An online Beatles fan club for and about Beatle fans
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| Photo by Leslie Parker |
Any of you have tickets to see Ringo and the All Starr Band during this next round of concerts?
Hello everyone!
Do you have a child in your life who is interested in the Beatles? Or are you between the ages of 10-18 and want to join a group of young Beatle fans to discuss the group?
I am starting an online Beatles "social club" through Class Dojo Tutoring called "Across the Universe." We will be looking at a specific year in the history of the Beatles and talking about the music from that year and what the Beatles were doing in terms of movies, concerts, and personally.
Right now the sessions are set for 1 hour on Wednesdays at 6:00pm (CST) and Thursdays at 4:00 (CST). The sessions cost $20 each time. However --- I can change the date and time if there is interest. I also can cut the class down to 30 minutes each for $10 a session. I am very flexible.
If you, your child or grandchild are interested, please use the link below to sign up.
https://tutor.classdojo.com/#/course/6a135d286d7eb7b3cace7dfe
I also offer tutoring in reading, writing, and spelling for students in PreK-5th grade for 25 or 55-minute sessions. And I have a 25-minute class ($10 a session) where we play games to learn sight words (kids in K-2). I am a reading specialist with dyslexia certification and have worked teaching kids reading for over 25 years. On Class Dojo tutoring, I am considered a "super tutor" with a 5-star rating. While this all has nothing to do with the Beatles, I wanted to mention it in case anyone was looking for a reading tutor this summer.
https://tutor.classdojo.com/tutor/profile/67bce337e3c596023d7b6e4f
This is the slow time of year for my regular job, and so I try to make ends meet by doing this tutoring. They offer these "class session" and I can make them about anything I want, so I thought a Beatles themed class would be a lot of fun. (If anyone joins it).
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By J. Randy Taraborrelli
The Blade (Toledo, Ohio)
May 31, 1991
While Michael Jackson was on the road with the Victory Tour, he made headlines in 1984 by purchasing the ATV Music Publishing Co. for an astonishing $47.5 million. The purchase, believed to be the biggest publishing acquisition of its kind ever by an individual, was the culmination of 10 intense months of negotiations.
The seed for this venture had been planted a few years earlier, when Michael was in London to record the number-one hit "Say Say Say" with Paul McCartney at Abbey Road Studios. Michael became friendly with Paul and Linda McCartney during his stay. He ate most of his meals at their home outside of London. One evening after dinner, Paul displayed a thick booklet of song titles to which he owns the rights, including most of Buddy Holly's material and standards, such as "Autumn Leaves", "Sentimental Journey", and "Stormy Weather."
"This is really the way to make big money," he explained to Michael. "Every time someone records one of these songs, I get paid. Every time someone plays these songs on the radio or in live performances, I get paid."
"You're kidding me, right?" Michael said.
"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Paul countered with a serious expression. McCartney reportedly earns more than $40 million a year from record and song royalties. Paul explained that the world of publishing can provide lucrative opportunities, especially thanks to the CD explosion and the increased use of popular songs in advertisements, movies, and television.
Songwriters often lose the copyrights for one reason or another. Sometimes they sell them for profit, a short-sighted thing to do, especially nowadays when so much money is generated in the music industry, and often they lose them out of ignorance, as in the case of the Beatles, who simply signed away rights when they were naive and didn't know any better.
As it happened, Paul McCartney and John Lennon had sold their copyrights to a publisher named Dick James when they were young. James ended up making a fortune on the Beatles' songs. Then, in the late 60s, when the Beatles were on vacation in Rishikesh with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, James sold Northern Songs, the company that continued to hold the rights to the Beatles' compositions, to Lew Grade's ATV Music Ltd. for tax reasons. ATV was later purchased by Australian businessman Robert Holmes, a Quartz Bell Group.
For the next couple of hours, Paul and Michael discussed publishing, and Michael observed and absorbed everything. Paul would one day regret this conversation. When Michael said to him, "Maybe someday I'll buy your songs." Paul laughed. "Great," he said. "Good joke."
But Michael wasn't joking. "I gave him a lot of free advice," Paul would later say, "and you know what? A fish gets caught by opening its mouth. Someone rang me up one day and said, 'Michael bought your songs', and I said, 'What!?!' I think it's dodgy to do things like that," Paul complained, "to be someone's friend and then to buy the rug they're standing on."
Michael tried to phone McCartney and discuss the matter, but every time he did, Paul hung up on him. Finally, Michael said, "Paul's got a real problem, and I'm finished trying to be a nice guy. Too bad for him, I got the songs, and that's the end of it."
Robert Hilburn, in an excellent analysis of the ATV acquisition for the Los Angeles Times, explained what Michael's purchase meant, and the dollars and cents. "If, for instance, 'Yesterday' earned $100,000 a year in royalties from record sales, airplay, and live performances (it probably earns more). The Lennon Estate and McCartney, as co-writers, divide about 50% of that income, about $25,000 each. The publisher, now Michael Jackson, collects another 50%. The publisher also controls the use of the songs in terms of films, commercials, and stage productions. If bought at a reasonable price and well-administered, catalogs are considered an excellent investment. They are such good investments, in fact, that it is increasingly difficult to find one on the market."
As soon as Michael made the purchase, he and his representative investigated ways to make it pay off for him. He hired people to develop an anthology series of four films using the Beatles' music, including Strawberry Fields, an animated feature, Back in the USSR, a movie based on Russian rockers, and films based on "Eleanor Rigby" and "The Fool on the Hill". Michael also planned musical greeting cards and music boxes.
When he licensed the song "Revolution" to Nike for a sneaker ad, he obtained Yoko Ono's consent, but not Paul McCartney. In fact, McCartney, like many Beatles fans, was incensed because he felt Michael was cheapening the music. In the end, McCartney had to accept Michael's decision. "I have no question of his owning it," he said. "It was perfectly for sale, fair, square, and all above board."
So now every time someone performs one of the songs he wrote between 1964 and 1971, he has to pay Michael Jackson. Also, ATV owns a life insurance policy on McCartney, which Michael now retains. So, if Paul McCartney dies, Michael Jackson could end up with millions.
When Michael sold "All You Need Is Love" to Panasonic for $240,000, McCartney contacted him and told him he was "going too far", but Michael felt that by using the Beatles songs in commercials, he was enabling the music to reach a new generation of fans who would buy the Beatles records. "Well, I don't like the idea that Michael Jackson is the only guy in the world who gets to sit in judgment as to which Beatles songs can be used in commercials," Paul countered. "He's drawn up a list! I don't see how he should have that power."
Yoko Ono seems satisfied with what Michael is doing with the Beatles catalog, and has called his ownership "a blessing." She said, in November 1990, "Businessmen who aren't artists themselves wouldn't have the consideration Michael has. He loves the songs. He's very caring. There could be a lot of arguments and stalemates if Paul and I owned it together. Neither Paul nor I needed that. If Paul got the songs, people would have said Paul finally got John, and if I got them, they'd say, 'oh, the dragon lady strikes again.'"
In 1990 Paul and Michael met to discuss what Paul called "this problem". McCartney recalled the conversation. "I put it to him this way: when we signed our deal, John and I didn't even know what publishing was. We thought songs were in the sky, and everyone owned them. These days, even kids know better than that.
"Last year, 'Yesterday' passed the 5 million plays mark in America, which no other song has ever done, not even 'White Christmas', but no one has ever come up to me and said, 'Hey, man, I really think you need a bonus, you've done great for this company.'"
Michael acted as though he didn't understand what Paul was saying, so Paul spelled it out for him. "I wanted him to recognize in the deal that I'm a big writer for this company that he now owns." McCartney recalls Michael told Paul that he "didn't want to hurt anybody", and McCartney said he was happy to hear that. "He's a genuine bloke, Mike is," Paul would say of him. Michael promised that he'd try to work something out for him.
The next day, John Eastman, Paul's attorney, telephoned John Branca and told him that Paul and Michael had agreed to renegotiate a higher writer's royalty for his songs. Branca checked with Michael. "Heck, no, I didn't tell Paul that," Michael said."He's not getting a higher royalty unless I get something back from him in return."
Branca passed Michael's decision on to Paul's attorney. "Then we'll sue," Eastman threatened. "Hey, be my guest", Branca told him.
A former employee of Branca's recalled that when Branca told Michael that Paul might sue, Michael scoffed." Let him sue. Meanwhile, go license some more songs, Branca. Let's go out there and make some money. Let's run this thing like a business."
Said an associate of Michael's privately. "Michael's feeling is this: Paul McCartney had two chances to buy the company. Both times, he was too cheap to spend the bucks. Mind you, Paul is said to be the richest entertainer in the world. The man is worth about $560 million. His royalties in one year come to $41 million. As Mike told me, 'If he didn't want to invest $47.5 million in his own songs, then he shouldn't come crying to me.' "
He's a hard-hearted son of a gun; Michael Jackson is just like his father. And when it comes to Paul McCartney, Michael doesn't want to know anything. "I've got those songs fair and square", he said. "They're mine, and no one can tell me what to do with them, not even Paul McCartney. He'd better learn to deal with it."
By acquiring ATV, Michael Jackson proved himself a perceptive, hard-headed businessman. He's probably exactly the kind of businessman his father, Joe, would like to be, but isn't. Where Joe bullies Michael in gravitates, where Joe shouts, Michael listens. Michael has had the wisdom to surround himself with brilliant people and then allow them to do their jobs without interference. Joe never did. It's almost as though Michael studied Joe's techniques and then did exactly the opposite. What father and son shared was that they trusted no one and could be ruthless toward those they had vanquished. Neither father nor son allows anyone a second chance.
Wings Carry Fans to Seventh Heaven
By Bill Turque
Kansas City Star
May 30, 1976
It was the ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney, both for what he was and still is for many, who packed more than 18,000 excited fans into Kemper Arena for last night's Wings concert.
"Once a Beatles, always a Beatle," said Kathy Dent, 27 of Kansas City, expressing a widely shared sentiment. Diane Canterbury, 19, of Wellsville, Kansas, got her first Beatles record when she was in first grade. Wings or no wings, she said. She will always be hooked on the charismatic McCartney. "I love Paul McCartney for what he was, is, and will be," she said, beaming. "He's got Beatles sound and Wings sound, and he's put it all together."
Some would have plunked down their money (unscalped tickets ran from $7.75 to $9.75 for the concert) even if McCartney had never warbled a single "yeah, yeah, yeah." Brad Nichols, 20 of Wichita, said he thinks the Wings band is a better vehicle for McCartney's talent. "I think he shows his talents much better now. I like Wings. They're a good group," Nichols said.
"I think most people are coming to see him tonight for the group he has got and the songs he has," said Bob Wages, 27th of Kansas City North.
Still, when McCartney and his entourage swept into Kemper in a fleet of chauffeured limousines, a couple of hours before showtime, the screams and cheers of fans brought back a fleeting burst of old Beatlemania.
"I love it, it's 10 years ago!" shrieked one frizzy-haired man, as the limousine filed straight into the arena. "He's magical to me", said Joyce Maslow, 23 of Omaha. "He makes me feel so good inside. He's one of God's chosen people. I used to cry when the Beatles were on television. Paul was always my favorite."
The audience included others who were caught in a time warp of sorts. One grandmother was taking her 10-year-old granddaughter to the concert because the girl's father had been a member of a local group that played Beatles music exclusively. From Lincoln, Nebraska, a couple who have handed down their old Beatles records to their two young sons have been following the tour from city to city, hawking Wings T-shirts.
Lines started forming outside Kemper nearly three hours before the 8pm concert, with cars, chartered buses, and campers jamming the arena's parking lot. Ticket scalpers did a brisk business yesterday, with prices ranging from $15 to $80 depending on the location of the seats. Security for the concert was tight, with 85 brawny blue-shirted security men provided by a local firm. Twenty-four police officers also were used for the event, but with the exception of a few frisbees, the crowd was generally mellow, well-behaved, and in a good mood to enjoy the first visit of a Beatle to Kansas City in a dozen years.
Music in Mid-America
By Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star
May 30, 1976
Before last night's Wing concert at Kemper, I had a long list of things I felt were wrong with silly love songs. 10 minutes into the show, I couldn't remember a one.
Paul McCartney and the band put on what must go down as one of the best concerts ever seen in this town. From the first number, "Venus and Mars", all 18,000 in the Arena knew this was something special.
For more than two hours (This is being written 90 minutes into the show, and the performers show no sign of letting up), the Kansas City crowd heard what must be one of the world's best live rock bands whip through an avalanche of songs ranging from the heyday of the Beatles to McCartney's latest LP.
Some of McCartney's recent songs have been criticized for an overabundance of sentimentality, but this live show is a joyous kick-out-the-jam rock fest, and offers so many good tunes presented virtually nonstop that even two hours seems to pass by in minutes.
Everybody in the band carries this weight. McCartney, of course, was the star of the show, and between tunes he mugged at the audience, flashing the V sign, and waved at those aiming cameras at him. Denny Laine wielded a double-neck guitar, and it was a sign of the band's professionalism that he snapped a string on the first tune and kept on playing as a roadie fitted him with a new one. He never missed a note. Joe English proved himself to be one of the most energetic drummers around, and Jimmy McCalloch, guitarist, offered some hefty lead solos on some of the tunes.
Linda McCartney, Paul's wife, who has had to bear more than her share of criticism, may not have exhibited all the instrumental prowess of the four men, but she acquitted herself well as a second-string keyboardist, providing some eerie sounds on the synthesizer on tunes such as "Spirits of Ancient Egypt" and playing the organ on most of the tunes. She also sang backup vocals.
Another star was a band stage setup, a series of platforms that lit up like a stained glass window and featured what appeared to be a laser gun. That last bit of hardware got a workout during a rendition of "Live and Let Die", when it shot thin beams of green light the length of the Kemper Arena.
The show offered songs from all phases of McCartney's career. "Maybe I'm Amazed", "Lady Madonna", and "The Long and Winding Road" were cheered as McCartney presented his own personal golden oldies. After an hour of hard rocking, the members of the band pulled out their chairs and sat down for some acoustic picking, offering "Picasso's last words", "Richard Cory", "Blue Bird", and "I've just seen a face". One by one, they left the stage until McCartney, alone in the spotlight, began strumming the opening chords to "Yesterday." There was a burst of applause that quickly died down, and soon not a sound could be heard from the audience as 18,000 persons shared a memory.
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