Geoffrey Giuliano | |
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Born | Rochester, New York, U.S. | September 11, 1953
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Website | www |
Geoffrey Giuliano (born September 11, 1953) [1] is an American author of biographies of rock musicians.
Giuliano has written extensively on popular music, particularly the Beatles. By 1999, he had authored 20 books, including Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison (1990) and Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney (1991).
In an interview for The Guardian in September 1992, Giuliano offended George Harrison's wife Olivia by referring to the Beatles as "real shits in real life" and dismissing Paul McCartney as "just shallow and vacuous". [2] On October 5 that year, The Guardian published a letter from Olivia Harrison in which she wrote that "like a starving dog he [Giuliano] scavenges his heroes, picking up bits of gristle and sinew along the way." [3] [4] She also complained about Giuliano's use of a quote by Harrison on the cover of Dark Horse, saying: "My husband once made the remark: 'That guy knows more about my life than I do.' Giuliano missed the joke and used it to endorse his book." [4] When interviewed in Los Angeles on December 14, 1992, Harrison said of Giuliano: "Yeah, I met him briefly. I have no way of recalling what year it was. I met him at the home of "Legs" Larry Smith for possibly thirty minutes." [5]
Giuliano's biography of John Lennon, Lennon in America: 1971–1980 (Cooper Square Press, 2000), was controversial. Giuliano said the book was based in part on transcripts of Lennon's diaries given to him by the late American singer Harry Nilsson and on audio tapes recorded by Lennon. Several people close to Nilsson said they did not believe that he ever had the transcripts in his possession; others familiar with the journal and the tapes disputed the accuracy of Giuliano's interpretation. [6] Writing in The Washington Post , David Segal described Giuliano's text as "a highly critical, luridly detailed account"; he quoted Giuliano's response when he was asked to corroborate his claim that Nilsson gave him the diaries: "It's obvious that I'm going to do things in an ethical manner." Steven Gutstein, a former New York assistant district attorney who read the diaries during an early 1980s larceny lawsuit, recalled that they contained "a lot of philosophical musings combined with mundane details of everyday life". [7] Colin Carlson of Library Journal said of Lennon in America, "Non-fans will be put off by this image of Lennon as cad, drug addict, and paranoiac; this often sensationalized account is for voyeurs and fans with deconstructive tendencies and is one of the best, most detailed books available on this subject." [8] Less impressed, a Publishers Weekly reviewer commented, "If Giuliano's own double-talk isn't enough to diminish this work's credibility, his endless, voyeuristic descriptions of Lennon's sexual encounters are." [9]
He had a role in Scorpion King 3 and the costume drama Vikingdom . In 2021 he played "VIP #4" in Squid Game.
The 2005 film Stoned: The Wild & Wicked World of Brian Jones was "based on and inspired by" the book, one of which was Guiliano's Paint It Black: The Murder of Brian Jones. [11] [12]
George Harrison was an English musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles' work.
The fifth Beatle is an informal title that has been applied to people who were at one point a member of the Beatles or who had a strong association with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
Malcolm Frederick Evans was an English road manager and personal assistant employed by the Beatles from 1963 until their break-up in 1970.
Olivia Trinidad Harrison is an American author and film producer, and the widow of English musician George Harrison of the Beatles. She first worked in the music industry in Los Angeles, for A&M Records, where she met Harrison and then helped run his Dark Horse record label. In 1990, she launched the Romanian Angel Appeal to raise funds for the thousands of orphans left abandoned in Romania after the fall of Communism.
Dark Horse is the fifth studio album by the English rock musician George Harrison. It was released on Apple Records in December 1974 as the follow-up to Living in the Material World. Although keenly anticipated on release, Dark Horse is associated with the controversial North American tour that Harrison staged with Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar in November and December that year. This was the first US tour by a member of the Beatles since 1966, and the public's nostalgia for the band, together with Harrison contracting laryngitis during rehearsals and choosing to feature Shankar so heavily in the programme, resulted in scathing concert reviews from some influential music critics.
"All Those Years Ago" is a song by the English rock musician George Harrison, released in May 1981 as a single from his ninth studio album Somewhere in England. Having previously recorded the music for the song, Harrison tailored the lyrics to serve as a personal tribute to his former Beatles bandmate John Lennon, following the latter's murder in 1980. Ringo Starr is featured on drums, and Paul McCartney overdubbed backing vocals onto the basic track. The single spent three weeks at number 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, behind "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes, and it peaked at number 13 on the UK Singles Chart. It also topped Canada's RPM singles chart and spent one week at number 1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary listings.
"Blackbird" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album The Beatles. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney, and performed as a solo piece by McCartney. When discussing the song, McCartney has said that the lyrics were inspired by hearing the call of a blackbird in Rishikesh, India, and by the civil rights movement in the Southern United States.
The Lives of John Lennon is a 1988 biography of musician John Lennon by American author Albert Goldman. The book is a product of several years of research and hundreds of interviews with Lennon's friends, acquaintances, servants, and musicians. It is best known for its criticism and generally negative representation of the personal lives of Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono.
The Beatles were an English rock band, active from 1960 until 1970. From 1962 onwards, the band's members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Their break-up is attributed to numerous factors, including: the strain of the Beatlemania phenomenon, the 1967 death of their manager Brian Epstein, bandmates' resentment of McCartney's perceived domineering behaviour, Lennon's heroin use and his relationship with Yoko Ono, Harrison's increasingly prolific songwriting, the floundering of Apple Corps, the Get Back project and managerial disputes.
The Best of George Harrison is a 1976 compilation album by the English musician George Harrison, released following the expiration of his EMI-affiliated Apple Records contract. Uniquely among all of the four Beatles' solo releases, apart from posthumous compilations, it mixes a selection of the artist's songs recorded with the Beatles on one side, and later hits recorded under his own name on the other.
The Apple scruffs were a group of devoted Beatles fans who congregated outside the Apple Corps building and at the gates of Abbey Road Studios in London during the late 1960s, in the hope of seeing or interacting with one of the band members. According to Apple press officer Derek Taylor, when The Sunday Times wrote a feature article on the company in the late 1960s, their map included a location for the scruffs, on the steps of the offices at 3 Savile Row.
Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now is a 1997 biography of Paul McCartney by Barry Miles. It is the "official" biography of McCartney and was written "based on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews undertaken over a period of five years", according to the back cover of the 1998 paperback edition. The title is a phrase from McCartney's song "When I'm Sixty-Four", from the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The book was first published in the United Kingdom in October 1997 by Secker & Warburg.
"Back Off Boogaloo" is a song by the English rock musician Ringo Starr that was released as a non-album single in March 1972. Starr's former Beatles bandmate George Harrison produced the recording and helped Starr write the song, although he remained uncredited as a co-writer until 2017. Recording took place in London shortly after the pair had appeared together at Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh shows in August 1971. The single was a follow-up to Starr's 1971 hit song "It Don't Come Easy" and continued his successful run as a solo artist. "Back Off Boogaloo" peaked at number 2 in Britain and Canada, and number 9 on America's Billboard Hot 100. It remains Starr's highest-charting single in the United Kingdom.
Philip Norman is an English author, novelist, journalist and playwright. He is best known for his biographies of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly and Elton John. His other books include similar studies of John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton.
"Early 1970" is a song by the English rock musician Ringo Starr that was released as the B-side of his April 1971 single "It Don't Come Easy". A rare example of Starr's songwriting at the time, it was inspired by the break-up of the Beatles and documents his relationship with his three former bandmates. The lyrics to the verses comment in turn on Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison as individuals, and the likelihood of each of them making music with Starr again. In the final verse, Starr offers a self-deprecating picture of his musical abilities and expresses the hope that all four will play together in the future. Commentators have variously described "Early 1970" as "a rough draft of a peace treaty" and "a disarming open letter" from Starr to Lennon, McCartney and Harrison.
In February 1968, the English rock band the Beatles travelled to Rishikesh in northern India to take part in a Transcendental Meditation (TM) training course at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The visit followed the Beatles' denunciation of drugs in favour of TM and received widespread media attention. The band's interest in the Maharishi's teachings was led by George Harrison's commitment, and it changed Western attitudes about Indian spirituality and encouraged the study of TM. The visit was also the most productive period for the Beatles' songwriting.
"See Yourself" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released on his 1976 album Thirty Three & 1/3. Harrison began writing the song in 1967, while he was a member of the Beatles, in response to the public outcry surrounding bandmate Paul McCartney's admission that he had taken the hallucinogenic drug LSD. McCartney's announcement created a reaction in the press similar to that caused in 1966 by John Lennon's statement that the Beatles were more popular than Christianity. In its finished form, the song's lyrics advocate self-awareness and consideration for the consequences of one's actions. Musically, the composition contains unusual shifts in time signature from standard 4/4 to 9/8, while the songwords reflect the era of its genesis by recalling themes first espoused in the Beatles tracks "Within You Without You" and "All You Need Is Love".
George Harrison and Ravi Shankar's 1974 North American tour was a 45-show concert tour of the United States and Canada, undertaken by English musician George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar in November and December 1974. It is often referred to as the Dark Horse Tour, since the concerts served as a launch for Harrison's record label Dark Horse Records, to which Shankar was one of the inaugural signings, and Harrison's concurrent single was the song "Dark Horse". The release of his delayed album, also titled Dark Horse, followed towards the end of the tour. The shows featured guest spots by Harrison's band members Billy Preston and Tom Scott.
The Fest for Beatles Fans is a twice-annual, three-day festival that honors the lasting legacy of the Beatles. The festival takes place in the New York metropolitan area, ordinarily in March or April, and in Chicago, Illinois, each August. Running Friday through Sunday, the Fest features special guests, live concerts, exhibits, art contests, a Beatles marketplace, a sound-alike contest, a Battle of the Beatles Bands, and more.
Lennon Remembers is a 1971 book by Rolling Stone magazine co-founder and editor Jann Wenner. It consists of a lengthy interview that Wenner carried out with former Beatle John Lennon in December 1970 and which was originally serialised in Rolling Stone in its issues dated 21 January and 4 February 1971. The interview was intended to promote Lennon's primal therapy-inspired album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and reflects the singer's emotions and mindset after undergoing an intense course of the therapy under Arthur Janov. It also serves as a rebuttal to Paul McCartney's public announcement of the Beatles' break-up, in April 1970.