Beatles

2022 - 6 - 26

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Image courtesy of "Far Out Magazine"

Five isolated drum tracks to prove The Beatles' Ringo Starr was a ... (Far Out Magazine)

Too often has The Beatles drummer, Ringo Starr, been the butt of some unkind jokes. Falsely reportedly that a gag purported by his bandmate John Lennon, ...

That’s perhaps Ringo’s crowning achievement in life: he inspired literally millions of people to pick up the sticks and have a go themselves. It remains one of the Beatles’ ultimate fan favourite songs and we’re given even more room to appreciate the track through Ringo’s unique playing style. He then went on to detail what exactly he loved about it: “I was into the snare and hi-hat. The isolated drums will leave you in total awe of Ringo’s mastery but, more importantly, it dispels the myth that he’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles. The difference is that Ringo was not only capable of achieving what was required but doing it with an effortlessness that seemingly annoyed his contemporaries. Paul’s contribution was the way Ringo played the drums.” This comment provides perhaps the biggest bugbear people have when it comes to Ringo — he was always under heavy direction. A sequence of interesting fills that he attributes to his unique style of drumming. The striking opening lines, “She said, she said, I know what it’s like to be dead,” were attributed by Lennon after a particular night with acid took place with members of The Beatles and The Byrds. The song ‘She Said She Said’, a track penned by Lennon for the 1966 album Revolver, was once described as “an ‘acidy’ song” by Lennon. It was the beginning of the band’s rejection of their pop star tagline. However, below, we have just the thing as we’re bringing you five isolated drum tracks to prove that Ringo Starr was one of rock music’s understated geniuses. In fact, his refusal to embellish his playing style is what endeared him to the rest of The Beatles. The truth is that Ringo may not have been a studious percussionist, or particularly gifted with what was deemed as precision playing, but he had that one unteachable thing that every musician craves — he had style.

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Image courtesy of "Far Out Magazine"

The Beatles songs that Paul McCartney disliked (Far Out Magazine)

We are taking a look at a list of songs by The Beatles that Paul McCartney has expressed a dislike for and it reads as a reminder of his love for the band.

I think it was a little more mine than John’s… You sometimes start a song and hope the best will arrive by the time you get to the chorus, but sometimes that’s all you get, and I suspect this was one of them. We didn’t need to compile this list to show you that Paul McCartney loved his time with The Beatles, but it does go a long way to prove it. While the reasoning behind ‘Across the Universe’ is a little murkier, there’s a good case to say that during the time of recording, McCartney and Lennon were at their lowest ebb, perhaps influencing his feeling on the song then, even if that may have changed later on. A track that toyed with the avant-garde is usually a perfect song for McCartney. The songwriter enjoyed pushing the boundaries of what pop could be, but it would seem on this number, which has a habit of dividing Beatles fans, he found the constant snipping and sampling to be too much to bear. That’s one of them.” Later, he called the track a “failed attempt at a single”. As well as being a classic number, it is also one of the only songs that McCartney didn’t perform on, given that the bassist angrily stormed out of the studio during recording: “John brought it in pretty much finished,” recalled McCartney in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now. “I’m not sure, but I think it was one of the only Beatle records I never played on. Lennon was as happy to promote the work of The Beatles as he was to trash it. For every true Beatles fan, there must be a hatful of songs that don’t reach the pinnacle of the band’s work. It means that McCartney very rarely made it known of the songs he disliked. To find those songs, we have to peer into a few different caves before finding the nugget of truth behind his camera-ready answers. Lennon picked out more than a handful of songs that he hated while alive; McCartney’s distaste is a little harder to decipher. Of course, The Beatles are one of the most potent bands to have ever existed, and their canon is beyond impressive, but, even with their robust catalogue, there are plenty of songs that fall below the watermark the Fab Four set out.

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Image courtesy of "HampshireLive"

The time The Beatles came to Aldershot to play for just 18 people (HampshireLive)

Agent Sam Leach had booked the Aldershot venue in an attempt to market the band to London agents and bring the group success outside of their home turf in ...

The band, which later included Ringo Star as the drummer, went on to become one of the most influential rock bands of all time. The Fab Four packed up that night and headed towards London to play an impromptu set at the Blue Gardenia Club instead. As alcohol was consumed by an unenthused band, the noise levels rose prompting a neighbour to call the police. In his book ‘Beatle! The Pete Best Story’, Pete recalled how George and Paul started dancing a foxtrot together whilst the band played. Call it miscommunication, mismanagement or just a mess-up, but the advert never appeared so the fans failed to show. But early on in The Beatles success story, they were faced with a very different, and significantly smaller, audience.

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Image courtesy of "Metro"

Postie who started job when Beatles first topped charts retiring (Metro)

Royal Mail postie James Hardbattle was applauded by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall for dedicating his life to the Hull people.

He said: ‘Given the circumstances today of how jobs change rapidly I know in my heart of hearts that Jim’s record and achievement will stand for a very, very long time. James plans to leave his job on July 22. ‘You had to be smart and tidy,’ he recalled. You had to be 19. Aged 74, he was still out delivering in his van this week. What he loves most about his work, is being outside for most of the day and talking to the people of Hull on a daily basis.

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