The Beatles
How the teenage Carole King struck gold
Aged 18, she wrote ‘Will You (Still) Love Me Tomorrow’ which reached No 1 in the US – and the hits kept coming
Letters: In praise of the post office
Reeves’s road sense Sir: Is it stubbornness, denial, inexperience or some other agenda that prevents Rachel Reeves changing course in…
Amid the alien corn: Beautyland, by Marie-Helene Bertino
Adina – born prematurely in Pennsylvania as Voyager 1 probe is launched – believes she’s an extraterrestrial sent from Planet Cricket Rice to report on human life
Poor little rich girl: the extraordinary life of Yoko Ono
Her background was one of privilege and she married one of the most famous men of our time but the Japanese artist suffered her fair share of grief and misfortune
Across the universe – John and Paul are in each other’s songs forever
The Lennon-McCartney collaboration was one of genius from the start – and even in later years their songs continued to speak to one another, says Ian Leslie
The weirdness of the pre-Beatles pop world
As his mental health declined, the record producer Joe Meek grew increasingly fascinated by the other-worldly, communing in graveyards with Buddy Holly and the Pharaoh Ramses the Great
A new solo album by a former Beatle that – astonishingly – demands repeated plays
For artists lacking any obvious feel for the style, ‘going country’, similar to mainstream white artists dabbling in reggae in…
The problem with Paul McCartney is he wrote too many good songs
Don Bradman, the greatest cricketer of all time, was once asked if he reckoned he could have maintained his batting…
A rare combination of humour and pathos: the sublimely talented Neil Innes
The musician and parodist, whose mantra was ‘not to say no when there’s a way to say yes’, had a gift for creating happiness in private as well as public, as his widow poignantly attests
At last, a private education that wasn’t unmitigated misery
Robyn Hitchcock describes how his musical tastes were formed listening, aged 14, to Dylan, the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix on the school gramophone at Winchester
Nowhere near as miserable as I remember it: The Beatles – Let It Be reviewed
Beatles lore has long held that the film Let It Be was a depressing portrait of the band falling apart.…
How Liverpool soon outgrew the Beatles
For the bands playing at Eric’s, the celebrated Merseyside punk club of the late 1970s, even to own a Beatles record was considered embarrassing
In the dark early 1960s, at least we had the Beatles
The first half of the decade saw towns bulldozed, the Beeching cuts, everyday racism, political scandal and the threat of Armageddon. But there was also Beatlemania…
The Stradivarius of models
‘What advice would you give to your younger self?’ has become a popular question in interviews in recent years. It’s…
Eastern promises
Many suspect mystics have exploited naive westerners in search of spiritual enlightenment over the past century, Philip Hensher discovers
Author’s notebook
On the day before my seventh birthday, which I spent at my grandma’s in Yorkshire, a young man named Raymond…
I saw a film today, oh boy
My late friend Alexander Nekrassov loathed the Beatles, which I used to think was a wantonly contrary position akin to…
Our old Macca
The Paul people are out in force these days. A New Yorker profile, a book and a new documentary have…
Marrying words and melodies
Whatever your favourite theory of creativity, Paul McCartney has a cheery thumbs-up to offer. You think the secret is putting…
An odd, unsettled time
The word ‘magisterial’ consistently attaches itself to the work of David Kynaston. His eye-wateringly exhaustive four-volume history of the Old…
Paul McCartney: McCartney III
Grade: A- The greatest songwriter of the 20th century, or just one of the top two or three? Who…
Reliving the golden moment
What caught my eye towards the end of Look Again was this conversation between David Bailey and the shoe designer…
Satisfaction all round
In his latest book, the veteran pop commentator David Hepworth is concerned with satisfaction, its acquisition and maintenance. On record,…
Doo-wop deity
He toured with Little Richard, sang with Van Morrison, inspired the Beatles and Paul Simon. Graeme Thomson talks to Dion, one of the last living links to the early days of street-corner rock ’n’ roll
Public enemy
Many performers hated playing live. But freed from the stage they often made their best and wildest work, argues Graeme Thomson
