Beatles Carnival 4

Welcome to the 4th edition of the Beatles Blog Carnival!

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First this month on the Beatles Blog Carnival is:

The Beatles Rarity

http://www.thebeatlesrarity.com/

There’s lots to see, hear, and read on TheBeatlesRarity for both the casual and die-hard Beatles fans.  

BROW (i.e The Beatles Rarity Of The Week) – These are published on the site each Monday to get your week off to a good start. It is a means of sharing with other Beatles fans from the site owner’s growing collection of 9,353 recordings. The tracks are considered rare because they have either been out of circulation for some time, were never in circulation in the first place but only available on unofficial recordings, or other reasons.

#askNat – Every Thursday they share selected Beatles-related questions they’ve received from site readers and answer these as best he can and open it up for further discussion via comments from you.

The BeatlesRarity is having a Holiday contest for 2012, Happy Nat says, “Heads up! It’s that time of year again and as in years past TheBeatlesRarity will be throwing a Holiday Contest and, of course, giving away Beatle-Prizes to the winners. There will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 prize-winners this year. Sometime in December a puzzle that tests your Beatles knowledge will appear on TheBeatlesRarity.com and the first person to solve it gets first choice of prizes. It’s first come-first serve so the earlier you complete the puzzle, the more prize choices you will have. Time is of the essence!“  So, sign up now!

Next up on the Beatles Blog Carnival is:

The Beatles Again

http://www.beatlesagain.com/

The Internet Beatles Album

There’s a lot of fun features on the BeatlesAgain website, one of my favorites is the Beatles Lyrics Machine.  Did you ever have a Beatles line in your head and couldn’t remember what song it was from? Or did you just want to find out which Beatles songs used the word “Love?” Well, here’s the tool for you! The database that the machine uses currently has 220 songs in it, give it a try!

I’ve Just Seen a Face is a “collection of the Beatles taken by the fans themselves. These pictures have never before been seen or published.”

The Beatles Recordings Reference Library contains “informational and reference articles about the recordings of the Beatles archived over the years from the pages of the rec.music.beatles newsgroup. Most of these articles are not available at other Beatles sites.” There are over thirty articles here and I’m sure most of you will find information that’s new to you, I know I did!

I’ve just touched on a few of the features of the BeatlesAgain website, if you spend some time there I’m sure you’ll be impressed.

The Beatles Through the Years

http://www.thebeatlesthroughtheyears.com/

“On this site, because the site owner, Dominic, is a musician himself (inspired, of course, by those crazy lads from Liverpool), we wanted a place where we could highlight other like-minded fans, musicians, and artists.“

One of my favorite sections is the Women of the Beatles which is a summary of the “lucky ladies (or unlucky, depending on how you view it) who called themselves a girlfriend/wife of a Beatle.“

The Guitars of the Beatles is an article with information about and pictures of John, Paul and George’s guitars over the years, really a lot of fun to read.

Take a moment to stop by and visit the Beatles Through the Years, be sure to leave a comment and tell them Jim from the Beatles blog Carnival sent you.

Beatle Chat

http://beatlechat.blogspot.com/

There are a lot of great pictures and interesting articles on Beatle Chat, and it’s updated often, so probably by the time you read this there will be articles that I haven’t seen.

One that I enjoyed reading is Road to a Koala Bear about Paul’s Australian leg of his 1975 tour. It includes a hilarious video of  Norman Gunston interviewing Paul and Linda. He talks about McCartney’s Fruit Shop not doing so well, you know Apple? Then asks Paul if that was one of John’s ideas. He then goes on to ask Paul if there was any truth to the rumor that his is dead! If you haven’t seen this video, you have to see it, it’s great!

Another article on BeatleChat is Collectible Lennon which discusses events in the daily lives of Paul, John, George, and Ringo in the month of October in 1975.  It includes links where you can download interviews of George by Don Ellis, and a McCartney interview about his tour.

I’ve reviewed a lot of Beatles sites for the Beatles Blog Carnival and it’s great to find a blog that is as active as this one. I highly recommend that you visit BeatleChat.

Beatles Songwriting Academy

http://beatlessongwriting.blogspot.com/

Sitting reverently at the feet of Lennon & McCartney…& then stealing their shoes.

Matt is a music teacher, songwriter, and blogger that is “taking a few years out of the rest of my life to study the songwriting of Lennon & McCartney (and the rest of the fab four) and blog my way through all 211 songs.“  Quite an ambitious undertaking!

If you are a musician, you’ll love this site, and as Matt puts it “if you are a songwriter looking to learn how to write catchy and classic songs and have only a passing knowledge of the Beatles’ back catalogue you might like it.” Matt has dissected the Beatles songs and talks about the different techniques that John and Paul incorporate to create their unique sound.

Take a look at “Tickets to Write” which is a collection of “all those little songwriting tricks that are just waiting to be …ahem…borrowed by you to write your own killer tunes.” There are currently 58 tips or “Tickets” discussing things the Beatles did to create their unique sound, and some of the tips have links to example songs that are reviewed in detail.

Also check out the “Hall of Shame” which discusses Beatles songs that don’t quite meet the high standards of typical Beatles songs.  There are currently seven songs on the list, can you guess what they are?

The Beatles Songwriting Academy is a very informative blog. Thanks, Matt!

Beatle Photo Blog

http://beatlephotoblog.com/

Tammy’s photo blog is “a space where I can post some of the thousands of photos of The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, their friends, and families I have collected.“

Some of her recent posts are “Paul and Mary,” which is Paul with Mary Hopkin, “Record Plant East,” pictures of John,  and “Portrait” which is a great picture of George for a Rolling Stone shoot.

Along with the pictures there is a really active exchange of comments from visitors sharing their insights and opinions of the images, join in on the fun! I would really be surprised if you don’t find some pictures on the Beatle Photo Blog that you haven’t seen before, so be sure to check it out.

That concludes this month’s edition of
the Beatles Blog Carnival

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Do you have a favorite Beatles site that you would like to see included in the next edition of the Beatles Blog Carnival?  Send me an email: jim at beatlesblogcarnival.com or leave the info in the comments below.

Thanks,
Jim