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Shirley Temple was my childhood friend. She made me happy. A Great American. All around the world.

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono on Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of the legendary musician's shock murder with a call for gun control. "The death of a loved one is a hollowing experience," tweeted the 87-year-old artist, who still lives in the Dakota building in Manhattan outside of which her husband was shot four decades ago. "After 40 years, Sean, Julian and I still miss him. 'Imagine all the people living life in peace,'" she wrote, quoting the 1971 song she co-wrote with Lennon that became the best-selling single of his solo career. Ono, who witnessed her husband's murder at...

A taste of Beatlemania in the 1960s In 1963, CBS News characterized Beatlemania as an "epidemic" that had "seized" Britain's teenage population. Soon, it would "infect" America.

The other big quote from the interview which will live on: “When John got shot, aside from the pure horror of it, the lingering thing was, OK, well now John’s a martyr. A JFK. So what happened was, I started to get frustrated because people started to say, “Well, he was The Beatles.” And me, George and Ringo would go, “Er, hang on. It’s only a year ago we were all equal-ish.” Yeah, John was the witty one, sure. John did a lot of great work, yeah. And post-Beatles he did more great work, but he also did a lot...

SNIP The Sankei Sports newspaper said McCartney was admitted to this hospital in Tokyo when the infection worsened, although there's no confirmation he is in hospital. (Video report at source link.)

Musical moments that capture the attention of a national audience - and beyond - never seem to be in short supply. Last week, Bruno Mars set a ratings record with 115 million people watching his Super Bowl performance. A few months ago, the talk was about Beyonce’s surprise album. And there’s still discussion of That Miley Moment at the MTV Video Music Awards. But moments that spark a musical revolution? A dramatic altering of the pop culture landscape? A true moment for historians to analyze? Rare indeed, which is what makes the 50th anniversary of what is considered the start...

FULL TITLE: 'I felt I was on trial for murdering the Beatles': Yoko says fans wrongly convicted her for 40 years Yoko Ono has told how being blamed for The Beatles’ split made her feel like she was on trial for murder. She said: ‘It feels like I was accused of something that I didn’t do, which was breaking up The Beatles. It’s like you’re accused of murder and you’re in prison and you can’t get out.’ Since the Fab Four broke up in 1970, Miss Ono has been blamed by many fans for their demise because she was in...

The dentist who purchased John Lennon's rotten molar for $31,000 at a 2011 auction now has plans for the tooth: He's getting it genetically sequenced in the hopes of cloning the musician, who died in 1980

LONDON --Paul McCartney and his girlfriend Nancy Shevell are engaged, his publicist said Friday, nearly four years after they were first spotted together.

The house of the former Beatle Ringo Starr has been under threat for a number of years. Beatles lovers in Liverpool have united in a bid to save Ringo Starr's home which is under threat of demolition. The Save Madryn Street (SMS) campaign will be launched at the city's Hard Day's Night Hotel. It will be headed by local Ringo lookalike Max Frudd. Born Richard Starkey on 7 July 1940, the drummer lived at the house for the early years of his life. The Victorian terrace in Madryn Street, Toxteth, is one of hundreds in the "Welsh Streets" area to...

...A mono-sound copy Two Virgins, which he recorded with Yoko Ono, is expected to fetch at least £2,500. When the avant-garde LP was released in November 1968 it was notable for being sold in brown paper bags because the sleeve controversially featured a naked picture of the famous couple on the cover. Although a limited release of 5,000 stereo versions of the album were available in shops, fans had to write to the record label to purchase a mono copy of the record. The exact number of mono copies sold is not known, but auction organisers say it is likely...

I find myself in an unusual and slightly strange situation: I am in disagreement with Cardinal George Pell. This has never happened to me before, and I’m not sure that I like it. In a sermon last week, the cardinal had a go at the Beatles, and in particular John Lennon, whom he described as “the best known of the Beatles, who once claimed they were better known than Jesus Christ”. Well, so he did: but John Lennon wasn’t the same phenomenon at all as the Beatles. Cardinal Pell attacked in particular Imagine, in which, as the cardinal reminds us,...

Ringo Starr kept his 70th birthday celebration going on Tuesday night (July 7) with a concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall that was positively star-studded, thanks in part to "a little help from his friend," Paul McCartney. The former Beatles bandmates topped off the show by surprising audience members with a performance of "Birthday" from "The Beatles [White Album]," and appropriately so. With McCartney on lead vocals and Starr behind the drum kit, the duo performed with classic rock 'n' roll flair. "Birthday" was preceded by another all-star collaboration, when Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band played "With...

The Beatles' record label Apple is to release material to download for the first time - but the music of the Fab Four will not be included. Apple has remastered 15 albums, including Mary Hopkin's Post Card, to be released digitally and on CD. The work of The Beatles has never been cleared for download, partly because of a trademark dispute with iTunes owner Apple. Earlier this year, Sir Paul McCartney said "one day it's going to happen..." "I know iTunes would like to do it, so one day it's going to happen." He said the delay had been down...

THE shocking images of oil-covered wildlife and ruined beaches across the Gulf of Mexico have horrified millions. But passionate green campaigner Sir Paul McCartney believes the environmental disaster may have a silver lining, with the search for clean, renewable energy now being pushed forward. The Beatles legend said: "Sadly we need disasters like this to show people. Some people don't believe in climate warming - like those who don't believe there was a Holocaust. "But the facts indicate that there's something going on and we've got to be aware of it if we want our kids to inherit a decent...

One of Abbey Road Studios’ most famous clients hopes that the facility, which has reportedly been put up for sale, can be saved. Paul McCartney, speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight television show on Tuesday, said there have been efforts to save Abbey Road by “a few people who have been associated with the studio for a long time,” although he did not name those people or include himself among them. “I have so many memories there with the Beatles,” he added. “It still is a great studio. So it would be lovely for someone to get a thing together to...

The two remaining Beatles have teamed up for a duet on Starr's forthcoming solo album, Y Not. It's a band renuion! Sort of ... Paul McCartney appears on two tracks... "Paul was doing the Grammys, so he came over to the house and was playing bass on [new song] Peace Dream," Starr explained. "I played him this other track and Paul said, 'Give me the headphones. Give me a pair of cans'. And he went to the mic and he just invented that part where he follows on my vocal. That was all Paul McCartney, and there could be nothing...

LONDON – Lucy Vodden, who provided the inspiration for the Beatles' classic song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," has died after a long battle with lupus. She was 46. Her death was announced Monday by St. Thomas' Hospital in London, where she had been treated for the chronic disease for more than five years, and by her husband, Ross Vodden. Britain's Press Association said she died last Tuesday. Hospital officials said they could not confirm the day of her death. Vodden's connection to the Beatles dates back to her early days, when she made friends with schoolmate Julian Lennon,...

"This history of American popular music culminates with the splintering of music culture by the Fab Four." ...Critiquing critics "It is often said that history is written by the victors, but in the case of pop music, that is rarely true," Wald writes. "The victors tend to be out dancing, while the historians sit at their desks, assiduously chronicling music they cannot hear on mainstream radio." It's a valid conceit, yet it's hardly revolutionary. In fact, it was much more clearly articulated 30 years ago, when the sage philosopher David Lee Roth noted: "Rock critics like Elvis Costello because rock...

Just weeks after Bob Dylan announced he wanted to collaborate with fellow legend Sir Paul McCartney, moves are afoot to bring the two superstars together. Industry insiders say Macca is set to team up with Dylan in California over the summer, where the pair are expected to work on new songs as a duo. The news comes after Dylan declared this month that he found the idea of working with the former Beatle “exciting”. McCartney’s spokesman then declared their man would be “very interested” in a collaboration. “Paul has a home in California not too far from Bob’s so the...