Beatles
Pete Paphides: Broken Greek review - top of the pop memoirsSunday, 01 March 2020
Think of the phrase “music memoir”, and you might conjure images of wild nights and heavy mornings. You’re unlikely to think of suburban West Bromwich and tributes to Mike Batt’s Wombles back catalogue. But then, Pete Paphides’s story is comprised... Read more... |
Show Me the Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall review - needles, guns and grassSaturday, 01 February 2020
In photographer Jim Marshall’s heyday in the 60s and 70s, before the music business became corporate and restrictive, and before Marshall unravelled – he was partial to cars, cocaine and guns as well as cameras – musicians asked for him, they... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Beatles - Abbey RoadSunday, 22 September 2019
Among the issues integral to the final album The Beatles recorded two, though usually low profile, are worth bearing mind. Abbey Road was their first album to be released in stereo only. There was no mono edition. Also, in late 1968, an EMI TG12345... Read more... |
Yesterday review - Beatlemania in a parallel universeThursday, 27 June 2019
The price of fame and the value of artistic truth are among the topics probed in Danny Boyle’s irresistible comedy, a beguiling magical mystery tour of an upside-down world where The Beatles suddenly never existed. Richard Curtis’s screenplay... Read more... |
La Damnation de Faust, Glyndebourne review – bleak and compelling makeoverMonday, 20 May 2019
Mid-career, moving ever further away from composing for concert platform and church towards the stage, Berlioz found himself unsure where his take on Faust belonged. In the end he hedged his bets and titled it a "dramatic legend". Staging it as an... Read more... |
Rock Island Line: The Song That Made Britain Rock, BBC Four review - the early dawn of BritpopSaturday, 13 April 2019
If you were a fan of “Rock Island Line” when it became a pop hit, you’d have to be at least in your mid-70s now. In 1956, Paul McCartney heard Lonnie Donegan perform it live in Liverpool, and Paul’s rising 77. How many below that age know it is moot... Read more... |
The Beatles: Made on Merseyside, BBC Four review - when the Fab Four were fiveSaturday, 30 March 2019
Documentaries about the 20th century’s most fabled quartet keep coming. There’s no special call for The Beatles: Made on Merseyside (BBC Four), which looked at the group’s Liverpool beginnings, though at a stretch it could be argued that in the 50th... Read more... |
On Drums... Stewart Copeland!, BBC Four review - no drummer, no rock'n'rollFriday, 11 January 2019
On Drums was inhabited by a parade of fine-looking young and middle aged multi-ethnic anglophone drummers, all introduced by Stewart Copeland, the American drummer of the Police. In vintage film and contemporary interviews his chosen musicians... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The BeatlesSunday, 23 December 2018
“…all four [Beatles] worked tirelessly together in the studio, they carved out a sound and a ‘feel’ for each song. On the many tapes that have been carefully preserved from the sessions there is extraordinary inspiration – mixed with plenty of... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Janáček, George Martin, Dmitry MasleevSaturday, 13 January 2018
Brahms: Clarinet Sonatas, Janáček: Sonata (arr. Brill) Shirley Brill, Jonathan Aner (piano) (Hänssler Classic)Brahms's pair of clarinet sonatas are the epitome of autumnosity, were such a word to exist. Pipe-and-slippers music, which isn't... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The BeatlesSunday, 24 December 2017
The official reissue of The Beatles’ Christmas records is a major event. Since Live at the BBC was issued in 1994, archive Beatles’ releases have fallen into two categories. There have been releases devoted to or drawing from archive disinterments:... Read more... |
CD: Django Bates - Saluting Sgt. PepperWednesday, 21 June 2017
Sgt. Pepper is a popular choice for a tribute but also a dangerous one. How to say anything meaningful about a work widely agreed to be the most influential in rock history? How to approach a work that is already a multi-layered pastiche, in places... Read more... |
