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LAS VEGAS, Dec. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently some rare and unreleased John Lennon recordings were discovered in a vault. These recordings were taped on August 19, 1980. They were done separately from the mysteriously missing video footage that was filmed at what is believed to be John Lennon's last recording session with his band prior to his death. Even more incredible, these recordings have never been released until now.

The two remaining Beatles have teamed up for a duet on Starr's forthcoming solo album, Y Not. It's a band renuion! Sort of ... Paul McCartney appears on two tracks... "Paul was doing the Grammys, so he came over to the house and was playing bass on [new song] Peace Dream," Starr explained. "I played him this other track and Paul said, 'Give me the headphones. Give me a pair of cans'. And he went to the mic and he just invented that part where he follows on my vocal. That was all Paul McCartney, and there could be nothing...

From today's New York Times... John Lennon The Beatles united a generation of young people with their songs, their attitudes and their sense of style, and John Lennon was the thinking man's Beatle. Of the four, he was the Beatle who wrote books, the Beatle who embroiled the group in a potentially disastrous controversy by suggesting in an interview that they were more popular than Jesus, the Beatle who embraced the poetic innovations of Bob Dylan in the mid-1960's and shocked Beatles fans by jumping into performance art, happenings and political protests in the late 60's and early 70's. ..."...

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The childhood friend of John Lennon's son who inspired the Beatles' psychedelic masterpiece "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" has died aged 46 from the chronic disease Lupus. Lucy Vodden was a classmate of Julian Lennon, who came home from school one day carrying a drawing of his 4-year-old classmate. "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds," he told his father. Lennon seized on the image and embellished it in a song along with "newspaper taxis" and a "girl with kaleidoscope eyes." The BBC later banned the track, which appeared on the 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's...

LONDON – Lucy Vodden, who provided the inspiration for the Beatles' classic song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," has died after a long battle with lupus. She was 46. Her death was announced Monday by St. Thomas' Hospital in London, where she had been treated for the chronic disease for more than five years, and by her husband, Ross Vodden. Britain's Press Association said she died last Tuesday. Hospital officials said they could not confirm the day of her death. Vodden's connection to the Beatles dates back to her early days, when she made friends with schoolmate Julian Lennon,...

Los Angeles, CA (BANG) - Yoko Ono thinks the new Beatles video game will help create "a world of Peace." The 76-year-old widow of "Fab Four" singer John Lennon has praised Beatles Rock Band - which was released earlier this month - because it merges music and art to create amazing "healing vibrations." She explained: "I think game is the second revolution. In the beginning they made a splash with their music; with the video game we're going to create a planet of music and art." "Music and art are both very interesting healing vibrations, and with that vibration we...

Here at Americans for Tax Reform we have worked tirelessly to educate the public about the dangers of excessive taxation: job losses, businesses closing, economic stagnation - effectivly misery all round. Now we have one more thing to blame high taxes on: breaking up the Beatles. That's right, one of the greatest cultural tragedies of the 20th century was caused by big government...

Walt Disney Co is to remake the zany 1960s Beatles movie "Yellow Submarine" in 3-D in a deal with the band's company Apple Corps. Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook said on Friday the new "Yellow Submarine" will be directed by Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis using the same motion-capture effects he employed in the family movie "Polar Express." It will incorporate the 16 Beatles songs and recordings from the original film, licensed from Sony/ATV Music Publishing and EMI Capitol Records. No release date was announced. The original film, about a peaceful, music-loving underwater community that is attacked by music hating "blue...

As The Beatles take center stage in the music world this week with the much-anticipated reissue of their albums, it’s easy to forget that the Fab Four were not exactly adored by large swathes of the musical community back in the day. Jazz artists, especially, looked down on the noisy pop stars (or were more likely envious of their fame and fortune). “It used to be a crime for a jazz musician to even mention the word ‘Beatles,’” jazz guitarist George Benson recalled on Thursday, during a promotion for his new album at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles....

With the entire Beatles back catalogue now available in digitally remastered form, not to mention their appearance in the latest version of Rock Band, Tom Townshend takes an in-depth look at a crucial moment in their musical development - the day they met Bob Dylan… When future generations look back on the music of the twentieth century, two names will loom larger than all others. In the British corner, The Beatles will represent musical innovation, melodic sophistication and the phenomena of global pop fame. In the American corner, Bob Dylan will stand for lyrical mastery, stylistic reinvention and unprecedented artistic...

In the late '60s, with a little prodding from his sons, my father finally gave in and replaced his monaural Garrard turntable with a stereo one. Suddenly, Sgt. Pepper's band sounded so much bigger. And clearer. I could hear two distinct guitars playing, not just a generic guitar sound. Two decades later, in 1988, I finally broke down and bought a CD player and the first of many Beatles CDs -- now, that was a jump from what I'd been hearing on vinyl for years. There were so many more instruments I'd never noticed. And notes I'd never heard. On...

Introduction this week of the new video game "The Beatles: Rock Band" reminds us of an odd fact about these music artists who were once widely considered to be the definition of avant garde: the Beatles have often been, really, one beat behind. Believe it or not, up until now music by the Beatles has not been available for sale on the Internet. With "The Beatles: Rock Band," players will be able to download up to 45 songs that they can perform with the Fab Four in such reproduced settings as "The Ed Sullivan Show," Shea Stadium and the Abbey...

"Here's to You Mr. Jefferson" Awesome! by Mike Church

twist and shout!! again, RIP John Hughes...

Forty years ago on Saturday, one of the pop world's most infamous and imitated album covers was shot in a little side street in north London... On the 8 August 1969 that the Fab Four walked out of No 3 Abbey Road, having finished basic work on what would be - and they subsequently said they knew would be - their last album. A policeman held up the traffic, the band walked back and forth a few times and that was that ...A lesser noted curiosity is that the album cover has no writing on it and is just the...

The President might want to keep an eye on the cute Beatle. Paul McCartney made no secret of his admiration - or is it adoration? - of Michelle Obama at his Washington-area concert on Saturday night. "I love you, I love you, I love you. That's all I want to say," he sang. "I need to, I need to, I need to, I need to make you see. Oh, what you mean to me." The knighted, besotted singer dedicated the love song "Michelle" to the First Lady during his concert at FedEx Field, NBC Washington reported.

McCartney dedicates 'Michelle' to FLOTUS By: Patrick Gavin August 2, 2009 12:22 AM EST Music superstar Paul McCartney is rocking out at FedEx Field Saturday night and, since he's near the White House, Sir Paul gave a special tribute to first lady Michelle Obama: Before playing the Beatles classic, "Michelle", McCartney told the packed audience that he was dedicating it to the first lady. Considering that the song's lyrics include "I love you, I love you, I love you

Is Paul McCartney secretly a Dittohead? The 60,000 fans attending a recent concert at FedExField in Baltimore must have thought so. The former Beatle dedicated the performance of the song he co-wrote with John Lennon, “Michelle,” to the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama. “I love you, I love you, I love you. That's all I want to say,” McCartney crooned following his dedication. Long before the McCartney fawning, though, while her husband was still a candidate radio talk show host extraordinaire Rush Limbaugh gave Mrs. Obama the moniker “Michelle, My Belle,” a take off on the Fab...

Paul McCartney has once again crept upon our shores. He was, of course, vanguard in the original “British Invasion”, which occurred in early 1964. Now, an invasion is something to be resisted, to be fought off, to be repelled. Sadly—quite, quite sadly—we had no Winston Churchill on our shores to boost our morale with stirring words like these: 'We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in New York, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Culture, whatever the cost may...

................ Klein became one of the most powerful figures in the music world in the 1960s. Known for his tenacity in tracking down royalties and getting better record deals, he garnered clients including Sam Cooke, Bobby Darin and Herman's Hermits. But he was most famous for signing on the Rolling Stones and then the Beatles. Both arrangements eventually spurred lawsuits, with some Beatles fans blaming Klein for contributing to the tensions that broke the Beatles apart.

Now that M.J. is dead, who has the rights to the Beatles songs—and will we be able to buy them on iTunes? The publishing rights to most of the Beatles' biggest hits are owned by one entity, a joint venture between the late Michael Jackson and the music arm of Sony Corp. It's called Sony/ATV, and it also owns the rights to songs written by Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Taylor Swift and, oh yes, the Jonas Brothers. But Sony/ATV does not handle the recordings of Beatles songs. Two other companies do that, so whether you'll ever download "Come Together" off...

LONDON (AFP) — Beatles legend and famous vegetarian Paul McCartney was joined by John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono Monday to launch an appeal for "meat-free Mondays." McCartney said going vegetarian, even for just one day a week, was good for the environment because of research suggesting it cuts greenhouse gas emissions from the world's livestock population. "I thought this was a great idea. To just reduce your meat intake maybe by one day a week and this would seriously benefit the planet," he told reporters, alongside Ono and a bevy of other stars including Kelly Osbourne and Moby. Lennon's widow...

Real 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' gravely ill June 12, 2009, 9:22 AM EST LONDON (AP) -- They were childhood chums. Then they drifted apart, lost touch completely, and only renewed their friendship decades later, when illness struck. Not so unusual, really. Except she is Lucy Vodden — the girl who was the inspiration for the Beatles' 1967 psychedelic classic "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" — and he is Julian Lennon, the musician son of John Lennon. They are linked together by something that happened more than 40 years ago when Julian brought home a drawing from school...

The young British schoolgirl who was the inspiration for John Lennon's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is facing a stormy future as she battles an incurable disease. Now the slain Beatle's oldest son, Julian Lennon, has come to the aid of Lucy O'Donnell Vodden, a girl he had played with at nursery school and whom he had drawn a picture with stars around her head. Julian showed the picture to his dad, saying, "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds." It prompted Lennon to pen the hit song. O'Donnell, 46, is suffering from lupus, a painful autoimmune disease. When...

Just weeks after Bob Dylan announced he wanted to collaborate with fellow legend Sir Paul McCartney, moves are afoot to bring the two superstars together. Industry insiders say Macca is set to team up with Dylan in California over the summer, where the pair are expected to work on new songs as a duo. The news comes after Dylan declared this month that he found the idea of working with the former Beatle “exciting”. McCartney’s spokesman then declared their man would be “very interested” in a collaboration. “Paul has a home in California not too far from Bob’s so the...

WASHINGTON – The Beatles meteoric rise, unprecedented in popular culture and unrivaled nearly four decades after the band broke up, is at least partly explained, says a new book, by a pact John Lennon made with the Devil. In "The Lennon Prophecy," author Joseph Niezgoda reveals that Lennon himself, obsessed with the occult, magic, numerology and being bigger than Elvis Presley, confided in his friend Tony Sheridan that he made such a deal. The book also makes the case that the "death clues" long associated with Paul McCartney were actually subliminal messages hinting at Lennon's fate. Written by a lifelong...

Folk legend Bob Dylan mingled unnoticed with Beatles tourists during a minibus tour to John Lennon's childhood home. The 67-year-old troubadour paid £16 for the public trip to the 1940s semi in Woolton, Liverpool, last week as his European tour called at the city. He was one of 14 tourists to examine photos and documents in the National Trust-owned home, where Lennon grew up with his aunt Mimi and uncle George. A National Trust spokeswoman said Dylan "appeared to enjoy himself".

Beatles legend George Harrison once forged signatures of his band mates only to make a dying fan's wish come true. He faked the signatures of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr on photos sent to a cancer victim Ann Bartlett, 16, the Sun online reported. George, who died of cancer in 2001, is said to have realised he could not get all the signatures in time and so copied them himself. "I'd heard in London that George was the master forger of the group," Bartlett's father Harry said. The pictures were recently auctioned which fetched 1,300 pounds to boost...

MIDI - MAGICAL MYSTERY TOURCome on, Obama's apology tour Come on, we know you will like it for sure (Come on) Here is your invitation...Obama's apology tour (Come on) Come watch him bash our nation...Obama's apology tour His apology tour Come on, Obama's apology tour Come on, we know you will like it for sure (Come on) He will say how really bad we are...Obama's apology tour (Come on) They will treat him like he's a rock star...Obama's apology tour His apology tour We're the problem, it's true...he'll blame me and you Ahhh, Obama's apology tour Come on, we...

t was a scene straight out of a rock 'n' roll dream. Paul McCartney was singing "I Saw Her Standing There." Ringo Starr was on the drums. Actually, so was Moby. Beach Boy Mike Love was singing harmony, alongside Donovan and Bettye LaVette. Ben Harper was playing guitar. And Sheryl Crow was shaking a tambourine and dancing around -- so was Eddie Vedder, playing maracas. It was odd and beautiful like most of the work of "Blue Velvet" director David Lynch. And, like most of his work, it was made possible only through Transcendental Meditation. Never mind what you may...

Lady Madonna Author: Paul McCartney; Lead vocal: Paul McCartneyLady Madonna, children at your feet. Wonder how you manage to make ends meet. Who finds the money? When you pay the rent? Did you think that money was heaven sent? Friday night arrives without a suitcase. Sunday morning creep in like a nun. Monday's child has learned to tie his bootlace. See how they run. Lady Madonna, baby at your breast. Wonder how you manage to feed the rest. See how they run. Lady Madonna, lying on the bed, Listen to the music playing in your head. Tuesday afternoon is never...

Van Morrison has said that The Beatles's influence on the history of music is overstated. According to The New Yorker, the Irish singer-songwriter made the comment when someone in the city described skiffle legend Lonnie Donegan as one of a number of "pre-Beatles rock and roll" artists. He is quoted as saying: "That's a cliché. I don’t think 'pre-Beatles' means anything, because there was stuff before them. "Over here, you have a different slant. You measure things in terms of the Beatles. We don't think music started there. Rolling Stone magazine does, because it's their mythology. "The Beatles were peripheral....

The former Beatles will headline the Radio City Music Hall concert on April 4 for the David Lynch Foundation The David Lynch Foundation provides funds to teach students how to meditate so they can "change their world from within."

A previously unreleased version of The Beatles' 'Revolution 1' has found its way online. The recording, which is supposedly 'Take 20' of the song, is available to listen to via a YouTube link below. 'Take 20' of the song is notable, as it appears to bridge the gap between The Beatles' 'Revolution 1' and 'Revolution 9'. The main difference in the 'new' version of 'Revolution 1' and the version of the same song that appeared on 'The Beatles' (commonly known as 'The White Album') is the track's length. The unreleased version is a full seven minutes longer than its released...

Forty-five years ago tonight, the Beatles made their historic first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. They performed five songs that night. This is the second of two clips from that original CBS-TV broadcast. The first, featuring the opening ten minutes of the show uncut (including commercials and three of the five songs) can be seen here. Here are the last two songs they performed that night during "the second half of the show." This clip opens up with a commercial - this one from Pillsbury.

Forty-five years ago tonight, one of television's most memorable moments took place - the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Over 70 million viewers tuned in on that Sunday evening long ago. Here are the first ten minutes of the original broadcast, as it aired on CBS-TV, including commercials. This clip includes three of the five songs the Beatles performed that night.

Yes, but is she a vegetarian? Rumors--with wings--have been flying all day since British tabloids the Sunday Mirror and Sunday Telegraph published reports that Paul McCart…er, make that Sir Paul McCartney, is poised to marry gal pal Nancy Shevell, whom he began dating a little over a year ago in the midst of his messy $50 million divorce from Heather Mills.

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) – Yusuf, formerly known as Cat Stevens, will follow up 2006's "An Other Cup," his first secular album in 28 years, with a set that recalls his straightforward troubadour days. (snip) The single "Boots & Sand" features Paul McCartney and Dolly Parton -- with a video shot by Jesse Dylan, son of Bob -- while Michelle Branch and Gunnar Nelson assist on the track "To Be What You Must."

A cassette tape of a "drunk" John Lennon recording a cover version of a rock 'n' roll song has sold at auction in Los Angeles for $30,000 (£20,200). The six-minute recording, made in autumn 1973, is of Lennon performing Lloyd Price's Just Because. "Debauched lyrics" improvised by "a drunk Lennon" include "just a little cocaine will set me right", auction house Bonhams and Butterfields said... Lennon's "slurred warbling" included, "I wanna take all them new singers, Carol and the other one with the nipples, I wanna take 'em and hold 'em tight," Bonhams and Butterfields said. "The background band speeds...

He's already painted himself as the most avant garde Beatle, now in what seems like another attempt to rewrite history, Sir Paul McCartney claims he was responsible for radicalising their their political views In a statement that forces us to read Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da as a commentary on American neo-colonialism, Sir Paul has said that it is he who turned the Beatles on to politics, introducing John, Paul and Ringo to the evils of the Vietnam war. Whereas John Lennon is widely considered the "political one", penning songs like Revolution and Give Peace a Chance, sweet Sir Paul is now presenting...

Sir Paul McCartney claims that it was he – and not John Lennon – who politicised the Beatles. He has shunned music magazines to give an interview to an intellectual journal in which he describes how he introduced the group to the “very bad” Vietnam war. It paints a picture at odds with the conventional view of the Beatles, that McCartney was writing pop ditties such as Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da while Lennon was composing overtly political songs such as Revolution. McCartney says he began his political awakening by meeting Bertrand Russell, then in his nineties, at the latter’s home in London...

December 8th was the anniversary of the death of Beatle John Lenon. Most of the world mourned the death of this man for his music but most of all for his views or I should say imagination. Well if we understood more about who he was and what he imagined, we would be celebrating rather mourning. Why? John's views were hostile towards the American ideals of individualism freedom and liberty and supportive of worldwide despotic communism at the hands of the New World order. His song Imagine was nothing more than a call for the destruction of America and religion...

Twenty-eight years ago today, John Lennon was murdered here in New York City. I remember that evening as vividly as anything in my life. I was a thirteen year old Beatle freak (a generation removed, but no less fervent) sitting in front of my TV (when I probably should have been in bed asleep) watching Monday Night football when Howard Cosell made the announcement on the air, somewhere around 11PM, that Lennon was dead.As a young teenager who had only recently become a bona-fide Beatlemaniac, his death was a tremendous blow. To the tens of millions of people he touched...

While America is preparing for the holidays buying cheap gas and turkey stuffing, the Vatican is celebrating the spirit of the season early and right on time for the music industry. Forty-two years after John Lennon told a British newspaper that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, the official Vatican newspaper forgave Lennon for his blasphemy. "The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a 'boast' by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after growing up in the legend of Elvis and rock and...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican's newspaper has finally forgiven John Lennon for declaring that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, calling the remark a "boast" by a young man grappling with sudden fame. The comment by Lennon to a London newspaper in 1966 infuriated Christians, particularly in the United States, some of whom burned Beatles' albums in huge pyres. But time apparently heals all wounds. "The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a 'boast' by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after...

LONDON (Reuters) - An unreleased, experimental track by The Beatles could be made public 41 years after it was recorded at Abbey Road studios, ex-member Paul McCartney has said. McCartney, one of two surviving members of arguably the most successful pop band in history, told BBC Radio that "Carnival of Light" was The Beatles at their most free, "going off piste." "I said it would be great to put this on because it would show we were working with really avant-garde stuff," McCartney told Radio 4's Front Row culture show in an interview to be broadcast on Thursday. He confirmed...

Sir Paul McCartney has confirmed that 'Carnival of Light', an epic 14 minute track recorded by The Beatles over forty years ago, exists and could be released in the near future. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 presenter John Wilson, McCartney confirmed that the band recoded the track 5 January 1967 in-between recording Penny Lane and that he likes it because "it's the Beatles free, going off piste". He added that "he would love to release the track. All he needs now is the blessing of Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and George Harrison's widow Olivia." Beatles producer Sir George Martin, described...

-"John Lennon: The Life," by Philip Norman (822 pages, $34.95) Everybody from Bill Clinton to Fidel Castro loves to remember John Lennon as the dippy Utopian of "Imagine":" Imagine there's no countries/It isn't hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/And no religion, too." Less remembered is the Lennon of "Run For Your Life": "Well I'd rather see you dead little girl/Than to be with another man." In Philip Norman's merciless biography, Lennon No. 2 is on full display, and the picture isn't pretty. Spiteful and selfish, miserly and misogynistic, Lennon abused his friends, cheated on his women and quarreled...

Since the song was released in 1967 the identity of the "pretty nurse selling poppies from a tray" has remained a mystery. But a schoolfriend of John Lennon's, who has written a book about growing up in Liverpool, claims to have the answer. Lennon will have known Beth Davidson (left) from childhood According to Stan Williams, she is Beth Davidson, who Lennon would have known from childhood. The moment which provided the inspiration came when Miss Davidson was selling poppies on Penny Lane, dressed in a cadet nurse's uniform. Some boys, including Lennon, saw her near Bioletti's barber's shop -...

The Beatles' remain synonymous with Liverpool in most minds, the patron saints of Merseybeat. But out by the John Lennon airport, a civic hedge stands as a potent symbol of how scousers have fallen out of love with one of their own. A topiary sculpture of the fab four has been mischievously vandalised, with a crucial appendage having been chopped off under cover of darkness. Visitors arriving in the European Capital of Culture are now greeted by the sight of John, Paul, George and the headless drummer.