Jeremy Blackmore

Beatlemania conjures up images which define the Sixties—four mop topped musicians from Liverpool reshaping the musical and cultural landscape, surrounded by adoring, screaming fans and press photographers while police officers tried to maintain order. But now thanks to an extraordinary treasure trove of nearly a thousand photographs, newly re-discovered in Paul McCartney’s archive during lockdown, we have the opportunity to experience life for the four pairs of eyes that lived and witnessed that intense, legendary time first-hand. In a new book 1964: Eyes of the Storm, McCartney presents 275 of his photographs from six cities, Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington DC and Miami taken during a momentous three months in the Beatles’ journey, including many never-before-seen portraits of John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Late autumn 1973: a listed English manor house deep in the Oxfordshire countryside. A trio of unassuming, long-haired German musicians are hunched over banks of keyboards and wires, creating the sound of the future. Tangerine Dream are recording their breakthrough album Phaedra, the first to feature their now --classic sequencer-driven sound.

Late autumn 1973: a listed English manor house deep in the Oxfordshire countryside. A trio of unassuming, long-haired German musicians are hunched over banks of keyboards and wires, creating the sound of the future.

Les Jardins d’Éole is a green oasis on the Rue d’Aubervilliers, a Parisian park surrounded by low-cost housing and hugging the railway lines ferrying people eastwards from the Gare de l’Est. A rare place with big skies. It’s also the favourite park of British singer-songwriter Kate Stables, who migrated to Paris from Bristol 18 years ago in search of adventure with her partner and frequent musical collaborator Jesse D Vernon. On Careful of Your Keepers, the critically acclaimed new album by Stables’s band – she goes by the alias This Is The Kit – that has just been released by Rough Trade, she paints a vivid painting of life in the park – humanity at its most beautiful and heartbreaking. The meditative track in question, This Is When The Sky Gets Big, reflects one of the many things she loves about Paris – being able to travel anywhere in Europe by train. No need to bother with airports or leaving the ground. People constantly coming and going. “And the lines will take you somewhere else,” she sings.

Paul Weller’s musical career has been defined by a singular need to keep moving and breaking fresh ground. The Mod icon split The Jam at the height of their fame to break new barriers with the genre-defying The Style Council before embarking on a still prolific and vibrant thirty-year solo career. Weller, who recently turned 65, has pursued an ever-evolving career path encompassing sixties guitar pop, punk and new wave sensibilities, soul, R&B, jazz, classical, electronica and much more besides. This almost unmatched need for sonic evolution finds its equivalences only in David Bowie and his childhood heroes The Beatles. But at the heart of Weller’s odyssey is classic songwriting: his ability to convey a feeling or a mood and to speak for a generation. It’s that gift he explores in his new book Magic: A Journal of Song. Published by Genesis Publications, it offers an unprecedented insight into his creative process, collecting more than 100 lyrics from across 28 albums, accompanied by an illuminating commentary of over 25,000 words.

New photos by Paul McCartney reveal a band on the cusp of global stardom, trapped for a mad three weeks in the city of light.

New photos by Paul McCartney reveal a band on the cusp of global stardom, trapped for a mad three weeks in the city of light.

Todmorden’s Golden Lion is a venue like no other as likely to host a Scandinavian jazz night as a DJ set from Jarvis Cocker or Kevin Rowland, of Dexys Midnight Runners. It has also added a vinyl record label to its portfolio too, with sales ploughed back into the pub, to ensure it can continue to provide a venue for local musicians.

Jeremy Blackmore talks to the authors of The McCartney Legacy, a deep dive into Sir Paul McCartney's solo career Sir Paul McCartney’s headline Glastonbury set this summer was a triumphant celebration, not only of his legendary Beatles career, but of five decades as a major solo artist. Yet while he remains arguably the most written about and photographed musician in history, most biographies pay his post-Beatles career scant attention. It’s something which the respected veteran music journalist, author and critic Allan Kozinn and award-winning documentarian Adrian Sinclair have set out to correct with a groundbreaking, multivolume set The McCartney Legacy.

Nestled beneath the Pennine hills, Todmorden’s Golden Lion is a venue like no other, as likely to host a Scandinavian jazz night as a DJ set from Jarvis Cocker or Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners. It has added a vinyl record label to its portfolio too, with sales ploughed back into the pub to ensure it can continue to provide a venue for local musicians.

Nestled beneath the Pennine hills, Todmorden’s Golden Lion is a venue like no other, as likely to host a Scandinavian jazz night as a DJ set from Jarvis Cocker or Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners. It has added a vinyl record label to its portfolio too, with sales ploughed back into the pub to ensure it can continue to provide a venue for local musicians.

Jeremy Blackmore reports on the rescue and revival of a famous Bristol double-decker once used by Paul McCartney’s band Wings and now destined for a new lease of life as a travelling performance space The brightly painted psychedelic 1972 tour bus which launched Paul McCartney as a major solo artist in the wake of the Beatles’ split has been reborn as a travelling performance space inspired by the Beatles’ final concert on the roof of the Apple building in 1969. The 1953 Bristol KSW 5G ECW open-top double-decker first entered service in 1953 with the Eastern National Omnibus Company in Chelmsford, and later ran with Eastern Counties in Great Yarmouth, before finding rock and roll stardom during Paul McCartney’s first major tour with new band Wings.

Jeremy Blackmore reports on the rescue and revival of a famous Bristol double-decker once used by Paul McCartney’s band Wings and now destined for a new lease of life as a travelling performance space. The brightly painted psychedelic 1972 tour bus which launched Paul McCartney as a major solo artist in the wake of the Beatles’ split has been reborn as a travelling performance space inspired by the Beatles’ final concert on the roof of the Apple building in 1969. The 1953 Bristol KSW 5G ECW open-top double-decker first entered service in 1953 with the Eastern National Omnibus Company in Chelmsford, and later ran with Eastern Counties in Great Yarmouth, before finding rock and roll stardom during Paul McCartney’s first major tour with new band Wings.

Hidden away for decades, Joe Meek’s near-mythical “tea chest tapes” have finally seen the light of day, revealing much about the working practices of the legendary producer responsible for The Tornados’ pioneering, electronically hued 1962 single, ‘Telstar’.

Hidden away for decades, Joe Meek’s near-mythical “tea chest tapes” have finally seen the light of day, revealing much about the working practices of the legendary producer responsible for The Tornados’ pioneering, electronically hued 1962 single, ‘Telstar’.

As the long hot summer of 1983 dawned, Paul Weller was in Paris, soaking up the culture and sound of the Left Bank and preparing to reinvent himself. Hailed today as a musical chameleon never afraid to leave his comfort zone, Weller had shown the first signs of his need to move on by splitting the Jam at the height of their fame. If that distressed fans of the Mod icon, even more shocking was what was to come as he emerged with a new band – the Style Council – a new sound and a new look. Nearly four decades on, we can see how radical a change it was – and how Weller astutely turned his focus from strife-torn, divided Britain to a new optimism defined by Europe. Out went the Union Jack iconography and guitar-driven songs influenced by the Beatles, Kinks and Small Faces. In came a continental approach to clothes, artwork and music, drawing inspiration from La Nouvelle Vague, modern jazz and composers like Ravel and Debussy as well as American gospel and soul. Forming the Style Council with keyboardist Mick Talbot, the pair bonded over a love of Michel Legrand soundtracks, French fashion and Rive Gauche cafe culture, far from the suburban streets of Woking and south London where the pair had grown up.

As the long hot summer of 1983 dawned, Paul Weller was in Paris, soaking up the culture and sound of the Left Bank and preparing to reinvent himself. Hailed today as a musical chameleon never afraid to leave his comfort zone, Weller had shown the first signs of his need to move on by splitting the Jam at the height of their fame. If that distressed fans of the Mod icon, even more shocking was what was to come as he emerged with a new band – the Style Council – a new sound and a new look. Nearly four decades on, we can see how radical a change it was – and how Weller astutely turned his focus from strife-torn, divided Britain to a new optimism defined by Europe. Out went the Union Jack iconography and guitar-driven songs influenced by the Beatles, Kinks and Small Faces. In came a continental approach to clothes, artwork and music, drawing inspiration from La Nouvelle Vague, modern jazz and composers like Ravel and Debussy as well as American gospel and soul. Forming the Style Council with keyboardist Mick Talbot, the pair bonded over a love of Michel Legrand soundtracks, French fashion and Rive Gauche cafe culture, far from the suburban streets of Woking and south London where the pair had grown up.

Later this month, Paul McCartney will become the oldest performer to headline Glastonbury as, just days after his 80th birthday, he rolls out Beatles and solo classics to an audience of 100,000 and millions watching live on TV. Fifty years ago, though, with a couple of vans, children and dogs in tow, McCartney was setting off with his new band to realise a dream he’d had in the dying days of the Beatles, to play small venues and rediscover the love of playing live.

Later this month, Paul McCartney will become the oldest performer to headline Glastonbury as, just days after his 80th birthday, he rolls out Beatles and solo classics to an audience of 100,000 and millions watching live on TV. Fifty years ago, though, with a couple of vans, children and dogs in tow, McCartney was setting off with his new band to realise a dream he’d had in the dying days of the Beatles, to play small venues and rediscover the love of playing live. Heading north up the M1 and turning up unannounced at universities along the route, Wings raced through a set made up of 1950s rock’n’roll classics and a handful of new songs, promoting the back-to-basics Wildlife album before a sell-out tour of Europe that summer. It was the approach the Beatles had taken in January 1969, seen recently in Peter Jackson’s Get Back, before John Lennon ended any hopes of more concerts by telling Macca, “I think you’re daft. I want a divorce.” Wings travelled the continent in a brightly painted open-top double-decker bus with mattresses on the top deck for sunbathing and a playpen for the children, playing to adoring crowds at night. Racking up over 7,500 miles in two months, they performed 25 concerts in nine countries, bringing a taste of Beatlemania to European fans who had not seen McCartney live since 1966. Original Wings drummer Denny Seiwell recalls: “We did grunt work. We were out in the trenches. We were finding an audience, not just a Beatle audience. We had our own thing and people really listened hard. They were very indebted fans.”

For 50 years fans and critics alike have viewed Let It Be through the prism of the Beatles break-up. An acrimonious set of sessions captured in a grainy movie that chronicled their disintegration. Released in May 1970 after the legendary band’s split had become public, the movie seemed to signal the end of the Swinging Sixties. The Beatles themselves bought into that myth, describing the sessions as bleak and devoid of humour. The accompanying album was given to Phil Spector to polish for release, but the film has never been reissued on DVD despite containing live performances of some of the band’s greatest songs. Some 60 hours of footage lay on the shelves unseen for half a century. Until now.