The surviving Beatles are releasing albums within days of one another, but Ringo Starr says it's just a coincidence.

Ringo tells Spinner.com he had dinner with Paul McCartney just after Christmas and hadn't even realized Paul was releasing his own LP:

"No, there’s no rivalry. Paul is Paul, Ringo is Ringo and this is what we do. We don’t phone each other and say, ‘You can’t you bring your record out because I’ve got one!’. We live our lives, we make our music and pick a release date. This was the date we picked and that’s just how it is."

Starr’s new release, Ringo 2012, came out earlier this week. It’s believed McCartney’s new record, titled Kisses on the Bottom, will be released next week.

Ringo’s album features nine tracks, with guest performances from Joe Walsh of the Eagles and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics.
Paul’s latest is a collection of standards that he remembers from childhood, in addition to a couple of original songs. The album includes appearances by Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton.

More than 40 years after the Beatles recorded "Here Comes The Sun," they've found the George Harrison guitar solo that never made the final cut.

The Beatles' producer, Sir George Martin, along with his son, Giles, and Harrison's son, Djani, made the discovery at London's Abbey Road studios, where the Beatles recorded the song in the summer of 1969. Harrison recorded the short solo on electric guitar, in contrast to the acoustic guitar tracks on the version that was released.

Here's the video clip:

The video comes from Martin Scorsese's documentary, Living in the Material World, which has just been released on DVD.

Almost 50 years after the Beatles dazzled their first American audience, we're getting to see a batch of concert photographs never before published.

The photos are the work of Mike Mitchell, who was 18 years old when the Beatles performed at the Washington, DC, Coliseum on February 11, 1964. Mitchell -- who worked for a now-defunct DC magazine -- scored a press pass and had unrestricted access to the stage. He took full advantage, snapping scores of black-and-white photographs of John, George, Paul and Ringo, individually and together.

The photos capture the Beatles' energy and appeal. Mitchell -- who'd stored the negatives in his basement and forgotten about them for years -- digitized the images and transferred them back to gelatin silver prints.

Christie's auction house in New York is auctioning the photos at starting prices of between $1,000 and $6,000 each. The auction takes place July 20.

Click here for a peek at the Beatles concert prints and information on the sale.

A visitor sent us this photo, which has been in his family since the late 60s or early 70s. If you know the band's name -- and anything about them -- please let us know.

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And we have plenty to celebrate!

In the 12 months we’ve been streaming around the world, we’ve far exceeded our listenership projections:

• In the latest month, people spent an aggregate of 18,000 hours listening to British Invasion Radio.
• Almost 100 Live365 listeners have named British Invasion Radio as their favorite radio station.
• 1,000 fans have added us as a preset on their Internet radios.
• Over the last 12 months, the average listener kept British Invasion Radio tuned in for almost one hour per session.
• We now rank #150 in popularity among Live365’s almost 10,000 radio stations.
• British Invasion Radio is now carried on iTunes Radio and is a member of Live365’s eliteX5000 stations.
• Close to 50,000 people have visited the British Invasion Radio website in the last year.

And we couldn’t have done any of it with you! We truly appreciate your support and look forward to many more years of bringing you the music that rocked a generation.

 

We wonder what John Lennon would have to say about all of the hoopla surrounding the celebration of his 70th birthday on Saturday.

With just a few days to go, here are just a few of the hundreds of events scheduled to remember perhaps the greatest songwriter and performer ever:

• John's 70th will be highlighted with a time capsule ceremony which will preserve his post-Beatles recordings until 2040. Organizers asked Lennon fans to contribute birthday wishes and their own thoughts to the three time capsules, which will divided among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and locations in Liverpool and Iceland. The time capsules will also include newly restored prints of his album artwork and an essay on his John's life. Click here for more information.
• The three surviving members of the Quarrymen, the skiffle group that Lennon co-founded in the late 1950s, will play a special charity concert a few blocks from the late Beatle's Manhattan home. They'll play some of the early rock standards they performed with Lennon, Paul MCCartney, and George Harrison in the years before the Beatles formed. More on the Quarrymen's concert here.
• Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, wants everyone to join in celebration of his birthday by tweeting peace and birthday wishes to the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland. She'll be there on Oct. 9 to perform with the Plastic Ono Band and attend a lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower to mark the occasion. There will be a live feed of the lighting online at this website. Ono says, "We hope to create a shift in global consciousness for peace in John Lennon's memory. We are gathering all the wishes from Twitter and they are being sent to Imagine Peace Tower."
• John's first wife, Cynthia, and their son Julian will unveil the John Lennon Peace Monument created by Lauren Voiers at Chevasse Park in Liverpool. Click here for more.
• Also in Liverpool on Saturday, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra will present a special evening of Lennon’s classic songs with Claire Martin, Curtis Stigers and Mark McGann.
• At Liverpool's Cavern Club, there are special events taking place all month. Click here for details.
• Let's not forget the product tie-ins: Lennon guitar reissued: Gibson Guitar Co. is out with a limited edition version of the J-160E acoustic model that Lennon played. The guitar is being made available in three different versions: The first, finished in vintage sunburst and limited to 500 pieces, represents the guitar he used from 1963 to 1964. The second is a Custom Shop "Imagine" model. The third has a thin, natural finish and sketches of John and Yoko as was used during the bed-ins in 1969.
• EMI has released remastered John Lennon CDs, Signature Box and "Gimme Some Truth" sets, and "Double Fantasy Stripped Down."
• "Nowhere Boy," a film about Lennon's early years, hits U.S. theatres tomorrow; and on Saturday, the documentary "LennonNYC" will be screened in New York, where he was gunned down by Mark David Chapman on December 8, 1980. The 30th anniversary of his murder is expected to bring a new wave of Lennon tributes in December.

It's a new, free service from the people who bring you BritishInvasionBands.com. British Invasion Radio is our 24/7 internet-only radio station, featuring more than 500 of the best songs from the British Invasion of the 1960s.

We’ve designed British Invasion Radio with you in mind. For those who experienced the Invasion first hand, this will be a musical trip down memory lane. If you’re less familiar with British Invasion music, you’ll get a good taste of what it’s all about, because we showcase all of the major bands and singers, along with a few lesser-known artists and tunes. And to add to the variety, we’re also playing music from the second generation of Invasion performers… so along with the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Searchers and the Hollies, you’ll also hear songs from Elton John, Queen, Van Morrison and Rod Stewart.

British Invasion Radio began its internet-only broadcast on April 19, 2010. Our signal is streamed live, 24 hours a day, through Live365. The Live365 radio network reaches millions of listeners worldwide, offering more breadth and depth of high-quality streaming music, talk, and audio than any other network. Listening through Live365 requires a simple sign-up but costs nothing. Listeners can upgrade to receive a special commercial-free, higher quality audio signal for a few dollars a month.

British Invasion Radio broadcasts from studios in Fort Myers, Florida. We are fully licensed and, through Live365, we pay royalties to labels, artists, songwriters and publishers through established royalty collection organizations including ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and SoundExchange.

Click here to listen.

When the Hollies' Allan Clarke told his father he planned on becoming a musician, his father advised him to save his money because rock bands don't last too long. Almost 50 years later, Clarke has proved him wrong.

"Well, Dad, I'm being inducted into a museum," Clarke said last night. "How's that for longevity?"

The Hollies, who have been together longer than any other British Invasion band, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a star-studded awards ceremony at New York's Waldorf Astora hotel. They joined four other performers and groups chosen this year by 600 music industry professionals.

“We started out in the ’60s — now we’re in our 60s,” said Terry Sylvester, who replaced Graham Nash. And Nash was also on hand, tongue in cheek, thanking his colleagues for having "the audacity, the gall" to have three No. 1 hits after he left the band in 1968: "The Air That I Breathe," "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)."

The Hollies were inducted by Steve Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen's guitarist, who paid tribute to The Hollies and the spirit of rock and roll. He said Clarke and Nash's "exquisite English harmonies were shared only by the Beatles."

Van Zandt also took a moment to half-jokingly describe the music business in the 21st century as “artistically, financially and spiritually bankrupt.”

Inducted along with the Hollies were Genesis, Iggy and the Stooges, Jimmy Cliff and Abba.

Much more on the Hollies here.

A few days ago, on a visit to the Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland, Sylvester talked about the induction. Here's the video:

Great Britain's heritage protection agency, The National Trust, says it may buy and preserve the Abbey Road studios, the Beatles' recording home. The proposal follows an outpouring of concern over its possible demolition.

And now two more potential buyers have emerged: Andrew Lloyd Webber and his longtime lyricist, Tim Rice. In apparently unrelated statements to the British news media, each expressed an interest in purchasing the Abbey Road studios.

Word that cash-strapped record company EMI is putting the studio building up for sale has been greeted by a wave of concern about over its possible demolition. EMI has not confirmed the report.

"It's not often that the public spontaneously suggests that we should acquire a famous building," Trust spokesman John Hewitt said. "However, Abbey Road recording studios appear to be very dear to the nation's heart."

The campaign to save the Abbey Road studios — which could be sold and turned into upscale housing in the St. John's Wood neighborhood in North London — was spurred by former Beatle Paul McCartney and prominent disc jockey Chris Evans.

McCartney, who owns a house near the studios, said he would be delighted if the building could be saved. He said some people long associated with the studio are considering an effort to preserve it.

McCartney did not, however, offer to put up the cash himself — the studios are thought to be worth between $16 million and $50 million.

The National Trust already owns the boyhood homes of McCartney and his songwriting partner, John Lennon, which have become major tourist attractions in Liverpool.

Abbey Road has become an important part of Beatles lore, in part because of the 1969 album named after the recording studio. The crosswalk in front of the building was immortalized on the album cover, and many fans visit the site each year.

Since The Beatles' heyday, Abbey Road has been one of the world's most famous rock music studios, used by artists like Pink Floyd, McCartney, George Harrison, Jeff Beck, Radiohead and others.

But EMI has been unable to find a buyer for the studio, in part because recording technology now permits many artists to record their own sessions at home using personal computers.

Reports are the 64-year-old Waller suffered a heart attack and died early this morning.

Click here for the story from RadarOnline.com

Another story on Gordon's death from the Examiner.com.

A link to Peter and Gordon's MySpace page.