Something About the Beatles

In what will be an ongoing feature of SATBs going forward, I welcome to the show Gary Wenstrup. In addition to being a regular listener, Gary is a college-level teacher and lecturer, whose expertise encompasses an array of 1960s music acts. He saw an opportunity for following up shows to dig deeper, in ways that might not have been possible given time constraints. This episode uses as the starting...

It's the return of our favorite Fab historian. In this lengthy dialogue, we discuss an array of literature from the Beatles historical canon: among the works, Many Years From Now - The Love You Make - John Lennon: In My Life - Ray Coleman's bios of John and of Paul - Mike McCartney's The Macs: A Family Album, and others as well. As usual, Erin employs the methodology of a trained historian to asse...

Last year - upon the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles; that eponymous double album issued as the group's Apple debut - a symposium was convened at Monmouth College in New Jersey, as many of you know. An ad hoc band performed some tunes from the record as the accompaniment to a discussion convened for the podcast featuring Jack Petruzelli, multi-instrumentalist/producer/recording arti...

Fifty years on and the "Paul is dead" hoax has lost none of its power to fascinate on so many levels. Perhaps the most compelling angle for examination is how did something so clearly nonsensical in the light of day get disseminated so widely and not just dismissed out of hand? It seems that a perfect storm of circumstance gave it traction and resonance, with both what was happening within The Bea...

What happens when the surviving member of a legendary American power pop band and a Los Angeles musician whose lineage includes two giants of the Great American Songbook, both steeped in Beatles, get together to make music? The result is now two albums deep in a band called Those Pretty Lies. Jody Stephens, formerly of Big Star and Golden Smog is a singer/songwriter/drummer and Luther Russell is a...

The host of the longest running Beatles program on US radio, Carter's passion for The Beatles has taken many forms through the years: buying the records as a child - becoming a musician himself - getting involved in Beatlesque bands - taking on a job as a broadcaster. He has now hosted the Los Angeles franchise of Breakfast with the Beatles since 2001; since its inception in 2018, Chris has also h...

Anybody hear anything about a newly-revealed taped Apple meeting from September 1969 that's been public knowledge since the 1970s? You will now, with the return of journalist/writer Ray Connolly. Ray was tight in The Beatles' orbit during their final years; with John and Paul especially. He was the only one outside their inner circle to learn that John had "quit" the group - his bio of John, Being...

This show represents a deep (3 hour) dive into examining the evolving language of rock criticism: the ideology employed - the fluid definitions of "rock" and "pop" - the application of "authenticity" as a value to an artist's work, in this specific case, Paul McCartney and Wings. The 1970s was a time when rock critics achieved nearly the status of rock icons themselves: everyone from John Mendelss...

This show represents a deep (3 hour) dive into examining the evolving language of rock criticism: the ideology employed - the fluid definitions of "rock" and "pop" - the application of "authenticity" as a value to an artist's work, in this specific case, Paul McCartney and Wings. The 1970s was a time when rock critics achieved nearly the status of rock icons themselves: everyone from John Mendelss...

[powerpress] An area heretofore unexplored on SATB is jazz: specifically, which artists took raw material from The Beatles and took it in a new direction. It is our good fortune to have within reach a true legend of the idiom: Ramsey Lewis, a multi-Grammy-winning keyboardist whose work spans decades and genres. In late 1968 - mere weeks after The Beatles' "White Album" was released - Ramsey issued...

[powerpress] 1969 was a tremendous year, in the world generally and with The Beatles as well. We find ourselves commemorating (if not celebrating) a number of 50th anniversaries this year, among them the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders; tangentially tied to the "White Album" by Charles Manson's (mis)reading of certain lyrics. That he was able to incite a bunch of confused misfits into sociopathy re...

  Few professional scribes received access to The Beatles like Ray Connolly. As a journalist with the Evening Standard, he found himself in the right place at the right time to cover the group during their final years. (It was to him that John confided that he'd quit the group; it was to Ray that Paul divulged: "I didn't leave the Beatles - The Beatles left the Beatles.") He later scripted the fil...

Back in 2017, SATB first explored of Beatles collectors. This year, a terrific addition to Beatle literature arrived with the publication of Terry Crain's new book, NEMS and the Business of Selling Beatles Merchandise in the U.S. 1964-1966. Terry didn't merely catalog the merchandise of the period: instead, he methodically researched the history of the items marketed stateside, each of which tells...

Beginning in 1978, George Harrison became drawn into a vocation he'd only dabbled in previously: filmmaker. HandMade Films came into being serendipitously, simply because he wanted to see Monty Python's Life of Brian get made. This "accidental studio" went on to produce work of staggeringly high quality, resulting in works ranging from Time Bandits and The Long Good Friday to Mona Lisa and Withnai...

The full story of The Beatles' Rishikesh visit and their relationship with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had never been explored in detail and from the inside before - until now. Susan Shumsky spent over twenty years studying TM, including seven working directly with the Maharishi. The author of 14 books, her newest - Maharishi and Me: Seeking Enlightenment with the Beatles' Guru - sheds light on the Rish...

  In which I resume the conversation with engineer/producer Jerry Hammack, begun earlier this year. This time, our sounding board is writer/musician/engineer/producer/podcaster/returning guest Anthony Robustelli. We discuss the specifics of their studio work throughout 1967 and into 1968, encompassing Magical Mystery Tour and then some. Jerry's third volume of The Beatles' Recording Reference Manu...

The first break-out star at Apple Records was, of course, Mary Hopkin with "Those Were The Days." A huge international hit, it typed her as a cheery ingénue, somewhat removed from her folk roots (and aspirations). Other hits followed, diverging from her preferred stylistic path, until her second Apple album, Earth Song / Ocean Song (produced by her future husband, Tony Visconti) at last gave her s...

Apple Jam is a Seattle-based recording and performing outfit specializing in Beatles music; specifically, songs written by Lennon-McCartney and Harrison that, for the most part, went unrecorded/released as "Beatles" product. My guests today are Richard Lovrovich, Jaekal Tristram and Doug Kilishek. In this conversation, they discuss the curation of obscure Beatles material: the selection process (w...

It is not a unique observation to note that bandleader Duke Ellington and The Beatles shared some commonalities, creativity-wise. They were unclassifiable musically, and a great deal of what made their art magic came from the collaborative process, hardwired into their working method. My guest, musicologist Thomas Brothers, has written a terrific new book - Help: The Beatles, Duke Ellington and th...

Back in 2017, SATB featured a conversation with Ken Womack on the publication of volume one of his George Martin biography, Maximum Volume (here). In late 2018, volume two emerged, this one taking up the story where George Martin resumed production chores with The Beatles, this time as an independent contractor. It marked the era of their highest artistic achievement as well as an eventual erosion...

He’s back, and with a terrific topic: each of us choosing 7 moments in the history of The Beatles that we would’ve liked to have been around to witness as a fly on the wall. The criteria being, occasions where the history is unclear, or simply moments that would’ve been amazing to witness. This ended up as an interesting Rorschach exercise, mapping out our respective concentrated areas of interest...

You know him as the photographer responsible for one Beatles album cover (two in the US); their last group photo shoot, and as the official photographer on the “Get Back” / Let It Be project (his photos filled the book packaged with the original issue). But Ethan Russell also produced iconic images for the Rolling Stones and The Who, as well as album covers and short films for an array of artists,...

This is the second part of a discussion begun with Doug Sulpy (co-author of Drugs, Divorce and a Slipping Image/Get Back), this time with blogger Dan Rivkin. His blog, They May Be Parted, is a detailed examination of the Nagra tapes of the “Get Back”/Let It Be project. Dan adds detail, analysis and context to the recordings, and we dive deep into what all there is to be gleaned from the extant rec...

You know him as the human music stand kneeling before John Lennon for “Dig A Pony” during the rooftop session of January 1969. But Kevin Harrington was much more than that: coming into The Beatles’ orbit beginning in January 1966 as an office boy at NEMS; an employee of the Saville Theatre the following year, and lastly, a roadie/gofer at Apple from 1968 on, setting up their musical gear for recor...

Back in 2000, Chip Madinger and Mark Easter produced an exhaustive study of every extant recording of the solo Beatles, up to that very year: studio sessions, live concerts and broadcasts. Eight Arms To Hold You was a one-of-a-kind detailed examination of what the four ex-Beatles did musically, when and with whom. The book went out of print, but the good news is, it’s back (in PDF form) and update...