Paul McCartney returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater 45 years after the Beatles made their U.S. television debut there.

The woman who inspired The Beatles' song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is seriously ill, according to John Lennon's son Julian.

For years it was thought the song was an ode to hallucinogenic drug LSD, but it was later revealed that Lucy O'Donnell, a nursery classmate of Julian's, was the muse.

As the story goes, one day Lennon was picking Julian up from nursery when his son showed him a picture he had drawn of a girl surrounded by starlike shapes.

His father then used the image as the inspiration for the song that features on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in 1967.

From thebeatles.com...

We are delighted to announce the release of the original Beatles catalogue, which has been digitally re-mastered for the first time, for worldwide CD release on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 (09-09-09), the same date as the release of the widely anticipated "The Beatles: Rock Band" video game.

Each of the CDs is packaged with replicated original UK album art, including expanded booklets containing original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited period, each CD will also be embedded with a brief documentary film about the album. On the same date, two new Beatles boxed CD collections will also be released.

John Goodman flying into Tegel Airport from New York at 8am for the Berlin Film Festival Berlin, Germany .... Actor JOHN GOODMAN is "scared to death" of returning to the stage in Broadway play WAITING FOR GODOT - after years of living in laid back New Orleans, Louisiana.

Producers of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival announced the lineup for the 2009 festival this morning. The festival is April 24-26 & April 30-May 3.

The big acts this year include Wynton Marsalis, the Dave Matthews Band, James Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Spoon, Tony Bennett, The Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Wilco and many, many more.

Pearl Jam has unearthed a host of unreleased tracks and special surprises from its vaults for a reissue of its 1991 debut album, "Ten."

the greatest rock and roll album of all time was released on november 22, 1968. the beatles by the beatles, (or the white album as it is known in pop culture vernacular), is a sprawling, chaotic two record masterpiece that can't be pinned down to any fixed conception of what a rock album should be. even today musicians are trying to emulate the breadth and scope that the white album delivers; it is truly one of the few records that has a little something for everyone. from the beach boys/chuck berry send-up of 'back in the ussr' to the grandeur of the closing track 'goodnight' it has an enduring, appealing magic that even today seems to grow with every listen. when taken as a whole it's like a three course dinner, very satisfying, while still leaving room for dessert ...

this was the album that really changed my life. 1968 was a very weird year, things were changing very fast all over the world (i remember my aunt claiming it was the end of the world during the riots after martin luther king, jr was shot). but i was only 12 so to me that was just the way it was supposed to be. nothing had been normal in my life to that point and that was a time where it felt as if anything goes. it was the year i found sex, drugs and rock and roll. my aunt gave me her old guitar for my birthday in January and i was off to the races. constantly listening to songs on the radio and trying to pick them apart for chords or watching shindig and hullabaloo hoping to see the fingers on the frets, (i woulda learned a lot faster if they had an early emp-tv back then). and, the music seemed to be getting cooler as i got older, like it was following my lead (altho now i know it was the other way around). i started reading and listening to anything and everything ... and i kinda sucked up as much as i could, as fast as i could, from that year on.

it's now known that the beatles were also going through a lot of changes that year. at the time no one had any idea of the turmoil within the greatest band in the world, the output had slowed but the music was so much better. they were no longer those lovable mop-tops. the fab four had found new loves and interests that made the whole concept of stardom a bit less attractive. in february of '68 all the beatles and their friends and lovers went on a sabbatical to india to study meditation under the maharishi yogi. while there the beatles collectively wrote over 35 working songs. they left separately after it was found that his exhaultedness was chasing the young women in the group like a drunken harpo marx, (john became very bitter in the aftermath and wrote a scathing song about the guru that evolved into 'sexy sadie'), and oh yeah, ringo hated the food. it would be the last time they would gather as a group for anything other than making records. and they only had that to keep them together from that point on ...

the white album sessions began on may 30th with the initial sessions focused on john's 'revolution' (which was morphed into to three radically different released versions) and ended on the 21st of october 1968. in between the band had many rows, with even the mild mannered ringo quitting the band for 2 weeks because of the squabbling. of course no word of anything rotten in beateland got out, but the feel of their music on the white album had definitely gotten edgier, and in john's case, more personal. gone were the frilly promises of a psychedelic wonderland envisioned only a year ago. this was no mystery tour, it was more like a misery tour. john even reported later that it was really a solo record by the band, each one using the rest to highlight their songs.

yet the white album, even with its fractured quirkiness, is more a beatle record in feeling than 'sgt. pepper', which relied more on studio wizardry over songwriting prowess. each song on the white one is like a celebration of life itself; the loose studio feeling of songs like 'birthday' and 'yer blues' with hooping and hollering all throughout, the little snippets of songs that float in and out, the heartfelt ballads wedged in between the raucous rockers, the sense that every song did not fit with the last, all made for a roller coaster of a ride. even the dreaded 'revolution 9' is a snapshot of the times the beatles were living in, with it's aural description of the wars, riots, and chaos of 1968. in fact the whole l.p. encapsulates it's surroundings of its time more than any other rock-n-roll record, while still sounding relevant and mysterious, even after 40 years of repeated listenings. the album is like life, obla-di obla-da, it goes on...

i still have my my first vinyl white album. i got it on xmas of '68 and it is #0307809, (i haven't found one with a number lower, yet , but i'm not done looking). the worn l.p. still resides in my archives, along with about another few hundred other beatle albums, (8 of those being copies of the white one because i kept playing them til they were unplayable... plus 4 on cd, because i keep finding lower numbers, daggnnabbitt!)

i have tried to collect as much of the white album outtakes over the years as is possible, and have amassed all that is unknown that i know is possibly out and about... except for a vinyl mono copy of the white one, (if ya got one for sale i am in the market), the 'take 3' of 'helter skelter', and the 20 something minute version of 'revolution 1'...

but i am afraid if i ever do find them my hunger for music will finally be filled and then i'll just wither and fade away. or i may just find another album to dwell upon... but i don't think so.

LONDON – Paul McCartney says it's time an experimental Beatles track saw the light of day. McCartney says he wants to release "Carnival of Light," a 14-minute experimental track the Fab Four recorded in 1967 but never released.

Some classic punk rock photos from the new book "The Clash"...

Obamamania met Beatlemania Thursday, as Liverpool hosted an MTV Europe Music Awards show energized by the city's musical heritage and the U.S. presidential election.

a movie adaptation of the novel 'the road' by cormac mccarthy is in post-production, slated for release sometime in 2009. starring viggo mortensen and charlize theron.

In the midst of a mad dash toward the election, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will make time Wednesday to appear on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" with its host, Jon Stewart.

The Beatles have been the subject of so many books that the memories of everyone who ever knew, loved, or sponged off of them have been overharvested to the point of extinction. So why bother inviting Philip Norman's new 851-page biography of John Lennon into your life? Even if the book is good, you'll just get swept up in how funny, brilliant, troubled, insecure, caustic, and loving Lennon was — and then, just as you watch him turn 40 and find peace and rediscover his guitar, he'll get murdered after rushing home from the studio to tuck his boy into bed.

Pop star Madonna and Guy Ritchie, her film director husband, are planning to divorce, British reports said Wednesday.