To Absent Friends - Robert Freeman

Robert Freeman

1936 - 2019

With His Most Famous Photo

The newspaper today brings the news of the death of British photographer Robert Freeman at the age of 82.

Fate struck Mr. Freeman in August 1963 when George Martin and Brian Epstein called upon him to see if he would do a photo shoot for an album cover for an up-and-coming rock and roll band, The Beatles.  With no make up artists or hair stylists present, the four Beatles showed up in a hotel dining room in Bournemouth.  They were wearing black turtleneck sweaters.  Freeman positioned them against a dark background, had Ringo Starr slouch down in the right front and took the black and white photo of the four unsmiling half-in-the-shadows faces that, essentially, introduced The Beatles to, if not the world, then certainly to the United States.

The album With The Beatles was renamed Meet The Beatles for the US market, and the rest, as they say, was history.  What I learned in reading the obit today was that the photo on the album was one group photo of all four Beatles.  I had always assumed that they were four individual photos that were patched together to make the iconic album cover.

Freeman became a kind of quasi-official photographer to The Beatles.  In addition to the Meet The Beatles picture, he photographed the album covers for Help, Beatles For Sale, and Rubber Soul.

He also took the photos that were used over the end credits for the movies "A Hard Days Night" and "Help."

Prior to all of this, Freeman was known as a portrait photographer.  He photographed Nikita Khrushchev in his Kremlin office, and took photos of many famous jazz artists as they performed in Great Britain.  It was these photos that brought him to the attention of Epstein.

RIP Robert Freeman.

We Believe in "Yesterday"

The trailer for director Danny Boyle's "Yesterday" has been shown both in theaters and in various social media forums for months now, but in case you missed it, here's the premise.  Jack Malik, played by Himesh Patel, is a musician/singer/songwriter who has been kicking it around in the sticks of England for fifteen years, trying desperately to make it.  On his way home from yet another pathetic gig, one which has convinced him that the time has come to give it all up and get a real job, a world wide cataclysmic event (which is never really explained) knocks out the entire world's electrical power grid for several seconds. It also causes bicycle riding Jack to be hit by a bus and lands him in the hospital.

Shortly after his release for the hospital, while sitting with friends, including his manager/friend/should-be girlfriend Ellie, played by the totally charming Lily James, Jack sings The Beatles "Yesterday", after which Ellie and the others say things like "That's the most beautiful song I've ever heard.  When did you write THAT?"  It seems that the cataclysmic electronic event has wiped out all evidence and knowledge that The Beatles ever existed.  Jack, it seems, is the only person in the entire world who knows the songs of the most famous and important rock & roll band in history.

A real life rock star, Ed Sheeran, who plays himself in the movie, discovers Jack and his amazing songs, and he, Jack, soon becomes an industry and world wide sensation.  But what price glory if it is all built upon a lie?  That is the question with which Jack begins to struggle, and how he resolves it comes from a source that is a true surprise to the viewers.

"Yesterday" is more of a standard RomCom - with a fantasy twist - than we were led to believe from seeing the trailers and reading about it in advance, but it was a fun and enjoyable movie, and it does deliver a message as Jack struggles with that existential question that I mentioned in the preceding paragraph.  The movie also skewers the ruthlessness and greed (as portrayed by SNL's Kate McKinnon as Jack's avaricious and amoral manager) as the marketers and business people begin to market Jack in ways that, perhaps, the real Fab Four never had to face.

There are also a couple of other funny bits in the movie.  One is how Jack attempts to play his beautiful new ballad, "Let It Be", for his parents, but they keep interrupting him and he can never get past the first line, and the other is how, familiar as they are, the lyrics to some Beatles' classics, just aren't that easy to remember.

Oh, and the final scene in the movie is just delightful.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

I also want to acknowledge that the headline on this post is a blatant ripoff from Washington DC film critic and Facebook Friend Jason Fraley.  In a Facebook comment,  I mentioned that I would steal his line, but would give him attribution, so, there you go, Jason!!

The Beatles on XM

Subscribers to Sirius XM Radio have been bombarded in recent weeks with the news that they would be launching a Beatles Channel this month.  I, for one, was quite excited and welcomed it to my XM stable when it debuted last week.

The channel features not only the music of The Beatles, but also the music of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr as solo artists, as well as music of the Beatles as covered by other artists, so be prepared for Joe Cocker getting by with a little help from his friends.

All of this is fine, but it reinforces one self-evident axiom where The Beatles are concerned.  Each of the four band members were and are talented singers, songwriters, and musicians, and each has produced excellent work on their own as solo artists.  However, nothing - and I do mean NOTHING - that they ever did as individuals was better than the work that that did as one band, as The Beatles.

Listen to that new XM Channel and you'll agree with me.

This, That, and the Other....

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box.....

• The Grandstander went 3-1 in his NFL Wildcard Playoff predictions last weekend, missing only the Packers win over the Giants.  In truth, none of he games were all that great from a competitive point of view, although I loved the non-competitive nature of the Steelers thrashing of the Dolphins.
• For this coming weekend, I give you this....Patriots over Texans (Joe Starkey suggested today that, somehow, the Pats managed to get another bye week in the Playoffs), Falcons over the Seahawks (the fact that Seattle let a lousy Lions team stay with them into the fourth quarter prevents me from picking them), Packers over the Cowboys (just gotta go with Aaron Rodgers over the rookie Dak Prescott), and Steelers over the Chiefs (not going to back down from my prediction of a Super Bowl win for the Steelers).
• I also missed on the CFP game.  Congrats to Deshaun Watson and all the Clemson players on their victory.  To their sanctimonious coach, Dabo Swinney, well, all I can say is that he is one of the few guys I can think of that would make me want to root for Nick Saban.
• Got a chance to watch this Ron Howard-directed documentary this week:

• If you are a devoted follower and fan of the Beatles, I am not sure that you will learn anything new about the band from this, but it does give you a chance to see the group performing live in their touring years.  As everyone knows, The Beatles stopped making live performances in 1966, so any chance one gets to see them perform like this is a bonus.  There is also some color footage of the group performing at a concert in England in 1963 that is astonishingly good in terms of picture and sound quality, and that is something that I, at least, had never seen before.  I rate this a solid three stars, and will say that any fan of The Beatles should add a copy of this movie to their Beatles Library.
• Those same fans might also want to download or buy this CD which was recently remastered and reissued in conjunction with the Howard movie:

• Last week's issue of Sports Illustrated featured a cover story about Ben Roethlisberger, whom that called the "NFL's most polarizing player".   I wish someone at SI would explain what the point was in publishing that story.  It broke absolutely no new ground.
• That same issue featured and "SI True Crime" sort about former Cowboys running back Joseph Randle.  "True Crime", apparently, is now going to be a monthly feature in SI.
• With both stories, I felt like I was reading the National Enquirer, and not Sports Illustrated.  
• Sports Illustrated also announced that US Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles and Aly Raisman will be featured models in its upcoming swimsuit issue.  Miss Biles and Miss Raisman have made this choice freely, and I presume that they are being paid handsomely for doing so, but I hope that I never hear them complain that they are not being "taken seriously" as competitive athletes, or that they are being "objectified", now that they have chosen to be a part of this issue of the magazine.  I wonder what a true pioneer like Billie Jean King would have to say about this.
• I guess that this is just what print publications have to do in an increasingly digital age.
• Finally, I am enjoying this short series from Amazon that was written and directed by Woody Allen:

• Allen also stars in the show that also includes the great Elaine May as his wife.  I had seen that critics weren't too wild about this series, but I think it has its moments.  I have not finished watching the entire series and will wait until I do to give my final judgment, but, so far, not bad.

To Absent Friends - George Martin

George Martin

1926-2016

A Melancholy Happy Trails to Sir George Martin, who died yesterday at the age of 90. It was Martin, a record producer in London specializing in both classical music and comedy recordings at EMI Parlophone Records, who in 1962 to take a chance and signed a Liverpool rock and roll band, a band that had been turned down by two other record labels, to a recording contract.  That band was, of course, The Beatles, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.  

Martin served as producer on all but one of The Beatles albums, and continued to serve on other Beatles-related projects (the "Anthology" TV documentaries and album, the Cirque du Soleil show "Love" in Las Vegas, for example) for the rest of his life.  In a statement released today to note Martin's passing, Paul McCartney stated that "if anyone deserves the title of 'fifth Beatle', it's George Martin."

This paragraph from Britain's The Guardian newspaper closed its obituary to Martin this way:

And sometimes it seemed like George Martin really didn’t want to escape the Beatles’ shadow. Certainly he seemed to come to terms with the Beatles’ legacy far quicker than the Beatles themselves did, to realise that what had happened in the studios at Abbey Road between 1962 and 1969 was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, something that was never going to be repeated, or eclipsed or even equaled by anything that happened subsequently. While Paul McCartney was refusing to perform Beatles songs live, and John Lennon was lashing out in interviews, constantly trying to deflate the band’s myth, Martin was pragmatically noting that neither of them were going to make solo records as good as the records they’d made together. He worked intermittently with McCartney – most famously arranging the high-drama orchestral break of 1973’s Live and Let Die – produced the soundtrack to the disastrous 1978 film adaptation of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and British classical composer John Rutter’s 1979 Beatles Concerto. He oversaw the post-production of the music on the mid-90s Beatles’ Anthology compilations, but curiously pleaded failing hearing when it came to producing two “new” Beatles using old Lennon demos. He remained unfailingly modest about his role in the band’s success: “I can’t imagine anyone who’s been luckier than I have,” he said towards the end of his life, perhaps safe in the knowledge that he wasn’t the only one blessed by immense good fortune the day the Beatles walked into his studio.

RIP George Martin.

Movie Review - "Good Ol' Freda"

I first heard about the documentary movie, "Good Ol' Freda", a few months back and made a mental note to make sure I saw it, but thanks to a conversation last week with friend Nick Frankhart, I got off my duff and ordered the DVD from Amazon (less than ten bucks!).

It is the story of Freda Kelly, who was a teenager working in some corporate typing pool in Liverpool back in 1962.  One day on her lunch hour, she and some co-workers went to see a local band play at the Cavern Club.  The band was, of course, The Beatles, and Freda became an immediate fan.  Shortly thereafter, she joined a Beatles Fan Club in Liverpool, and soon after that, she was hired by Brian Epstein to be the secretary for the Official Beatles Fan Club.  At the age of seventeen (yes, she was just seventeen...) she was working closely with Epstein and "the lads", who were, essentially, just four guys from the same neighborhood as she.

She held that position for close to ten years, until the band broke up, and the Fan Club was dissolved, a decision that was largely hers.  Freda had never told her story, never wrote a book, never revealed the close confidences that she shared with The Beatles, never cashed in on her proximity to the most famous rock band in history.  A few years ago, some young film makers approached her, and she agreed to be a part of this project so that her grandchildren would know of her role in this remarkable story.

In the movie, Freda tells how she got to know the Beatles and their families as well.  Remember, in 1962, each of the Beatles' parents (or the aunt who raised him in John Lennon's case) were still alive, and Starr and Harrison were still living with them.  Freda tells stories of meeting and sharing delightful times with the Starkeys and Harrisons.  I loved how she still always refers to Ringo Starr as "Richey".  (Similarly, Brian Epstein was always "Eppy" to her.)

After the band and the fan club dissolved, Freda continued to work as a secretary in various jobs over the years ("I had to make a living").  She raised two children and is now a grandmother.  She gave way most of her Beatles "stuff".  The remnants of her association with the group exists in three or four cardboard boxes in her attic.  She treasures her days with the lads to whom she was "good ol' Freda".  She was a part of their families, as one of them mentions at the closing of the film, and this movie is one that every Beatles fan should see.

Freda Then

Freda Now

To Absent Friends - Cynthia Lennon

Cynthia Lennon, the first wife of Beatle John Lennon, died today at age 75, a victim of cancer.  She and Lennon were married from 1962 to 1968.  She was a part of the history of the Beatles at that time.  As such, her passing is worth noting.

Her son, Julian Lennon, was with her throughout her last days, and he released this tribute to his mother upon her passing.

RIP Cynthia Lennon.

Fake Beatles

Marilyn and I ventured out to the Homestead Carnegie Library Music Hall last night to see The Fab Four, a Beatles tribute band, or, as Marilyn puts it, "Fake Beatles".  We have seen three different such bands over the years, and we are convinced that The Fab Four are (is?) the best "fake Beatles" that we have seen.

The act began with a guy impersonating Ed Sullivan and introducing the four "youngsters".  The first act was the group doing Beatles tunes from the Fab Four/Beatlemania/Ed Sullivan era while wearing the black suits and ties.  In the second act, they came out in Sgt. Pepper outfits and sang songs from that era, and then concluded with "John" in the white suit singing "Imagine" (which wasn't actually a "Beatles" song, but why quibble?), and closed with a couple of tunes from the Rooftop Concert Let It Be era.

I was most surprised that the group did "A Day in the Life" which is so musically intricate (and is often rated as The Beatles' best song of all by many), that it is hard to duplicate outside of a studio, but this group did a terrific job of it.  They also sang "Revolution" and that number really brought down the house.

Let's face it, no one, NO ONE, can be THE BEATLES, but when the originals are no longer with us, good tribute bands have a place in show biz, if only to expose whole new generations to such terrific music.  So, if you ever have a chance to see The Fab Four perform, by all means do so.

And a word about the venue.  The Homestead Carnegie Library Music Hall is a true gem.  Small and intimate, terrific acoustics, and free parking on the street outside the Hall.  True, the old style wooden seats can be tough on the posterior, but it's a small price to pay for seeing a concert at such a great old place.   If you have chance to see one of your favorite acts there, by all means do so.

It Was 50 Years Ago Today.....

Unless you have been living under a rock and avoiding all media of late, you know that it was fifty years ago tonight, February 9, 1964, that The Beatles made their historic first live appearance on American television on the Ed Sullivan Show.  A then-record 78 million Americans watched that show, and popular music in America was never the same.

In 2003, there was a DVD set released that contained all four of the Sullivan shows on which The Beatles appeared.  The complete shows, all acts and all of the commercials.  In addition to seeing The Beatles, this set is a remarkable time capsule of American popular culture, and that is what I wish to write about today.

I will say right off the bat, that fifty years later, The Beatles remain incredible.  It never gets old seeing and hearing them sing, and watching them sing live, as they did on the Sullivan shows, is to use a word that they introduced to us, absolutely fab!

As for the Ed Sullivan Show - not so much.

You might often hear older folks waxing nostalgic and saying things like "I wish there were shows like Ed Sullivan's still on today."  Don't believe them. To celebrate this 50th anniversary, and in anticipation of writing this post, last night I watched that Sullivan show from 2/9/64, and I have to tell you, it took all in my power to stay off of the fast forward button.  Here's what you saw:

• The Beatles opened the show and did three numbers.
• They were then followed by a magician doing card tricks.  Card tricks! I kid you not.  Can you imagine the phone call from his agent?  "The good news is I got you a gig on the Ed Sullivan Show.  The bad news is you are following The Beatles."
• Two musical numbers from the Broadway show "Oliver". That wasn't bad, and it did feature, playing the Artful Dodger, a young Davy Jones, the future Monkee.
• Frank Gorshin doing eight - EIGHT! - minutes of bad impressions and unfunny material.
• USA Olympic Terry McDermott introduced from the audience.
• Old bag British music hall performer Tessie O'Shea getting seven - SEVEN! - minutes singing and playing a banjo.  I am not making that up. If ever the past and future of British musical entertainment was in one place at one time, it was the night Tessie O'Shea and The Beatles were on the same a TV show.
• The very unfunny and very forgettable comedy team of McCall & Brill.
• Two more numbers from The Beatles.
• The show closed with an act of acrobats. Again, I am not making that up. I suppose that their agent had the same conversation with them as the magician's.

When I first got this DVD set back in '03, I made the effort to watch all four of the shows in their entirety, and by about mid-way through the third show, I gave up, and went the the FF button to stop on The Beatles and some of the acts that I might have wanted to see.

For over twenty years, the Ed Sullivan Show was "must see TV", but times and tastes change.  Very few forms of entertainment are timeless.  The Beatles are timeless, but there is a reason why there are no Ed Sullivan Shows today.

The Beatles' Lesser Hits

It has long been a contention of mine that a sampling of any set of recordings made by The Beatles would make great listening.  It's easy to come up with a list of The Beatles' greatest songs, well, maybe not that easy since there were so many of them, but I had the idea of putting together a playlist of some of their lesser known, or at least, lesser played, songs, and calling it "The Beatles' Lesser Hits".

Again, not an easy task, since there are so many great songs and recordings by the Fab Four.  Anyway, here is my list.  Twenty-one songs in all:

• Hold Me Tight
• This Boy
• I'll Get You
• I Call Your Name
• No Reply
• Rock and Roll Music
• I'll Follow the Sun
• I'll Be Back
• I've Just Seen a Face
• Roll Over Beethoven
• Johnny B. Good
• Memphis, Tennessee
• It Won't Be Long
• I'm Only Sleeping
• Girl
• I'm Looking through You
• She's Leaving Home
• Tell Me Why
• The Night Before
• Doctor Robert
• Two of Us

Admit it, YOU want a CD of this for your car, don't you?

Maybe there will have to be a "Volume II" of these lesser hits.

Yet Another Entry on The Beatles

As regular readers know, I am a big fan of the world's greatest rock & roll band, The Beatles, so allow me to recommend yet another publication on the Fab Four.  It is a tabloid published by USA Today on The Beatles in celebration of "The 50th Anniversary of Rock's Greatest Band".  Now available at your local newsstand for $4.95.  It is done in typical USA Today fashion - short stories, lots of pictures, and lots of charts and lists.


The paper lists "The 20 Best" Beatles songs.  I'll list them with no comment, and let the debate begin:

1. Ticket to Ride
2. I Want to Hold Your Hand
3. A Day in the Life
4. Elanor Rigby
5. Norwegian Wood
6. Penny Lane
7. Hey, Jude
8. Strawberry Fields Forever
9. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
10. The Fool on the Hill
11. Abbey Road medley
12. Girl
13. I Saw Her Standing There
14. Please Please Me
15. Let It Be
16. Here, There and Everywhere
17. Drive My Car
18. A Hard Day's Night
19. Come Together
20. Here Comes the Sun

OK, a few comments:

• Hard to argue the greatness of any of these songs, but another list of 20 completely different songs would still be pretty good, I'll bet.
• The only one that I would say doesn't belong here is Drive My Car.
• Never saw Ticket to Ride rated so high on lists like this
• Why does "Hello, Good-bye" never appear on any of these lists?  I have it in my own personal top ten.
• Think I'll put together a playlist of these 20 songs.  Would make a damn fine CD for me to listen to as I drive my car.

The magazine also debates which is The Beatles greatest album.  In 2003 Rolling Stone rated the 500 Greatest Albums.  In that poll, Sgt. Pepper ranked #1 with Revolver at #3, Rubber Soul at #5, and the White Album at #10.  In a 2011 Rolling Stone readers' poll, Revolver had moved to #1, edging out Abbey Road by two votes, with The White Album third, and Sgt. Pepper fourth.  Other sources had always ranked Sgt. Pepper at the top, but more recent polls (since 2010) have Revolver moving into the top spot.  Nine different music critics and historians debate this issue.  Very interesting stuff.

Anyway, always a fun topic and, as I have said before, anything that prompts you to start playing this music again is worthwhile.

To Absent Friends: Leroy Neiman, Victor Spinetti

While on vacation last week, we learned of the passing of two pop culture figures, artist Leroy Neiman and British actor Victor Spinetti.


Neiman is most known, I suppose, for his paintings of sports figures, an example of which is included at the top of this post.  However, a Google Images search under Neiman's names reveals lots of other cool works that he did over the years, including artwork for Playboy magazine back in the '60's and '70's, and one very cool portrait of Marilyn Monroe.  He was 91.





Spinetti died at the age of 83, and IMDB shows a long list of credits for him, as well as the fact that he won a Tony Award in 1965.  He may be best known, however, for his role as the frenetic TV director in The Beatles' 1964 classic, "A Hard Day's Night."  Spinetti also appeared in both "Help" and "Magical Mystery Tour" and, thus, he is the only actor, other than The Beatles themselves, to appear in all of their movies.  He was 82.







RIP Leroy Neiman and Victor Spinetti.