We wish all of you a very Happy Holiday Season and
Peace and Love in the New Year!
Mark, Carol, Michelle & Jessica Lapidos
Beatles Year in Review!
I guess the biggest news in the Beatles world was the availability of The Beatles catalog on iTunes on November 16th. All of their albums make the Top 40 downloads and nearly 40 of the top 200 songs downloaded were Beatles. For a couple of weeks, Here Comes The Sun was ahead of all other Beatles songs. Then Let It Be took over the Top Beatles song.
Ringo released his first self produced album in January, 2010, called Y Not! It included Walk With You, with Paul sharing the vocals.
In a rare allignment of the stars, both Paul & Ringo toured this summer and actually had a couple of dates overlapping. The indisputable musical highlight had to be Ringo’s 70th birthday concert at Radio City Music Hall. Paul surprised Ringo for a finale AFTER the finale with, of course, Birthday. Ringo came leaping on stage on to his drum kit to join in. We have NEVER seen an audience so go wild in our lives. It was a truly magical moment. You could actually FEEL the excitement!
Click here to see Paul and Ringo -Birthday Video
Yoko celebrated her birthday in February with a concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Sean was the musical director and featured a Plastic Ono Band reunion with Eric Clapton, Jim Keltner and Klaus Voormann. Paul Simon and Bette Midler also performed.
There were many 70th birthday celebrations honoring John in October. First, Yoko, and Producer Jack Douglas put out Double Fantasy Stripped Down. It really was a surprise and fascinating release, where John’s voice was up front and personal. Yoko also released a box set of John’s 8 albums, remastered, and a hits collection on CD and DVD.
Yoko attended the NY premiere of Nowhere Boy and the audience loved it. It is ashame the movie didn’t go into wider release, but it is coming out on DVD in the next few months. Our own Martin Lewis set up the premiere screening with free tickets for many of you.
In honor of the 40th Anniversary of the release of George’s All Things Must Pass, Capitol released a limited edition Vinyl version, which became one of our bestsellers of the season. Vinyl is still alive! This is one of the greatest album in rock history and everyone should own a copy, whether it is on vinyl or CD.
Paul had a few major honors in Washington, DC this year. In June, he was given the prestigious Gershwin Award at the White House, where he performed. Our Chicago MC Terri Hemmert and friend, journalist Larry Kane were in attendance. On December 5, he was awards the Kennedy Center Honors. This began an 8 day period where it seemed Paul was EVERYWHERE! On the 9th, he performed Scrambled Eggs with Jimmy Fallon on Jimmy’s show and it became an instant facebook sensation!
Two nights later he performed in unprecedented FOUR SONGS on Saturday Night Live and appeared in a few skits as well. Then lat Monday, he played New York’s famous Apollo Theatre for the first time. It was a free concert, by invitation only, hosted by Sirius/XM in honor of their 20 millionth subscriber. It was a night to remember. There is a Band on the Run Paul McCartney Radio station on Sirius?XM going on all month and doesn’t end until Sunday.
