Ringo's big birthday bash

Ringo Starr's 80th birthday goes live on YouTube.

Ringo Starr will be hosting his own big 80th birtday party live on YouTube. It's a charity gig featuring guest stars and will benefit Black Lives Matter Global Network, The David Lynch Foundation, Musicares and Wateraid.

The show will air on AXS TV's YouTube channel on July 7, 2020 at 5 PM PST, and will feature performances from Ringo himself, Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh and Gary Clark jr, Sheryl Crow, Sheila E, Ben Harper and others.

"As everyone knows I love gathering with fans for peace and love on my birthday. But this year, I want everyone to be safe at home - so I called up a few friends and we put this Big Birthday Show together so we could still celebrate my birthday with you all, with some great music for some great charities. I hope you will all join me! Peace and Love, Ringo."

The broadcast will also feature the premiere of a guest star version of Ringo's "Give More Love" that was created to benefit Musicares and features Jeff Bridges, Jackson Browne, T Bone Burnette, Elvis Costello, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Peter Frampton, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Keb Mo and Willie Nelson.

Additionally there will be a playlist of unique tribute performances on Ringo's YouTube channel. This will include musicians who have previously recorded Ringo's songs, performances from past birthday celebrations as well as some new versions which artists will be posting on their socials. Look for musical tributes from Ben Folds, Ben Dickey, Bettye LaVette, Colin Hay, Elvis Costello, Gregg Rolie, Judy Collins, Peter Frampton, Richard Marx, Steve Earle, Steve Lukather and many more.

While Ringo won't be gathering with family, friends and fans at Capitol Records this year for his birthday, he invites everyone everywhere to think, say or post #peaceandlove at Noon their local time on July 7th. Fans are already organizing online events around the world to fulfill Ringo’s birthday wish of a wave of Peace & Love across the planet. Look for details on Ringo’s Facebook page for events starting in New Zealand and ending in Hawaii. Ringo began these in 2008 at the Hard Rock Café Chicago and in 2018 he celebrated the 10th Anniversary at the Hard Rock Café Nice. In the ensuing years it has grown enormously and in 2019 there were over 30 Peace & Love events in countries all around the world including Argentina - Buenos Aires; Chascomus, Armenia - Yerevan Australia -Sydney, Bolivia - La Paz, Brazil - Sao Paulo, Columbia -Bogota, Costa Rica - San Jose, Cuba – Habana, Czech Republic – Prague, El Salvador - San Salvador, Estonia – Tallin, Finland – Helsinki, Germany - Hamburg and Halle, Italy – Venice, Japan - Osaka; Tokyo, Panama - Panama City, Paraguay -Asunción, Peru – Lima, Russia – Moscow, Spain - Barcelona; Madrid, United Kingdom - London; Liverpool, United States - Chicago; Minneapolis, Hawaii, Los Angeles, New York City.


HISTORY OF RINGO’S ANNUAL JULY 7 PEACE & LOVE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS:

2008 – Chicago, IL Hard Rock Cafe
2009 –Online campaign including in store salutes at Noon at all Hard Rock Cafes worldwide
2010 – New York City, NY: Hard Rock Cafe, Times Square
2011 – Hamburg, Germany: Hard Rock Cafe
2012 – Nashville, TN: Hard Rock Café
2013 – Online celebration including a video message from Ringo
2014 – Los Angeles, CA: Capitol Records Tower
2015 - Los Angeles, CA: Capitol Records Tower
2016 - Los Angeles, CA: Capitol Records Tower
2017 - Los Angeles, CA: Capitol Records Tower
2018 – Nice, France: Hard Rock Café
2019 - Los Angeles, CA: Capitol Records Tower

Previous performers at Ringo’s Birthdays have included:
2012: Toad The Wet Sprocket;
2014: Adam Arcuragi and Spirit Family Reunion;
2016: Vandaveer, Alberta Cross and Dave Stewart with Jon Stevens; Emmanuel Jal and Paul Beaubrun,
2017: Don Was with Jenny Lewis, Michael Breardon and Van Dyke Parks;
2018: Joe Walsh with Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band including Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Graham Gouldman, Gregg Rolie, Gregg Bissonette and Warren Ham:
2019: Ben Kyle of Romantica with Sarah Watkins, The Jacks and the Lennon Bus High School kids.

Link to live stream.

The day John and Paul met at Abba's

6th of July, 1957: The Quarry Men play at St Peter's church field in Woolton, Liverpool. Colourised by Sardjono.

Today is the 6th of July, the day most Beatles sites around the world are commemorating as "the day John met Paul", back in 1957. And this morning on BBC Radio, Rod Davies of the Quarry Men was interviewed about the day's events. Listen to his phone interview at 1:10:03 into this show, the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show. It will be available for 30 days only.

And yet, the two had actually met before. Mark Lewisohn brought to light in the first volume of his trilogy biography on the Beatles, "Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years" an earlier meeting between Lennon and McCartney, which happened the year before - outside the newsagents during the time Paul was a paperboy. Lewisohn found out that the newsagents were called Abba, but to pinpoint the exact location, Mark Ashworth and Peter Hodgson to the rescue. You can read that story in Ashworth's superb blog There Are Places I Remember - The Beatles Liverpool Locations.

At the Woolton village fete, some audio of the Quarry Men's afternoon concert inside Woolton village hall was recorded by an audience member, Bob Molyneux, on his portable Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder. In 1994 Molyneux, then a retired policeman, rediscovered the tape, which contained scratchy recordings of the band performing Lonnie Donegan's "Puttin' On The Style" and Elvis Presley's "Baby, Let's Play House". Purchased by EMI, the full tape has never been published, but these samples were released at the time of the auction.

EMI considered releasing the recording as part of the 1995/96 "Beatles Anthology" series, but even after the tape had been cleaned up in the studio, EMI decided that the sonic quality of the recordings were not up to the standard set for prospective "Anthology" album or TV material. This was confirmed by New York Times journalist Allan Kozinn, who described the sound quality of the restored version of the tapes as appalling. When asked about the recordings, Apple spokesman Derek Taylor said he didn't even know what had become of the tape.