Come Together, Beatles: Here’s a Check for Three Grand

April 24, 1976, marked the last evening that Paul McCartney would spend with John Lennon. That night, Paul and his wife Linda dropped in on John and Yoko, unannounced, and the two former Beatles spent a few hours together in the Lennons' apartment in the monolithic Dakota Building in Manhattan's Upper West Side. Don't you just wonder what the Fab Two engaged in on that Saturday evening? Did they take turns bouncing 6-month-old Baby Sean on their knees? Nosh on a jar of Yoko's expensive caviar? Play "Bohemian Rhapsody" on John's turntable, hoping that Ms. Ono wouldn't screech "scaramouche, scaramouche" along with Freddie Mercury? Well, as it turns out, they sat in the Lennons' living room and watched Saturday Night Live! Imagine their surprise when SNL producer Lorne Michaels appeared on their TV screen, announcing an offer to pay the Beatles $3,000 to come together and perform three songs on his show!

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A Cardboard Hitler on British Soil: His Command Performance for Sgt. Pepper

Betcha didn't know that Adolf Hitler was almost on the cover of The Beatles' most revered album. That's right. When art director Robert Fraser and designers Jann Haworth and Sir Peter Blake began working with the band to conceptualize the cover art for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" they told each Beatle to compile a list of people they admired. The ever sardonic John Lennon suggested two historical figures bound to cause controversy: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler.

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The Beatles and The Stones: Beasts of Beard-dom

"She asks me why I'm just a hairy guy. I'm hairy noon and night. Hair that's a fright. I'm hairy high and low. Don't ask me why. Don't know." Those words from the Broadway musical "Hair" pretty much summed up the "let it all hang out, let it all hang long" philosophy of the '60s. When it came to facial hair, The Beatles were a bit more adventurous than The Rolling Stones. But in the end, Mick proved to be the furriest of them all. Here's a little something for World Beard Day 2105.

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Tony Sheridan and His Pre-Fab Beat Brothers

In the early 1970s I was rounding out my collection of Beatles LPs, when I stumbled upon one called "The Beatles Featuring Tony Sheridan - In the Beginning, Circa 1960." I considered this a real find! I hadn't been aware of any pre-1963 Beatles recordings, and I had never known the boys to collaborate on vinyl with anyone. Who the heck was Tony Sheridan? Well, if you're a follower of Fab Four history, don't miss this chapter on one of The Beatles' early, influential mentors, who was born on this date in 1940.

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George, Billy, and The Beatles’ Cease-Fire

"I'll play, you know, whatever you want me to play, or I won't play at all if you don't want to me to play. Whatever it is that will please you, I'll do it." That's the way George Harrison sarcastically responded to Paul McCartney's request that he alter his style of playing on "Two of Us," a song recorded during the tension-filled sessions that would eventually spawn The Beatles' "Let it Be" album and documentary film. By the time the band entered their late '60s period, relationships among all four members had become downright hostile. The situation had become so tense that even the usually unflappable Ringo walked out in frustration during the recording of the "White Album" in 1968, planning not to return. Eleven months later, in the midst of what Paul referred to as the "Get Back" sessions, the situation had deteriorated. Following arguments with Paul, and heated exchanges with John that nearly resulted in fisticuffs, it was George's turn to break free of the band. He left the studio one day and returned with an old friend whose phenomenal playing and gregarious nature brought about some much needed harmony. No one would dare bicker while Billy Preston was on the scene.

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