When They Was Fab: Electric Arguments About the Beatles

This week the WTWF guys talk about the highlight of Ringo's acting career, the 1973 magnum opus "That'll Be The Day."      The screenplay for both this project, and the followup, were written by journalist Ray Connolly.    Connolly's Beatles interviews have been collected, and are available as either a print or e-book from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Ray-Connolly-Beatles-Archive/dp/0956591531/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1508119653&sr=8-2&keywords=ray+connolly).      The story continues next week as we examine the Beatles-filled sequel "Stardust."

Happy Birthday John and Sean, Happy Anniversary Paul and Nancy!    We celebrate with the happy couple, looking back at some of the venues, both large and small that Paul has played in the New York City area.       He has hit all of the arenas and stadiums, but also ballrooms, theaters and some venues you might have forgotten.

The frst of two shows examining Paul McCartney's relationship with New York City.    Linda and Nancy both come from the city, and Paul can frequently be seen around his Hamptons home in Amagansett.    Paul's friends in the region include Lorne Michaels, Jimmy Fallon and Dana Carvey, which in turn resulted in NYC-centered TV appearances.

This week the WTWF guys take a slight detour from the Beatle track.     Everybody loves to tell their friends and family when they hear a track that reminds them of the Beatles.     We take that a step further, each of us presenting two albums that are evocative of some aspect of the Fab Four, while retaining core originality.     These are not albums of covers of Beatles songs, or albums written explicitly to stylistically emulate one or more Beatles albums, but is instead simply another record in the discography of these bands, including one reviewed by the Guardian as "the best album the Beatles never recorded".

This week the WTWF guys consider the drastic changes in the concert scene in the late 1980's/early 1990's.      The most obvious method they had of winning friends and influencing people was adding Beatles songs in much heavier doses.      We consider tne approaches Paul, George and Ringo took to this new reality, and consider how John might've approached it in the "comeback tour" he mentioned in several interviews.

In May 2000, CBS aired "The Linda McCartney Story", a made-for-TV film based on the 2000 biography "Linda McCartney: A portrait" by occasional friend Danny Fields.     A solo show, as I give some general impressions on the film, the leads Elizabeth Mitchell ("Frequency", "Lost") and Gary Bakewell ("Backbeat").   Between the commentary, "thumbs up" and "thumbs down", look there are interview clips comparing and contrasting the real article with these fictional counterparts.

Part two of our Interview with Laurence Juber of Wings.   We run through his work with Paul and Wings, Back to the Egg, Lympne Castle, "Stop and Smell the Roses", film soundtrack work on "Shanghai Surprise", along with his years as a studio musician in Los Angeles (Belinda Carlisle, Dirty Dancing and more).      We then close on his Beatles/Wings guitar albums, and some of the additional projects we can expect from him in the coming years!  

Part One of our Interview with Laurence Juber of Wings.      This week starts with some oddball querstions , and meanders through LJ's thoughts on John and Paul's songwriting, and the performance aspects of each of the four.       This is then followed by a discussion of "Drop D", "DADGAD", and why he frequently chooses to play in alternate tunings.       The show then ends with an excerpt from a tutorial where he demonstrates his arranging skills, letting us into his head with "Martha My Dear" on guitar.

Part two of our look at 1979.     Paul was on a bit of a high in 1979 (no jokes about the jazz cigarettes), receiving an honor from the Guiness Book of World Records, working the latest incarnation of Wings and celebrating "Back to The Egg" and starting a New Tour.    We also have a look at the (first) Broadway closing of Beatlemania, Allen Klein's jail sentence, and Dick Clark's "Birth of the Beatles".       

The year 1979 featured both good and bad for the former Beatles.      John was enjoying his time away from the music industry, a world traveler busking around, writing and playing music on his own schedule.     George was promoting a new record, while also traveling the world with an eye on Formula One.     Ringo, on the other hand suffered through major surgery and a house fire in Los Angeles.     Next week, WTWF presents Paul's '79, and the year for other Beatles-related figures.

The story of Northern Songs did not end with the sale to Sir Lew Grade.      Over the years, it went through the hands of Robert Holmes A Court, Michael Jackson and the conglomerate worth more than two billion dollars now known as Sony/ATV.       How did Michael Jackson get involved, and how did the 1976 change in Copyright Law affect the way John Lennon (and later Yoko Ono and the estate), and now Paul McCartney approach the business of their publishing.    Find out this and more this week!

The first part (of two) episodes covering the Beatles publishing.     Starting with "Love Me Do" and Ardmore and Beechwood, the story quickly progresses to Dick James, Northern Songs, the tale of the Lennon/McCartney catalogue going public and finally how the company slipped away under the squabbling of John and Paul and the supervision of Allan Klein, Lee and John Eastman.

"Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in!".      One more (mostly) Pepper show because we could not stay away from the epic "viral" parody known as "Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans."      Combine the Beatles and Star Wars, and you get something much more brilliant than it has any right to be.      Start with an idea, work hard on it for five years and mix.     This leads to discussion of other covers of the entire album (both parody and straightforward), and other (non-Pepper) Beatles covers, including that time Paul sang "the original lyrics" to Yesterday.    Waffle Fries indeed!     Hmmm, here's a free idea:    The Godfather and Revolver.      Anybody have half a decade to make it work?

This week we look at all-Beatles radio, yesterday and today.     Over thirty years ago, tiny Texas City AM station KYST changed formats to become the first all-Beatles station in the country.      MAnagement couldn't have had too much faith in the format, as they never filed the paperwork or paid the fee to officially change their call letters to KBTL.      We compare and contrast that version of the format with the Beatles-backed Sirius XM implementation that launched May 18.

The third and final week of our formal review of the Deluxe Edition of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.       We start with the high resolution stereo version available on the DVD and BluRay, follow it up with a look at the Dolby Atmos system, and the special June 1 anniversary theatrical playback at theatres around the country.     Rounding out the show is chat about the various cover/label/disk variations of Pepper the WTWF guys did and do own (stereo, mono, Capitol, Apple, EMI, Picture disc, casetter, 8-track and so forth).