Lennon, John

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    Rare Beatles Audition Tape Surfaces in a Vancouver Record Shop

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    The recording appears to be from the band’s 1962 audition for Decca Records, which notably rejected the group.The tape sat unremarkably on a shelf behind the counter, collecting dust for five, maybe 10 years — so much time that Rob Frith says he lost track.Frith, 69, could not seem to recall how it had found its way to Neptoon Records, his store in Vancouver, British Columbia, which in its 44 years has become a repository for tens of thousands of vinyl records and other musical relics.The label on the cardboard box said it was a Beatles demo tape, but, having heard enough bootleg recordings over the decades, Frith was skeptical until he enlisted a disc jockey friend, Larry Hennessey, to load it onto his vintage tape player a few weeks ago.It was just before midnight on March 11 when they pushed play on the mystery tape. From the opening guitar riff and the intonation of a 21-year-old John Lennon, Frith said he could not believe his ears as he listened to the Beatles performing a cover of the Motown hit “Money (That’s What I Want).”“Right away, we’re all kind of looking at each other,” Frith said. “It seems like the Beatles are in the room. That’s how clear it is.”Frith said the tape appeared to be a professionally edited recording of the Beatles’ New Year’s Day 1962 audition for Decca Records in London, a session that notably ended with the band’s rejection.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beatles Movies Cast Revealed, Including Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan

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      The director Sam Mendes announced the stars of his four-film series, each told from the perspective of a different Beatle, set to be released in 2028. There has been no shortage of movies about the Beatles. But the director Sam Mendes is embarking on a project that stands apart for its ambition — four films, each from a different band member’s perspective — and now we know who will be playing the Fab Four.The films will star Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, according to Mr. Mendes’s production company.The four films, which will tell the story of one of the world’s most influential and adored bands, will be released together in April 2028, “creating the first bingeable theatrical experience,” the company wrote. In announcing the films last year, Mr. Mendes, the British director best known for films like “American Beauty” (1999) and “Revolutionary Road” (2008), said he was “honored to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time, and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies.”He announced the cast at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas on Monday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. While the Beatles have been big-screen subjects before — including in Danny Boyle’s “Yesterday” (2019) and Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “Nowhere Boy” (2009) — this is the first time that the members of the band and their estates have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film, according to Sony Pictures.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Book Review: ‘Yoko: The Biography,’ by David Sheff

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      David Sheff’s new biography convincingly argues for John Lennon’s widow as a feminist, activist, avant-garde artist and world-class sass.YOKO: The Biography, by David SheffHere’s the thing about Yoko Ono, the artist and widow of the murdered rock star John Lennon (usually not identified in that order), and the subject of David Sheff’s new biography. She is funny — ha-ha, not peculiar.Asked by an interviewer if she’d ever forgive Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman, since Pope John Paul II had visited the jail of his own would-be assassin to offer absolution, Ono replied: “I’m not the pope.”Promoting an ephemeral Museum of Modern Art “exhibit” in 1971, in part to protest the underrepresentation of women and Asian people there, she posed in front with a strategically placed shopping bag so that the building signage read “Museum of Modern (F) Art.” (This was years before “Family Guy”!)Elton John recounted in his memoir, “Me,” how he’d wondered why Ono had sold the herd of Holstein cows she’d bought, trying to invest ethically. “All that mooing,” she told him.For Ono, now 92 and mostly out of the public eye, to have written her own “Me” would have been profoundly out of character. Her art was crowdsourced long before that was a word. “Self-Portrait” was a mirror in a manila envelope that reflected the viewer. She invited audiences to step on a painting, play a form of the child’s game Telephone, climb into a bag, cut off her clothing or otherwise “finish” her visions.Following Lennon’s death in 1980, trusted intimates flouted confidentiality agreements, stole the couple’s memorabilia and wrote tell-alls that Ono fought hard to suppress. (“Best book I’ll ever burn,” their son, Sean, told one particularly egregious betrayer in court.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More