Beatles

Imagine the three surviving Beatles asking viewers: "Are You Ready for Some Football?" - the opening ditty for ABC's "Monday Night Football. " While the concept seems outlandish, it's just one of the many ways ABC considered pumping its three-part, six-hour documentary "The Beatles Anthology," which will premiere Sunday. In a campaign that rivals any TV promotional thrust in recent times, ABC is getting the word out that it has the Beatles. Indeed, its campaign, which is costing more than $1 million, is likely to reach most people between now and debut night through a series of on-air promos, in-theater screeners, print, radio, billboards and bus ads. "I don't think there has been an event in recent memory that has this kind of meaning," said Chris Carlisle, vice president of marketing for ABC Entertainment.

When the Beatles' much-hyped "Anthology 1" was released last fall, it was fully expected not only to blow right onto the pop albums chart with a No. 1 debut, but also to break a flurry of sales records. It easily met all expectations. The recent release of the second installment in the Beatles' trilogy - the much-less-hyped "Anthology 2" - sparked just one question: How could it possibly compete with the phenomenal numbers racked up by "Anthology 1"? The answer: It couldn't - but its performance was still impressive.

Wonder upon wonders, "new" material from the Beatles is still springing forth — on Apple apps, videodiscs, CD, and soon at a movie theater near you. Material evidence George Harrison was the gearhead of the group — quite a good photographer and gadget lover — and also a media hoarder. Evidence comes to the fore Tuesday with the home-video release of Martin Scorsese's documentary film "George Harrison: Living in the Material World" and the simultaneous release of the Abrams Books multitouch iPad/iPhone/iPod e-book of the same name.

Yellow Submarine, an inspired piece of animation in more than one way, was the Beatles' last major collaboration for the screen before the band broke up in 1970. Because of the genre and its associations, the third Beatles feature doesn't command quite the popularity of those two exuberant and quintessentially '60s movies Help! and A Hard Day's Night. In many ways that hardly seems fair. And not just because the score for Yellow Submarine is mostly from the group's landmark album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

THE BEATLES 1962-1966 The Beatles (Apple) THE BEATLES 1967-1970 Re-released today - exactly 20 years after their debut on vinyl - these two double-CD greatest-hits collections go a long way toward encapsulating the power that was The Beatles - the most creatively inspired, revolutionary and enduring pop/rock band in history. Even the Fab Four couldn't explain their chemistry - though high-toned musicologists such as conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein were quick to define their music as mathematically perfect constructs wedded to universal, utopian lyric themes - from "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to "All You Need Is Love.

With only three of the Fab Four left, there is no chance of a true Beatles reunion and about the same probability that Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison will ever make another movie. But if you can't have a new movie starring the Beatles, will you at least settle for one starring a Beatle? You certainly will when you find out who's going to direct it. Philadelphia's Richard Lester, who made A Hard Day's Night and Help! with the Beatles in the '60s, is planning a reunion of his own with McCartney.

WRTI (90.1/FM), Temple University's mostly jazz station, is kicking off its spring fundraiser today and is asking listeners to groove with it by sending some serious scratch to the station. The fundraiser runs through April 12 and the station has set a goal of $87,000. There will be the usual gifts of coffee mugs, T-shirts, picnic blankets and other items for those pledging $30 or more. To make a pledge call 787-8900. THE ONE AND ONLY Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby.

LOS ANGELES - Remember George Harrison's unforgettable opening line in the Beatles' 1969 hit "Something"? "Something in the way she moves / attracts me like no other woman. " Of course not, because he sings "lover," not "woman. " But "woman" is what Harrison wrote before changing one word that could have spelled the difference between a hit and a miss, an edit that's on display at the Grammy Museum in "George Harrison: Living in the Material World," a show focusing on the man pigeonholed early as "the quiet Beatle.

"I'm an acquired taste - I'm anchovies. And not everybody wants those hairy little things. If I was potato chips, I could go a lot more places, but I'm not. " - Singer Tori Amos, in Rolling Stone magazine Yeah, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were all there in the same room. And they did sing. From their respective pews. Accompanied by 700 other people. So you could say the hyped/hoped-for "Beatles reunion" occurred in one sense yesterday, but of course the Fab Three had gathered together for something much more serious: to pay respects to McCartney's late wife Linda, who died April 17. Her memorial service, held at London's landmark church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, brought out the usual celebrity mourners, like Sir Elton John and Sting.

Robert Whitaker, 71, a photographer who shot some of the most famous - and infamous - images of the Beatles, died of cancer Sept. 20 in Sussex, England. Mr. Whitaker took scores of pictures of the Beatles, including the controversial "butcher" cover of the 1966 American album Yesterday and Today . The image of the Fab Four in white coats surrounded by decapitated dolls and slabs of raw meat proved too strong for record company Capitol, which ordered the cover withdrawn soon after the album's release.

LONDON — With his carefully tended hair, tight trousers, and perfect harmonies, Robin Gibb, along with his brothers Maurice and Barry, defined the disco era. As part of the Bee Gees — short for the Brothers Gibb — they created dance-floor classics like "Stayin Alive," "Jive Talkin'," and "Night Fever" that can still get crowds onto a dance floor. The catchy songs, with their falsetto vocals and relentless beat, are familiar pop-culture mainstays. There are more than 6,000 cover versions of the Bee Gees' hits, and they are still heard on dance floors and at wedding receptions, birthday parties, and other festive occasions.

Wonder upon wonders, "new" material from the Beatles is still springing forth — on Apple apps, videodiscs, CD, and soon at a movie theater near you. Material evidence George Harrison was the gearhead of the group — quite a good photographer and gadget lover — and also a media hoarder. Evidence comes to the fore Tuesday with the home-video release of Martin Scorsese's documentary film "George Harrison: Living in the Material World" and the simultaneous release of the Abrams Books multitouch iPad/iPhone/iPod e-book of the same name.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Davy Jones, 66, the leading heartthrob of the much-loved pre-fab 1960s rock band the Monkees, who sang many of the made-for-TV act's biggest hits, including "Daydream Believer," died Wednesday in Florida. Mr. Jones died of a massive heart attack in Indiantown, Fla., where he lived, his publicist Helen Kensick said. Detectives with the Martin County Sheriff's Criminal Investigations Division were conducting a death investigation, but said foul play was not suspected.

Rock-and-roll music embodies the spirit of several generations, which is to say raucous and sometimes transgressive behavior by both musicians and their fans, idol worship and mass hysteria. These effects have been observed before, particularly in young people - remember crooners and bobby-soxers? - but rock-and-roll has been an especially persistent and powerful shaper of popular culture. Why else would public television still be reviving musical acts from the 1960s to solicit contributions during periodic fund drives?

RIO DE JANEIRO - English speakers got their moment in the Carnival sun yesterday as a wild, Beatles-themed street party let them shake it up, baby, with a samba swing to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. " Sargento Pimenta, Portuguese for "Sergeant Pepper," is one of more than 400 raucous street parties that spring up throughout Rio de Janeiro during Carnival. Hundreds of thousands of people turn out for the "blocos," packed, sweaty open-air dance parties where the crowd sings along to a repetitive medley of Carnival songs - usually in Portuguese, of course.

I'm not sure Rain , the touring Beatles revue that has also made its home on Broadway since 2010, meets the standard for theater. A knockoff of a knockoff (all four cast members are Beatlemania vets), it's more like watching a Fab Four drag show, or a really expensive cover band. It's a decent cover band, mind you, without lip-syncing, but the only narrative is signaled by the band's musical development, tracked chronologically, and its members' hair growth. But it's not like the boys need a jukeboxed story to hold their catalog together.

San Francisco's Girls released the single "Lawrence" last month, a quick follow-up to the all-male band's acclaimed second album Father, Son, Holy Ghost. The wordless track is a tribute to Lawrence Hayward, leader of the British cult band Felt, and in a mash note that accompanies the song's release, Girls' leader Christopher Owens writes, "You took something that can sometimes feel so common and dull and brought it back to life with so much beauty and verse. You gave me happiness, and you still do. " Owens could very well be describing his own songs.

LOS ANGELES - Remember George Harrison's unforgettable opening line in the Beatles' 1969 hit "Something"? "Something in the way she moves / attracts me like no other woman. " Of course not, because he sings "lover," not "woman. " But "woman" is what Harrison wrote before changing one word that could have spelled the difference between a hit and a miss, an edit that's on display at the Grammy Museum in "George Harrison: Living in the Material World," a show focusing on the man pigeonholed early as "the quiet Beatle.

THEY GATHERED in the parking lot of a Mount Airy diner, a bunch of senior citizens, hair gray, paunches protruding - a mere shadow, one might think, of the singing group that once wowed audiences in the U.S. and abroad. The group, the Tymes, produced what some regard as the greatest pop ballad of all time, and actually edged out the Beatles to reach the No. 1 spot on the pop charts in the United Kingdom in the early '60s. But there they were, attending a ceremonial occasion on April 22, 2010, the dedication of a doo-wop mural featuring two groups, the Tymes and Neighbor's Complaint, at the Trolley Car Diner on Germantown Avenue.

New Jersey may seem like the Rodney Dangerfield of states because it "can't get no respect. " But two news stories show it can - without involving calls for Gov. Christie to seek the Oval Office. This morning, a Princeton professor won a share of the Nobel economics prize. And Sunday, a Jersey girl married super-wealthy ex- Beatle Paul McCartney. The Nobel winner is Christopher Sims, 68, a professor of economics and banking who has been at Princeton since 1999.