the album after John’s death, Milk and Honey. No song better reflects, for me, John’s evolution as a person than Woman, from the former album.

Perhaps my favorite Yoko song is Walking on Thin Ice:

Released in 1981. She and John Lennon concluded the recording of the song on December 8, 1980. It was upon their return from the recording studio to The Dakota (their home in New York City) that Lennon was murdered… Lennon was clutching a tape of a final mix when he was shot.

Lennon’s lead guitar work on the track, which he recorded [that day], was his final creative act.

The B-side was It Happened [LISTEN], which starts with a dialogue between John and Yoko before she sings. Here’s a list, with links, to Yoko’s best songs, including the aforementioned Walking on Thin Ice.

Yoko has continued to record, as well as keep John’s music in the public eye. Sean is a recording artist as well, and I got to see him play a few years back.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

Beatles dominance

The cast of Glee, the TV show, is considered an artist, and has had multiple songs on the charts simultaneously,

As most Beatles obsessives know, it was 50 years ago this week, on the Billboard charts of April 4, 1964, that the Fab Four held the top FIVE singles on the Billboard music charts and a dozen songs in the top 100. I wrote about this five years ago.

What I want to ponder now is, Could it ever happen again? It’s unlikely that an artist would be appearing on multiple labels, as the Beatles did.

For the purpose of the charts, the cast of Glee, the TV show, is considered an artist and has had multiple songs on the charts simultaneously, though NONE of them have gone to #1, and only a handful in the top 10. Still, it’s a model for potential chart dominance.

The closest anyone has come to the Beatles record is 50 Cent, who placed three titles simultaneously – “Candy Shop” (No. 1), the Game’s “How We Go,” on which he guested (No. 4), and “Disco Inferno” (No. 5) – in the top five on the charts dated March 12 and 19, 2005. So it’s possible that a VERY popular rapper could guest on a bunch of other artists’ tracks and break the record.

Now that YouTube views will now count towards Billboard Hot 100, it seems possible that someone will create a whole slew of brilliant videos and dump them on an unsuspecting world simultaneously, wowing the country with its awesomeness. But probably not.

Even if the Beatles’ record is matched or exceeded, it is unlikely that the group’s impact will ever be eclipsed.

February Rambling: niece Rebecca Jade in a movie

My niece, Rebecca Jade, appears as a singer (typecasting, that) in a film called 5 Hour Friends, starring Tom Sizemore,

From Jeff Sharlet, who I knew long ago: Inside the Iron Closet: What It’s Like to Be Gay in Putin’s Russia. In 2010, Jeff wrote about the American roots of Uganda’s anti-gay persecutions. He notes: “Centrist media sources dismissed my reporting as alarmist; The Economist assured us it would never pass. [This week], Ugandan President Museveni is signing the bill into law.”

There was no Jesse Owens at Sochi.

Arthur’s letter to straight people: why coming out matters; read the linked articles therein, too. (Watch that Dallas sportscaster on Ellen.)

So Dangerous He Needs a Soo-da-nim. Racist homophobes who comment on Sharp Little Pencil’s blog.

With conversations about shipping potentially dangerous liquids through my area, here’s a recollection of a train wreck 40 years ago.

If you knew you were going blind, what would be the last thing you would want to see before everything went dark?

The mess of an answered prayer and talking about mental illness.

A Hero’s Welcome after World War II. On a lighter note, The Margarine Wars.

This school is not a pipe, or pipeline.

An alto’s-eye view of choral music.

Who the heck was Ed Sullivan. Plus, Meet the Beatles and what it replaced, and What the critics wrote about the Beatles in 1964, and Introducing the Beatles to America.

Evanier’s experiences with Sid Caesar. Evanier wrote a brace of followup stories here (which also talks about Howie Morris) and here. Also, Dick Cavett reviewed one of Caesar’s two autobiographies, plus an article about the ever-foldable Al Jaffee of MAD.

Leonard Maltin on meeting Shirley Temple.

There are several Harold Ramis films I haven’t seen yet, but the ones I DID view – Animal House, Ghostbusters, Analyze This – I really enjoyed. Groundhog Day was among the first movies I ever purchased on VHS. And his SCTV stuff was fine, too.

A reminder that this is why we are so touched by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death, from Anthony Lane. As someone put it, “It’s not his celebrity but his art.”

An audio link to a 46-minute lecture by Charles Schulz.

My niece, Rebecca Jade appears as a singer (typecasting, that) in a film called 5 Hour Friends, starring Tom Sizemore, a 97 minute comedy/drama/romance. “A lifelong womanizer gets a taste of his own medicine.” It was made in 2013, but not widely released, if at all. It will be in theatrical release in San Diego March 28-April 4th. Here’s the trailer, in which Rebecca can briefly be both seen and heard singing.

After only an 18-month hiatus, Tosy and Cosh are back ranking every U2 song.

Why Tom Dooley was hanging his head. Plus hangman John Ellis.

That is NOT the way Dustbury remembers that song, and I don’t either. Plus the history of Unchained Melody.

Mark Evanier’s teacher from hell.

Lefty Brown’s Valentine’s Day post to Kelly. “The Married Gamers – Play Together. Stay Together.”

Maypo Cereal Commercial (1956) Yes, I DO remember it, so there.

The five-second rule, expanded. Very true.

One can count on SamuraiFrog for all things Muppet: Getting to the Big Game and Miss Piggy’s response, plus a meta ad for the upcoming movie and Rowlf getting ice cream and saying good night to Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night; I hear Fallon’s gotten another job. Fallon, BTW, went to school at the College of Saint Rose, about five blocks from my house.

Yet another version of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Frog still torturing himself with 50 Shades of Smartass: Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 and Chapter 15 and Chapter 16. When I typed the title, I accidentally wrote “50 Years…”; read into that what you will.

GOOGLE ALERTS (me)

And now for the AmeriNZ section: Arthur’s linkage, in which he calls my Everly Brothers post “diabolical.” Arthur’s Law restated, tied to my Facebook unfriending. The law is a ass.

YouTube and AIDS deniers.

When the Beatles Hit America

I did make sure I watched the Beatles’ subsequent appearances on Sullivan and elsewhere, usually in video promo clips that predated MTV by a decade and a half.

Yes, of course, I watched the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, along with 73 million other people. I might have even enjoyed it if it weren’t for that incessant screaming.

I’d like to say that I was an instant Beatles convert. I’d LIKE to say that, but it’d be a lie. They were all right, I guess, but being an almost 10-year-old boy, I was annoyed by Beatlemania, and therefore, somewhat, by the Beatles themselves. Indeed, it was Constitutionally mandated in those days that prepubescent boys hate anything that prepubescent girls liked, and vice versa.

But here’s the clever thing. From the Wikipedia: Sullivan “initially offered Beatles manager Brian Epstein top dollar for a single show but the Beatles manager had a better idea—he wanted exposure for his clients: the Beatles would instead appear three times on the show, at bottom dollar, but receive top billing and two spots (opening and closing) on each show… Their first appearance on February 9 is considered a milestone in American pop culture and the beginning of the British Invasion in music… The following week’s show was broadcast from Miami Beach… They were shown on tape February 23 (this appearance had been taped earlier in the day on February 9 before their first live appearance).”

By their third appearance in three weeks, I developed a grudging respect for them. I started differentiating them, with no small bit of Help! from my sister Leslie, who found Paul, a lefty like herself, particularly dreamy.

I never bought a Beatles album or single until the following year, when with the money from my paper route, I could join the Capitol Record Club, though I did make sure I watched their subsequent appearances on Sullivan and elsewhere, usually in video promo clips that predated MTV by a decade and a half.

But before that, my father, like many parents at the time, bought us – more for Leslie – this album:

Leslie was disappointed. I was more horrified that he had made what I thought was such an obvious error.

Now, of course, I have many iterations of Beatle albums, from both the UK and the US, and even one from Italy, plus singles from Japan.
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Review of the Beatles at Carnegie Hall, February 1964.

Up on a rooftop, Beatles, quick.

I just figured out that the rooftop concert was on the 16th birthday of my good friend Fred Hembeck

Only recently did I realize that today is the 45th anniversary of the Beatles rooftop concert above Abbey Road studios. This was performed and recorded as part of some album/movie project, both of which would eventually be called Let It Be.

Here’s the 20-minute performance until the cops shut things down.

Of course, as Beatles junkies know, the project was scrapped and the band essentially split up, for a time. Yet they were able to get together again and put out the Abbey Road album and a few singles in 1969, which I’ve long thought was extraordinary.

Let It Be, the album was released practically simultaneously with Paul McCartney’s first solo album, McCartney, in April 1970, which was the final blow in the breakup.

It’s interesting how brief their stay as an influential working band was, six years in the US, a bit longer in the UK. Of course, their post-band impact remains enormous.

Funny too that I just figured out that the rooftop concert was on the 16th birthday of my good friend Fred Hembeck, who inspired my blogging. He was/is a massive Beatles fan – here’s his Beatles section on his now unused blog. He’s now on Facebook and, most notably, Tumblr.

So if Fred was 16 and that was 45 years ago: hmm, 16+45= Fred’s older than I am for the next five weeks.
***
Fred’s birthday, 1992. It involves Superman.

Picture (c) and used by permission of Fred Hembeck.