McCartney On Letterman

Paul McCartney made his first ever appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman Wednesday the 15th of July. He was a guest at the show and as such he did an interview with Dave, followed by a live appearance on the top of the Ed Sullivan Theater marquee. He did two songs that were broadcast in the show, starting with "Get Back" (if there ever was a rooftop song), and finishing with the recent "Sing The Changes". After that, Paul continued the concert for the fans on the street, and this portion was webcast on the CBS site. Songs include: "Coming Up," "Band on the Run," "Let Me Roll It," "Helter Skelter," and "Back in the USSR."

Here's most of the interview:

Here are the two songs from the TV show: Get Back & Sing The Changes

This is the webcast: Coming Up, Band on the Run, Let Me Roll It, Helter Skelter, Back in the USSR.

Here's a fan's video containing footage and audio of Paul waiting for his cue to start the concert while joking with the crowd, commenting about New York and leading sing-a-longs with the thousands who lined the streets.

Beatles Exhibition at London's Movieum

I just came back home after a week in London, and one of the things I did there was visit the Beatles exhibition at "The Movieum", the London Movies museum. The exhibition marks the start of a collaboration between the Movieum and Getty Images, where the picture agency will be displaying themed images from their collection. I won't be discussing the photos, because these are mostly well known photos of the fabs, representing the years 1963-1969, most of them were Robert Whitaker's pictures from 1966 in mostly black and white, but the Movieum also displayed some real items.

Here are some Beatles dolls on top of a collection of memorabilia old and new.

Here's John Lennon's Rickenbacker, borrowed from Pete Waterman's collection. Pete Waterman of 80's highly successful songwriters team Stock, Aitken & Waterman fame has offices in the same building as the Movieum, which is probably the reason why he lent his Rick to the exhibition. I'm not quite sure which one of Lennon's Ricks this is, and it looked all shiny and unplayed. The oldest one is owned by Sean, there's a fake one hanging at London's Hard Rock Cafe and a genuine one at the John Lennon Museum in Japan. Another of Lennon's Ricks is on display at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, lent by the Lennon estate. So this one's a mystery to me.

This is me with George Harrison's psychedelically painted Mini Cooper. George Harrison owned the Mini that featured in 'Magical Mystery Tour'. The Mini, an Austin Cooper 'S', LGF 695D, was built for George Harrison by Harold Radford (Coachbuilder) Ltd in late 1965 and painted in Metallic Black. In early 1967, the car was repainted and the psychedelic pictures were added using a book, Tantrum Art, for inspiration.
The Mini then was used in the film 'Magical Mystery Tour', which was screened by the BBC on the 26th December 1967 in black and white then again in colour in January 1968. Shortly after the film, the Mini was given to Eric Clapton, but Harrison got it back in the 1970's. The car was due for a repaint, and was stripped ready for painting. Unfortunately, no one had taken good photos of the paintings before the job, so it was impossible to have the old paintings reproduced faithfully. It was eventually repainted using old photos and the film for reference, although there are several differences.

Here's a comparison between the two paint jobs, the small picture is from Magical Mystery Tour. Click for a bigger image.

In 2008, Ringo Starr arrived at the annual Chelsea Flower Show in George’s Mini, driven by Damon Hill. That year, "A Garden for George", a tribute to the life of George Harrison opened.

In 2009, the car was commemorated by a one-off "Special Edition" model, which the car manufacturers presented to George's widow, Olivia Harrison. The car was then auctioned off at the May 2009 "Mini United" fair in the UK to support George's Material World Charitable Foundation. But the original was to be found at the London Movieum.

McCartney at Halifax

Day Tripper and Mull of Kintyre were the two "surprises" at the Halifax concert. Okay, we've come to expect Mull of Kintyre in Canada, he usually reserves that song for Canada and Scotland, because they're the two places where he can find a pipe band. But Day Tripper was a treat, it has never been played solo by an ex-Beatle before.

Postcard from London

Yes gang, WogBlog is on the road again! Vacation part two is taking place here in London, and I lucked out twice today. I was at Abbey Road for "a quickie", when I spotted Giles Martin coming out of the building, accompanied by some people from Harmonix, the company behind The Beatles:RockBand. There was also a TV crew at hand, who were filming something or other. In the photo of Giles and me, the people in the background are in that film. I asked Giles what he was up to, and he told me that he was putting the finishing touches to the game. He expected to reveal the full track list in about a month.

Then after lunch, my son and I were walking along Piccadilly when all of a sudden, Victor Spinetti came out of the Prince's Arcade. He was very kind and posed for a photo. I asked him if he was working at the moment, and he told me had just come back from five shows in America.
You'll notice I was wearing the same t-shirt as Svein Sivertsen from my last posting. These shirts were specially made for the Norwegian Wood fan club during Svein's years as President of the club.

Departed friend

My good friend, Svein Sivertsen died peacefully on the night to July 7th. He had been battling with cancer for a while, and lost.
We first saw each other at a Neil Young concert in 1993. He was wearing a John Lennon t-shirt, and I was wearing a Rubber Soul t-shirt, so we noticed each other. The next evening I phoned him, because I wanted to ask him to start writing a bit about The Beatles for the Norwegian Wood Beatles Fanclub I was running, he had been a contributor in the early days of our fanzine and I needed new input. We discovered that we had both noticed each other the previous night, without knowing who we were. We had a good laugh about that.
He started writing articles again, and we became fast friends. He used to celebrate the Beatles' birthdays by throwing parties at his house and I made an effort to join him for at least one party for each member of the band. He filled his house with Beatle people, making Linda's veggie meals, playing music, having quizzes, showing Beatles films and documentaries and a high point of every Beatles party was a well prepared lecture either by the host or other Beatles experts. When I called it a day as fan club president, he became my successor, and made a good job at it. In 1996 he and I and two others made a pilgrimage to England, where we visited old Beatles movie locations, sought out their old private residents and celebrated Beatles Week in Liverpool. Nearly a decade later, Svein overcame his fear of flying to join me and another friend in New York to take in the Beatles sites and to see Paul McCartney at Madison Square.
Svein specialized in one of the stranger sides of Beatles collecing, he collected cover versions. That was a result of the meagre years at EMI in the seventies and eighties when no interesting Beatles material was released. Of course, he also collected Beatles and solo-Beatles CD's. He had abandoned vinyl when CD's came along. Another of his passions were books about The Beatles, and he had quite a collection. When he got ill he re-organized his collection and read more Beatles books than ever.
He was always a man with a great sense of humour and he would laugh a lot at himself and other people's strange obsessions. He believed that Beatles fans are able to take themselves a lot less serious than fans of other bands or pop stars.
Another of his facets was that he liked Madonna, and about a week ago he text messaged me and revealed that he had bought ticket's to Madonna's concert here in Norway on the 28th of July, and he hoped to bring his family both to the show and to take them on a railroad trip to Hamburg after that. He was worried that he was not in a good enough shape to realize these plans.
Sadly he wasn't. The last thing he asked for was that something should be played to celebrate Ringo's birthday. He left behind him his life partner, a daughter, a son and a grandson. And a big gap in my mind. I'll take his advice and have a good laugh at myself every now and then.

Paul's final summer concerts

Paul McCartney has added two more shows to his Summer jaunt in the US. Paul and his band now play in Tulsa on Monday 17th August and in Dallas on Wednesday 19th August. Venue, pre-sale and general ticket information will be posted shortly on his website
www.paulmccartney.com

Allen Klein dies at 77

Notorious financial acrobat and lawyer Allen Klein died Saturday at 77 from Alzheimer's disease. Klein was one of the factors in the break up of The Beatles, when John, George and Ringo hired him to save Apple from bankruptcy and to renegotiate the Beatles' deal with Capitol/EMI about royalties from record sales. Paul McCartney was opposed to Klein handling the band's business affairs, he would rather have his own father in law, Lee Eastman in that position. The "all four must agree" democratic tradition of The Beatles was broken. Klein managed to get The Beatles a better record deal and he cleaned up at Apple by firing a lot of what he thought was the dead meat, however some of the people he fired had been loyal Beatles servants since before the band made it big.
To disassociate himself from Klein, Paul had to sue the other members of the band (Klein's contract made him impossible to sue), which put the final nails in the coffin of the Beatles.
Allen Klein from New Jersey had made a name for himself by renegotiating artists' record contracts with good results. He was also enriching himself by taking a good share of the new bargains. After handling the Rolling Stones affairs, his company, ABKCO (The Allen and Betty Klein Company) had all the rights to the sixties recordings of the group.
When George Harrison was sued by music publishers "Bright Tunes" because they felt that his composition "My Sweet Lord" was plagiarizing their own "He's So Fine", Klein first fought on George's side as his lawyer, only to turn around a few years later to buy "Bright Tunes" and continue the case against George.
John Lennon's song "Steel and glass" from the "Walls And Bridges" album is supposed to be about Allen Klein. In Eric Idle's Beatles parody "All You Need Is Cash" from 1977 about the fictitious group "The Rutles", Allen Klein's character was called "Ron Decline" and was played by John Belushi.

With Klein dead, three of Paul McCartney's adversaries have now met their destiny in recent weeks, with record producer Phil Spector going to jail for murder, and Michael Jackson and Allen Klein dying.

Discover The Beatles' India!

Join Paul Salzman and Ravi Shankar for a possible life-changing experience! The photographer and the sitar master are inviting Beatles fans to a journey which will take place in February 2010.

The Beatles In India: a healing journey in many ways captures the impact India had on the Beatles. Timed with George Harrison's birthday which we will celebrate at the Ravi Shanker Institute, meeting with many of the personalities who were with the Beatles and experiencing for ourselves something of their sojourn in Rishikesh, this is a journey into one of the most important events in our lives. Tour participants will be able to see some of the most unique photographs of the Beatles, hear from people who were with Beatles, join performances of people who have performed with the Beatles and it will be Beatles and India!

In December 1967, 23 year-old Paul Saltzman traveled to India in search of himself. To his great surprise, he found the Beatles in India. Paul spent a magical week at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram. He learned meditation and hung out with John, Paul, George and Ringo. Thirty years later, he found the photos he'd shot and put away in a cardboard box: The Beatles in India.

"...like a footprint left in the sand, and I'm reminded of the path that's been washed away and the Greek proverb, 'You can never enter the same river twice.' As the ashram I knew is gone, so too are the Beatles. And yet, we can evoke their magic through their music, their words, and their photographs."
Itinerary and sign up

The Beatles are selling beer

Paul, Ringo and Allen Klein

Also previously documented by Tammy over at Beatlephotos are three photographs from the recent Christie's auction (see previous post). Paul McCartney meets up with Ringo and Allen Klein outside Savile Row 3, the Apple offices. Christie's description: This collection of photographs were compiled by one obsessive fan, who actually ended up on the Apple payroll. The photos are images she took herself when religiously waiting outside various Beatle-related addresses in the hope of seeing, and possibly meeting, a member of the band.
Judging from Paul's clothes, I took it that these three photos were taken at the same occasion, but I could be wrong. The photo of Paul arriving and posing depicts someone in a grey jacket, who is not seen in the other two photos.
The three photos were sold together with fifty other candid photos, and the lot sold for £5.625 or $9.377.