Something About the Beatles

Something About the Beatles

By Parading PressMusic
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Something About the Beatles episodes

  • 238: Remembering the 70s with Chris O'Dell and Nancy Lee Andrews
    As part of the Fab4ConJam online fan event, I convened these two Beatles insiders to take questions and reminisce. Chris O'Dell came from Tucson, AZ (yes! home of Jo Jo AND Linda) and was pulled into the Apple Press Office by Derek Taylor. She was a rooftop attendee as well as a one-time resident of Friar Park, witnessing the daily drama of the group as it ended, along with George and Pattie's marriage. She recalled her experiences in 2009's Miss O'Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and the Women They Loved.   Nancy Lee Andrews was a model, actress and briefly, in the music biz as well as a photographer. More importantly, she was Ringo's romantic partner from 1974 through 1980, and likewise a witness to much of the inside relations between the former Beatles. (She also attended the Concert for Bangladesh as a guest of her then-boyfriend, bassist and future Domino, Carl Radle.) Nancy's book of spectacular photos was published as A Dose of Rock 'n' Roll in 2008. 

    These women have maintained a close friendship since the 70s and it was our treat to hear them recall those days during this terrific conversation. 
    1 hr 30 min
  • 237: The Dream is Over with Dan Richter

    He's known to millions, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, as “The most famous unknown actor in the world.” Richter was a mime (and a poet) during the 1960s, but also gained cinematic immortality as "Moonwatcher" in the iconic "Dawn of Man" sequence in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. This in itself would be enough to stir our interest, but Dan was also intimately involved with John and Yoko as a personal assistant for five years, during which time he helped manage their film and recording projects while kicking his heroin habit. He tells his story in compelling detail in his book, The Dream is Over: London in the 60's, Heroin and John and Yoko. 

    Joining the conversation is guest co-host Ian McNabb (see SATB 234). The conversation covers Dan's time with the Lennons, as well as work on 2001 with Stanley Kubrick.   

    1 hr 26 min
  • 236: The Beatles' Bag of Tricks
    One of the things that's kept Beatles fans captivated was their refusal to stay still and how each album felt like a progression into new territory. That said, as you delve deeper into the structures and configurations of the band's music across their discography, there are certain tools, tricks, and ideas that they used and repurposed to great effect. In today's episode, returning guests Jack Petruzzelli (Fab Faux) and Cameron Greider (Sean Lennon) sit down to discuss some of the most notable and how the band helped rock 'n roll to expand, becoming richer in the process. (Rock, not The Beatles, though there's that too...)

    We discuss Paul's links to Bach, John's connection to the blues and more static melodies, and how all the strands of musical history came together to create the vocabulary that we can observe and appreciate in their music.   Jack and Cameron operate the RPM School (Rock Pop Music) and their next session is just days away: details can be found here: 
    https://www.rpm-school.com/ 
    1 hr 18 min
  • 235: Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson at 80
    Two master craftsmen of pop/rock, born two days apart; both possessing a good number of commonalities as well as some major diverging paths. My returning guest, journalist Glenn Greenberg (Paul McCartney at 80) and I discuss their friendship and rivalry, as well as what each learned from the other.    Here's the 1967 CBS TV special, Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution: https://youtu.be/vyiGFRj5b-k    The Brian Wilson/"Surf's Up" sequence appears 50 minutes in, but the earlier "debate" between Graham Nash and Peter Noone is worth the price of admission alone. 
    1 hr 48 min
  • 234: Paul McCartney at 80 - The Lyrics

    In the latest effort in a line of works presenting his side of his own history (which include Many Years From Now, Wingspan, the McCartney 3 2 1 docuseries as well as Anthology), Paul McCartney published The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present in 2021. It was in collaboration with Irish poet Paul Muldoon, an as-told-to project where he got deep into his recollections about a selection of his works, pre, during and post-Beatles. But the book is deeper than that: his observations detailing his entire life from boyhood in Liverpool onward were sparked by the 25 hours of conversations he and Muldoon had. 

    My guest is Terry Zobeck: a first-generation Beatles fan and collector who reviewed the book for Doug Sulpy's 910 newsletter. The most recent issues also feature the first two parts of his three-part critique of The Beatles Get Back docuseries. All of Doug's writings, including the indispensable Drugs, Divorce and a Slipping Image (revised edition) can be found at www.dougsulpy.com  

    1 hr 27 min
  • 233: The Brits' Get Back with John Leckie, Ian McNabb and Derek Forbes

    After shows post-Get Back with guests representing American musicians, multi-generation female fans, and the film's maker (Peter Jackson), conspicuously missing from the SATB conversation to this point has been the POV of British fans/musicians. No longer: today's guests are drawn from the UK music scene and ALL have a deep fandom for The Fabs - some have even worked with one or more. 

    Producer John Leckie first came to SATB in late 2020 to discuss his experiences working on John and Yoko's 1970 Plastic Ono Band albums; thereafter, he appeared at Fab4ConJam to recall working on All Things Must Pass. Afterward, his career during the '80s and beyond included working as producer for some top UK talent, including, Stone Roses, XTC, Radiohead...and Simple Minds. By sheer happenstance, John has worked with BOTH of his co-guests, who are new to SATB: bassist Derek Forbes worked with a number of Scottish acts, including The Subs, Simple Minds, Big Country, etc, while Ian McNabb fronted The Icicle Works: "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)." ALL are hardcore Beatle fans going back a ways, and each fully immersed themselves in the 8 hours of Get Back.

    But the conversation ran far broader, covering their fandom during the 70s, working with an ex-Beatle, the Liverpool scene post-Beatles, Stiff records, musical influences, Dan Richter, Mickie Most, Wings, and a lot more. It's a freewheeling conversation and you haven't heard the last of these guys on the Something About The Beatles podcast.   

    1 hr 47 min
  • 232: Sam Brown and the Concert for George
    Long on the list of my coveted guests has been singer-songwriter Sam Brown. The daughter of Joe Brown - an early UK rock legend - and Vicki Brown - an astonishingly gifted singer herself - Sam's career as an artist kicked off in 1988 with Stop!, the first of seven albums. (The first letter of the titles spell out her name - the 8th installment, titled Number 8 is due out this year.) Sam is also known for singing with Pink Floyd and David Gilmour, as well as on television and on tour with Jools Holland. It was with Jools that Sam took center stage at the 2002 Concert for George, stealing the show with her reading of George's last recorded composition, "Horse To The Water." 

    She has remained active as a performer and a recording artist, despite tragically losing her ability to sing in 2007, following surgery. The mysterious condition forced a re-think of her career and led to her establishing a decade-long running school empowering folks to take up ukulele. In this conversation, we discuss her career and the struggles of being an artist - her friendship with the Harrisons and working with George - the concert - and how she's managed the challenging events that followed. 

    Sam is resourceful and an artist whose rich catalog is worth exploring. You can check out her work here: 
    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DZ06evO1Tns40    Vicki Brown's farewell to fans: https://youtu.be/b0SCoEu_9oM   Joe Brown sharing a 1964 stage with The Beatles: https://youtu.be/GjNB-2Bq6ag   Sam at Concert for George: https://tinyurl.com/34un27f6    "Stop!" live: https://youtu.be/WROOE-0IfjE  

    "Valentine Moon" - fixed: https://tinyurl.com/548b7ssb 
    1 hr 31 min
  • 231B Beatles Olympiad: Help! & Rubber Soul + part 2

    The conclusion of the discussion Gary Wenstrup and I had in rating individual tracks on the albums named here, as well as the 1966 Capitol release, "Yesterday"...and Today. 

    I think, is so overlooked, both message-wise and musical construction-wise. It's one of those songs, first of all, musically, based on piano. Not a lot of guitar, except those little stabbing, which was a 1965 sound in other people's records that year. Nice block harmonies. Then John breaking out his own for the verses, starting this implicitly spiritual song, the first words out of his mouth of the verse in the beginning. Nice touch. That's beautiful. It's this precursor to certainly, All You Need is Love and Give Peace A Chance. It's him. It's messianic John for the first time, really wanting to use his platform to promote something good. They'd said that they're all potheads at this point. I mean, they'd taken acid a couple of times at this point, but not the full immersion by the time of Revolver.   That has to be what's informing his wanting to evangelize on behalf of love at this point. It's interesting that they didn't use this one for Yellow Submarine, because that whole love thing at the end in pepper land, in the face of the mayonnaise, it seems like it would be enmeshed right in there. I guess, they had All You Need Is Love. That was what they went with. I think, it's a great message, a great performance, nice arrangement. I love that organ. Then there's that whole musical, we're going to build a song around one note and it's got that drone throughout it, so you've got that musical experimentation going on at the same time.   Not a song that got a lot of airplay. I don't know if anybody ever covered it. One, they never seemed to look back at it, but it's an early clue to the new direction. It's just this forerunner of lots of things that would come and they just pull it off. They don't sound like you're being preached to. It works as a pop ditty, but also, it's like, wow, it's got a really good message to it, that's bigger than boy-girl relationships.

     

    1 hr 17 min
  • 231 Beatles Olympiad: Help! & Rubber Soul +
    In which Gary Wenstrup and I return where we left off in offering our picks in ranking Bronze, Silver and Gold tracks off of The Beatles' 1965 releases, as well as a little beyond. This show represents the first hour of our conversation - part two coming next.    Loyal SATB fans: we are asking for you to take a minute to fill in this survey   https://tinyurl.com/y2y3crxm    First 50 respondents get a SATB bumper magnet (US only) but all are encouraged to help us get sponsors on board - thank you!   We commence Beatles Olympiad 2, where we left off, which was starting with their fifth album released in the summer of 1965, Help! Got two albums out of them that year, one being a soundtrack, more or less. It certainly was in the States and Capitol. Then the year ended with a bang, with Rubber Soul; two versions of that. Then in the next year, we got only one new album of material out of them, Revolver. In the States, it being the States, we got another one of those Capitol-only issues, which I think we will talk about today. Because I don't know if we're going to talk about Oldies, which came out on Parlophone, the end of ’66, while they were working on Strawberry Fields, but we'll see what we feel like. For the show, I think we can talk about the UK Help!, both Rubber Souls and Yesterday and Today.
    1 hr 14 min
  • 230: Erin Weber Q&A
    Given Beatles author and historian Erin Weber's recently announced sabbatical from Beatling these days, I wanted to share with SATB listeners the Q&A we held last year for Fab4ConJam, where she fielded questions on the Beatles' literary canon.    Authors covered included: 

    Lewisohn (of course) Michael Braun Peter McCabe Barry Miles Mark Hertsgaard
    And much more...

    Also revealed: her favorite Beatles music - favorite Beatle - and why she detests "Jet."    Erin's website: https://beatlebioreview.wordpress.com/    Erin's podcast: https://anchor.fm/karen-hooper/episodes/All-Together-Now-A-different-approach-to-Beatle-Podcasting-e14v3rc 
    1 hr 29 min

Best of Something About the Beatles

Ranked by our users in the last 21 days

  1. Number 1: 319: Beatles Olympiad Abbey Road
    1 hr 47 min
  2. Number 2: 317-1: SATB SPECIAL: Badfinger/Iveys Reissue Series with Mark Strothmann
    57 min
  3. Number 3: 290: “Hey Jude” Reconstructed
    1 hr 21 min