Beatles News Roundup
IS PAUL McCARTNEY ABOUT TO BECOME A LORD???
25 years after being knighted, Paul McCartney is now under consideration for peerage, making him a “Lord,” to mark his 80th birthday this coming June 18th. Back in 2018, “Macca’s” royal honor was bumped up to the prestigious Order of the Companions of Honour for his services to music — of which he and Elton John are among the 61 living Companions.
A source told The Sun, “Paul is already in an extraordinarily exclusive set of people at the very top of the honors system. There is now quiet talk among officials about how to mark his 80th with something truly special. The idea of offering him the chance to sit as a cross-bencher in the Lords has been mooted. He has given incredible service to British culture, so it could be a very fitting tribute and mark of all that he has done for his country.” (The Sun)
The McCartney family are no strangers to the British order of chivalry, with McCartney and the rest of the “Fab Four” receiving their MBE’s (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 1965, McCartney being knighted in 1997, and Stella receiving the OBE (Order of the British Empire) award in 2013. In 2019, Paul McCartney’s brother, entertainer/photographer/author Mike “McGear” McCartney, was honored with the British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to the community in Merseyside area of Liverpool.
Paul McCartney admitted he doesn’t really look at Royal honors as being about class or affluence: “You hear so much about people who turn it down, and they’re sort of, ‘No! I don’t believe in the Monarchy!’ And they’re taking a stance. Someone said there’s a certain cache to turning it down — so, I was aware of all of that. But, in thinking about it, I thought, ‘Y’know what? It’s a huge honor.’ It’s like at school and you get the art prize, or something. It’s a huge honor.”
JOHN LENNON ‘MAFIA’ BOOK ON THE WAY
Set for publication on May 1st is Lennon, The Mobster & The Lawyer – The Untold Story, by attorney Jay Bergen. Bergen represented John Lennon against notorious Mafia-connected owner of Roulette Records, Morris Levy, who had released an unauthorized Lennon album — called Roots, an early, illegal version of the former-Beatle‘s 1975 Rock N’ Roll album.
According to the book’s press release:
Jay’s memoir/portrait tells the story of the battle against Levy’s misbegotten scheme to get his hooks into Lennon.
John’s own words, from the trial transcript, are illuminating and Jay recounts strategy sessions where they worked closely to map out his testimony: How John explained his recording process in poetic, exacting terms for a judge who knew little about The Beatles; John’s recording studio expertise; the finalization of the Rock N’ Roll album; why he chose to do an album of ’50s rock songs he didn’t write; and the damage John suffered as a result of the unfinished cheesy Roots album.
The resulting testimony reveals remarkable insights into the creative process of an acknowledged genius of rock music.
For more information, log on to: https://www.lennonthemobsterandthelawyer.com/
The New York City sessions for the Rock N’ Roll album, Walls And Bridges — along with its 1973 predecessor, Mind Games, mark the only times that Lennon solely self-produced himself — with the latter written and recorded during his 14-month separation from Yoko Ono, while romantically linked to the couple’s assistant, May Pang.
Pang told us that although Lennon was generally fun loving, he always meant business in the studio: “Most people don’t realize that John’s very particular about his way of working when he’s a producer at his sessions. He liked to call for a certain time, and he wants to get ready — he doesn’t want hours of getting ready. And he would say, ‘I don’t want anybody to do anything until we get through this. It’s hard enough to remember the lyrics and the songs and the music. So let’s just do it and when we’re done, you can do whatever you want.'”
