50 Years Ago Today, First Bond Film, First Beatles Single. 1 Year Ago Today, Steve Jobs Died.
Big day. Steve was a fan of both James Bond and of course, The Beatles. He spent years engineering the deal to get them into iTunes.
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LONDON — Friday is Global James Bond Day, marking the 50th anniversary of the date when Britain’s most celebrated superspy first made it to the screen.
What other pop cultural phenomenon merits such half-centennial hype? The Beatles, maybe? Well, the Fab Four also had their anniversary on Friday, a half century since the release of their first single, “Love Me Do.”
Simon Hooper at CNN remarked somewhat unkindly that the double anniversary offered “a certain kind of middle-aged male. . . an unmissable opportunity to wallow in nostalgia.” So here goes.
October 1962. What a time it was to be alive, and young — and British!
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/it-was-50-years-ago-today-bond-and-the-beatles
The Beatles’ First Single ‘Love Me Do’ Turns 50
Fifty years ago today, Beatlemania began to stir when the group’s first single was released in the U.K. The A side was “Love Me Do,” the flip side “P.S. I Love You.”
“Love Me Do” was sketched out by Paul McCartney four years earlier when he was 16 years old, according to the late Ian MacDonald’s invaluable “Revolution in the Head,” a comprehensive guide to the Beatles’s recordings. (It’s believed John Lennon wrote the eight-bar middle section.) The version released on October 5, 1962, featured the four Beatles and was recorded at Abbey Road on September 4. An earlier version, with Pete Best on drums, was recorded in June ’62; it can be heard on “Anthology 1” by the Beatles, released in ‘95. A week after the September 4 sessions, producer George Martin added session drummer Andy White to the group to re-cut the track, relegating Starr to tambourine – a slight that irked Starr for decades; he released his own version of the song on his ‘98 album “Vertical Man.” The White version opened the second side of the Beatles’s U.K. debut album “Please Please Me.”
Lennon played harmonica on all versions of “Love Me Do” and according to MacDonald, its lack of blue notes gave it “the blunt vitality of working-class Northernness” that appealed to some Brits. The song has but three chords, with Lennon’s middle eight shifting to D before the song returns to its repeated C to G pattern. Though the song topped out at number 17 on the British pop charts, it serves as a telling introduction to the Beatles: raw, sparse and seemingly spontaneous with elements of rock and pop, the recording has no precedent in the then-current U.K. pop scene; and it features the voice of McCartney, who in short time would become one of the great vocalists in rock history.
Written by McCartney in ’61, “P.S. I Love You” was recorded at the September 11 sessions with White playing drums and Starr maracas. A more sophisticated tune that “Love Me Do,” it has the kind of chordal structure for which the group would soon be famous including the C# passing chord between the G and D in the verses and the deceptive cadence in the form of the Bb under the last word of the title. The blend of Lennon’s acoustic guitar and George Harrison’s electric guitar give the rhythm its uplifting texture.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/10/05/the-beatles-first-single-love-me-do-turns-50
One year after his death, Apple shares video tribute to Steve Jobs
http://www.apple.com
Friday marks one year since the death of Steve Jobs, and Apple marked the occasion by posting a video tribute to its late co-founder and a letter from CEO Tim Cook.
Users who visit apple.com are greeted with a blank white website that simply plays the video, which features black-and-white pictures of Jobs, along with audio clips from some of his greatest speeches and presentations.
The video concludes with the title "Remembering Steve," and the dates marking his birth and death. After it concludes, navigation links to the remainder of the company's website fade in to view, along with a note from Cook, Apple's chief executive.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/10/05/one-year-after-his-death-apple-shares-video-tribute-to-steve-jobs
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