Reba McEntire brings back infamous red dress 25 years later
This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.
For Reba McEntire fans, it was a case of déjà vu.
The country music legend wore a dress to the 2018 Academy of Country Music Awards that she made famous more than two decades ago!
The red dress first appeared during the 1993 CMA Awards. McEntire wore it while singing a duet of the song “Does He Love You?” with Linda Davis. She drew a large ovation from fans Sunday night, when she brought it back for a duet of the same song with Kelly Clarkson, her daughter-in-law.
Though relatively tame by today’s standards, the dress drew an overwhelming amount of attention in 1993 for its sequins and plunging neckline. McEntire ended up on the front page of The Tennessean and said she’d received “more press off that dress than if I’d won entertainer of the year.”
The red dress even has its own Wikipedia page!
After the performance, McEntire thanked her friend Sandi Spika Borchetta for designing the dress and confirmed it was the same one from 25 years ago, according to The Tennessean. The dress has been showcased the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
As a four-time CMA Female Vocalist winner and a former Entertainer of the Year, Reba McEntire is no stranger to accolades for her accomplishments, but one of the singer’s most memorable CMA moments had nothing to do with her vocal prowess.
In 1993 when the star stepped on stage to perform her hit duet “Does He Love You,” with Linda Davis (mom to Lady Antebellum singer Hillary Scott), “everybody gasped!” recalls Vince Gill, who hosted that night.
Reba McEntire Remembers Her Scandalous Red CMAs Dress: ‘I Thought, Dang, I Look Good!’The singer was wearing a red velvet gown with a plunging view obscured only by a few well-placed sparkles. “It was very revealing and I didn’t know that!,” Reba says in PEOPLE’s Special Edition: 50 Years of the CMA Awards. “I had only had two fittings with Sandy Spika. One was at our office and I said, ‘I think you need to fill some more stuff in!’ When I put it on in the dressing room at the Grand Ole Opry for the show, I thought, ‘Maybe it’s just the lighting in here.’ And when I walked out on the stage, I heard the audience go ‘Oooooh!’ And I thought, ‘Dang, I look good!’”
She certainly did — but it left her country music family a little shocked. “I mean, Reba is a beautiful woman, but she’s like your sis! She is to me,” Gill says. “But what’s great about that moment was that it was unexpected out of Reba.”
Although McEntire says her dad gave her a gentle ribbing afterward — “Daddy said, ‘Did you have that thing on backwards?’” she laughs — the gown definitely served its purpose. “I didn’t win an award, but I did make the front page of the paper the next day!” she says.
As a former tomboy, who wore “hand-me-downs my whole life,” McEntire says she loves glamour of the awards night. “To have brand-new clothes that are sparkly… I’m like Dolly . I love sparkle and shine all day long!”
Two years before she donned that famous red dress, another gown and another CMA performance made a more emotional impression. In March of 1991, McEntire lost several members of her band and her tour manager in a plane crash. As a tribute to them she sang “For My Broken Heart” at that year’s CMAs, which she hosted and which country music fan President George H.W. Bush attended, the only president who’s done so.
“Sandi Spika worked her fingers to the bone to make me the most beautiful outfits that night and I felt like Cinderella,” McEntire says. “I think it was her effort to get me out of the depression and the loss that we had. And it did help tremendously. And then to have the president there and Mrs. Bush — what an honor for country music. It was a very special night.”
The story of the Beatles has taken on the power of myth.
Today, five decades after Beatlemania erupted, it seems almost inevitable, a magical confluence of talent and timing. A group of scruffy musicians from Liverpool, a depressed port in northern England, become the biggest band in the world, known on a first-name basis? They put out album after groundbreaking album, their influence as great as their popularity? They dominate the pop culture of the 1960s and break up while still at the top of their game?
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
But there’s been enough mythmaking, says Mark Lewisohn. It’s time to get down to the facts.
“It’s a story that’s lost all its excitement, because it’s been trodden down through too many bad tellings through the years,” says Lewisohn, the Beatles historian and author of such detailed works as “The Beatles Recording Sessions” and “The Beatles Chronicle.” “I just felt I would disregard everything that’s been done. I would start again.”
The result is “Tune In,” a mammoth (800 pages, not including notes) biography of the Fab Four that’s just the first of a projected three-volume work. The book ends in 1962, with the band on the cusp of stardom. (For those who really can’t get enough detail, there’s an “Extended Special Edition” available in Britain that runs 1,728 pages and retails for £120 – about $190.)
The Beatles in color: Unseen photos
Lewisohn, 54, has immersed himself in original documents, listened to and read contemporary accounts and interviewed those who were there, all those years ago. He compares the work to Robert Caro’s equally monumental biography of Lyndon Johnson, which is now four volumes long and has just started the story of LBJ’s presidency.
“This is a proper work of history,” he says. “And it needs to be done, and it needs to be done now, while the witnesses are still with us – most of them – and while access to archives is still possible.”
The Beatles’ popularity, energy and cleverness made them favorites on the BBC.
Getty Images
He’s emphatic that “Tune In” isn’t a hagiography, the literary version of a Beatles concert’s high-pitched screams.
“It’s not about legends, it’s not about icons, it’s not about myths,” he says. “The book is anti-myth.”
A little bit raw
Ah, but it’s a season for myths. American media is currently drowning in biographies and retrospectives linked to the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, and for all the attempts at hard-nosed history, it’s still challenging to watch videos of the youthful president and not be swept away by the yearning, emotional pull of what-might-have-been.
The Beatles, too, have become encrusted by an aura of nostalgia and wonder, as if subjects of an ancient legend.
Lewisohn is far from the first to try to get underneath the shell. Hunter Davies wrote an authorized take in the late ’60s; Philip Norman published the essential “Shout!” in 1981. Just seven years ago, Bob Spitz published “The Beatles: The Biography,” which is just as massive as “Tune In.”
As the 50th anniversary of their “Ed Sullivan Show” debut nears on February 9, the marketplace fills with more – not just books, but also a new music release.
The 2-CD set, “On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2,” may in its own way be as revelatory as the books.
Here are the Beatles from 1963, when they were still a little raw, driving the motorways of Britain in the era’s version of an Econoline van to fulfill the latest one-nighter on their concert schedule. For the BBC, Britain’s broadcasting monolith, the group was energetic and eager-to-please, says Kevin Howlett, who helped put together the collection. It’s a sequel to the recently re-released and remastered “Live at the BBC,” which originally came out in 1994.
For one recording, during a bitter, snowy winter, they did a show in Bristol and then drove to London – a two-hour trip on a good day – for their BBC take the next morning. Another day they recorded 18 songs in seven hours for the BBC’s “Pop Go the Beatles.” Later they did 19 songs in a single long session. The BBC didn’t play many records, so it was perform live or nothing.
“They knew they only had one shot, really,” says Howlett, who’s also written a companion volume, “The Beatles: The BBC Archives.” “You hear how proficient they are as a live group – not only doing the unusual repertoire (of covers on the earlier BBC album), but doing their own songs.”
‘The biggest nickers in town’
Indeed, they were amazingly versatile. One song on the CD, “Beautiful Dreamer,” is a Stephen Foster classic rearranged for Tony Orlando in late 1962, but didn’t come out in Britain until January 1963. The Beatles somehow obtained a copy – it probably helped that their manager, Brian Epstein, managed a record store – quickly learned it and performed it on a broadcast.
They were also known to adapt American favorites for cover versions or to give them ideas for originals. Those kinds of talents are what set the Beatles apart from their competition, says John Covach, the director of the Institute for Popular Music at the University of Rochester, who’s taught courses on the group.
Covach mentions a variety of early songs – “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “If I Fell” – that start out with fairly conventional structures but always have a twist somewhere: a drop to a minor chord, a leap to a high note.
Author Mark Lewisohn recently published the first volume of his Beatles biography.
Getty Images
“Most of what’s going on is something you’d hear routinely in even the most mediocre of pop songs,” he says. “But they twist it a bit and they come up with something that’s innovative without seeming like it’s totally strange.”
The Beatles freely admitted borrowing from others. They had “big ears,” in the jargon of music aficionados – they’d listen to anything – and tried to write their own versions of American hits. After all, their Liverpool colleagues were doing the same covers the Beatles did.
“We were the biggest nickers in town,” Paul McCartney told Playboy in 1984. “Plagiarists extraordinaires.”
Though the songs came in handy for their own group, even McCartney and John Lennon were under no illusions that the Beatles would last. Their long-term goal was to simply be songwriters for others, after all.
“When they came to America, the people they most wanted to meet were people like Carole King and Gerry Goffin – the Brill Building,” Covach says. “This was all really about setting up a lifetime of writing songs and being involved in pop culture in a fairly old-school way. It kind of morphed into something else.”
See Ringo’s photographs
‘They never existed in isolation’
Of course, that’s what leads to the present mythology – the “something else.”
The Beatles prepare to leave for America in early 1964.
Getty Images
It’s all become wrapped up in a ball by now: the cheeky press conferences, the madcap lads of “A Hard Day’s Night,” the psychedelic savants of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the Apple business and the fade-out – not to mention the tragic deaths of Lennon’s friend Stu Sutcliffe, manager Brian Epstein and Lennon himself.
Even the parodies – National Lampoon’s “Magical Misery Tour,” Mark Shipper’s 1978 novel “Paperback Writer,” the Rutles – have somehow buffed the legend instead of undermining it. No wonder there are entire festivals devoted to all things Beatle, and have been for decades.
For Lewisohn, the biographer, that just means digging deeper to get to the heart of it all.
“In life, there are those people who are always sticking their hand up saying, ‘Come and see me,’ and maneuvering themselves more centrally into a story they weren’t so central to in the first place, and then there are other people who don’t put their hand up at all,” he says. “You have to gain their trust, but then they’ll tell you fantastic things. And then a key element is not believing everything people tell you, because people embroider things.” (For those who want to share their Beatle-related stories, he has a page on his website for contributions.)
After he returns to his writing desk, he believes he has several years ahead of him. Volume 2 is 40% done; Volume 3 might be 10%. He expects the entire project may take to the end of the decade.
Through it all, he’s maintained great admiration for the group, of course – they’ve been his life’s work. But he’s careful to separate the men from the myth.
“They never existed in isolation. They were always in the mix with other people,” he says. “They’re not legends. They’re just people.”
In that, he echoes none other than John Lennon himself from his 1970 Rolling Stone interview.
“We were four guys. I met Paul, said ‘want to join me band.’ Then George joined, and then Ringo joined,” he said. “We were just a band who made it very, very big. That’s all.”
Two of country music’s most renowned icons, Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton, have made something of a resurgence in mainstream media this year.
McEntire released a book, Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots, and Parton did, too: Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones. She also has a rock record coming out later this month.
I had the opportunity to sit down with McEntire recently, and one of the things I wanted to know is whether she remembered the first time she ever met Parton.
“The first time I was ever in her presence was September 17, 1977. It was my first time at the Grand Ole Opry,” she says, reciting the exact date she saw her in the flesh. “I was gonna get to do two songs, and they came to me and said, ‘Well, we’re gonna have to take one of your songs,’ and I said, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘Well, Dolly Parton just pulled in the parking lot and we’re gonna give her one of your songs.’”
I could tell as McEntire was describing the experience that was being genuine — the memory was very vivid to her.
“I said, ‘She can have both of them. Can I meet her?’” she recalls “I didn’t meet her, but she did walk in front of me, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.’ She kinda floated by. She was just like an angel.”
One would draw the conclusion that the two ladies were in heavy competition during the ’80s and ’80s, but McEntire says no way — that wasn’t the case at all.
“Not competition with Dolly. No. I am not a competitor with Dolly,” she insists. “Dolly’s Dolly. I’m a little over here. Dolly, you know .. she’s everything. I’ve always looked up to her. I’ve watched. I’ve learned. I have listened.”
McEntire went on to talk about her favorite projects, saying: “My favorite album, two of my favorite albums, is Dolly Parton’s first album, Blue Ridge Mountain Boy, and Carole King’s Tapestry. I love story songs. I love the intimacy of them telling you a private story about their lives through a song.”
McEntire is currently on Season 24 of The Voice. She has already signed on to coach a team on Season 25, too.
Dolly Parton has a long list of country radio hits under her belt, but she believes there should have been three more on that list. In a recent interview with Vulture, the country veteran revealed there are three songs of hers that radio programmers refused to play.
In fact, they determined one song was too “vulgar” for their audience — which Parton says was a simple misunderstanding of the song’s content. The other two tracks she says were deemed too progressive at the time.
“The Bargain Store”
Dolly Parton – The Bargain Store (Official Audio)
Subscribe to Taste of Country on
In “The Bargain Store,” Parton likens her life to that of a discount shop. She paints a picture of a woman who’s been scorned too many times by past lovers. She’s been heartbroken, but with the right person she can become good as new again.
“I may have just what you’re looking for / If you don’t mind the fact that all the merchandise is used / But with a little mending, it could be as good as new,” she sings in the chorus.
“I’m saying come inside my heart,” she explains. “I’m talking about a broken heart and how we can put the pieces back together if we’re willing to try. I thought that was one of my most clever songs, and it’s still one of my favorites.”
“But at that time, they were saying it was vulgar and I was saying something else. The bargain store, open, come inside. You get it,” she adds.
“Down From Dover”
Dolly Parton – Down from Dover (Audio)
Subscribe to Taste of Country on
Parton pushed the envelope in “Down from Dover.” At the time, no one would dare write a song about a single mom. The idea of a strong woman who can care not just for herself, but a child, too, was not widely accepted.
The song follows an uncommon scheme without verses or a repeating chorus. It tells the story of a woman who was left by her lover after the two learned she was pregnant. Although he promised her he would be back, he never came “down from Dover.”
“They wouldn’t play that on the radio,” she tells Vulture. “And now you can just get pregnant on TV.”
“I felt those songs were strong when I wrote them and I thought both times, ‘Oh, man, this could be a big hit. A lot of people will relate to this and it’s a great story. It would make a great movie,’” she reminisces.
“Evening Shade”
Similar to “Down from Dover,” Parton’s song “Evening Shade” dealt with a controversial topic at the time. The song describes an old orphanage named Evening Shade that was so horrific to its children. Finally, the kids decide to revolt. They undermine the headmistress and burn the orphanage down.
The song also follows a similar storytelling style, without verses or a repeating chorus.
“It’s just so well rhymed and all,” Parton reveals. “They wouldn’t play that one on the radio, either. They thought it was going to incite violence or something.”
“I don’t write songs thinking like that,” she continues. “I come up with all of these stories. They make good movies in my mind when I write. They paint pictures.”
Each of these songs wouldn’t be lost on country radio today. Country music is known for its storytelling and more often than not, fans find themselves in the lyrics.
Carrie Underwood’s “Church Bells” is a song about revenge, and Hardy’s song “Wait in the Truck” deals with domestic violence. Meanwhile, Jelly Roll’s “Save Me” touches on themes of addiction and suicide.
Reba McEntire would like to work with this ‘force of nature’ artist
She’s done everything from winning Grammys to starring in her own sitcom, but there is one thing Reba McEntire has yet to do.
The “Does He Love You” singer, who will serve as a coach on the next season of “The Voice,” has revealed the one performer she’d like to work with: Garth Brooks.
“Garth and I have never had a duet, a song together or nothing. So I say Garth,” she told “Entertainment Tonight Canada.”
So, how is it that a pair of country music titans with careers that have lasted nearly a combined century have never joined forces?
Garth Brooks and Reba McEntire backstage at the 29th annual American Music Awards in 2002.AFP via Getty Images
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve asked him because I’m sure he gets asked, from everybody, to do everything,” she said.
“And I just kind of like, didn’t want to bother him. But, you know, I’m not getting any younger and you never know. You got to seize the opportunity when you can.”
Even though they haven’t collaborated, Brooks has written the foreword to McEntire’s upcoming book, “Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots,” according to ET Canada. The book will be available Oct. 10. She says he was a source of comfort to her following the 1991 plane crash that claimed the lives of seven of her band members, as well as her road manager and two pilots.
“It means a lot to be friends with Garth because Garth is a force of nature,” McEntire said.
“He opened the show for me in … 1990 and 1991, and was there with me on stage, and the concerts after we lost my band and my tour manager in ’91 in a plane crash. Garth was a huge support, and we just felt the love and support from him at all times.”
While McEntire sings Brooks’ praises as a performer, she also says he has been a pioneer in their field as an entertainer.
“He’s a wonderful person, a great entertainer, changed country music in a way that you can have fun on stage, show that you have fun on stage, and with him climbing up the ladders or the trusses or throwing water bottles or throwing on water people and just running across the stage like a wild man,” she said.
“He has a very special quality about him that everybody falls in love with.”
“He is a wonderful entertainer. He bonds with the audience like I’ve never seen before,” she added.
Reba McEntire has only dated boyfriend Rex Linn for a few years, but their connection goes back decades.
McEntire, 68, and Linn, 66, first crossed paths in 1991 while filming The Gambler Returns with the late Kenny Rogers. “We instantly bonded over living in Oklahoma and our love for horses and acting,” McEntire recalled in her new book, Not That Fancy, which hit shelves on Tuesday, October 10. “He made me laugh, and we became good buddies.”
Reba McEntire and Rex LinnTaylor Hill/FilmMagic
The duo “kept in touch occasionally” over the years, with McEntire calling Linn in 1998 to offer condolences after his mother died. “We talked for about 25 or 30 minutes, and again, we went on our way,” she recalled.
At the time, McEntire was married to Narvel Blackstock, whom she divorced in 2015. The former couple share son Shelby, 33.
Several years after her split from Blackstock, McEntire reconnected with Linn in 2020 while filming a guest spot on Young Sheldon. The pair went out to dinner with friends after work, and McEntire “started seeing Rex in a whole new light.”
Noam Galai/Getty Images
Even though they weren’t yet dating, that first dinner inspired McEntire and Linn’s nicknames for each other, as McEntire enthusiastically requested tater tots. “I love tater tots,” McEntire wrote. “Rex is famous for giving people nicknames. When he heard me say ‘tater tots,’ he said, ‘That’s our nickname.’ And that’s what he still calls me today.” (McEntire calls Linn “sugar tot.”)
After that dinner, the twosome “texted a lot” and later bonded when McEntire’s mother died. “We talked for hours every day,” she recalled, noting that they couldn’t see each other in person because of coronavirus lockdowns. “All we could do was talk! But that wasn’t a bad thing. It gave us a chance to get to know each other better. From the very first call, I was just my honest self with him — never any pretense or performance. We were just ‘us,’ and it worked.”
Though McEntire and Linn both have busy schedules, they always make time for each other by having “Coffee Camp” every day — whether they’re together in person or communicating via phone — where they get ready for the day by chatting over their morning beverages.
“He’s the first person I talk to when I get up each morning and the last person I talk to before I go to sleep each night,” McEntire explained. “I’m having fun being in love again. Romantic relationships should be fun — I don’t care how old you are. Love should bring you joy and make you feel good, and I’m never going to settle for anything less.”
Surfer Joel Parkinson’s heartbreaking connection to Tottenham songstress Adele revealed!
Citizen cop Joel Parkinson falls under spell of stunning strawberry blonde chanteuse!
It has been a long two years since the wildly stylish former world champion Joel Parkinson has been on these pages and, hard to believe, never for the Brit chanteuse Adele.
Joel Parkinson’s last appearance was after a no-holds-barred pell-mell on the hills of his home town Coolangatta after he pulled out his citizen cop badge and tried to stop a couple of TikTokers filming ‘emselves sliding down a muddy hill citing environmental damage and, possibly, even some excess noise.
From BeachGrit’s 2020 report,
Days ago, the retired Association of Surfing Professionals star and citizen cop, Joel Parkinson, approached a gaggle of pre-teen twenty-four-year-old TikTokers sliding down a muddy hill in his Gold Coast hometown and told them to stop. They did not immediately which led to a scuffle which has, in turn, divided a nation.
Many thought Parkinson was in the right as he had used a sheet of plastic for his sliding session thereby kind of preserving the integrity of the hill.
Others thought it was not the 2008 Pipeline Master’s place to stop semi-innocent fun n games as he has not been elected to the city council and had, in fact, inspired the joy.
The pell-mell, mostly caught on camera and posted to various social medias, was titled “This guy tried to bash us for going down a mudslide in the Gold Coast” and included the caption:
This is @joelparko ex professional surfer . Picking on young people trying to have some fun in hard times. Actually getting violent towards them. @wsl. Who do you think you are? we have all seen videos of you and your idiot mates running amok when you were younger. Why don’t you grow up, you want respect? You have to give it to earn it ..@ripcurl_aus
Now, and as told on the podcast of noted rugby league player Matty Johns, it can be revealed that Joel Parkinson was guided to his 2012 world title by the inspirational lyrics of the world-renowned singer and songwriter Adele who has made a significant impact on the music industry with her soulful voice and emotional ballads.
Parkinson, who is forty-two and better known as Parko, would “psyche up” before heats to the Tottenham-born chanteuse and, again revealed by the aforementioned podcast, Joel made a pilgrimage to Las Vegas to see Adele, the tickets purchased one year in advance, only for the show to be cancelled.
Heartbreaking!
Adele has long resonated with a male audience, evident in the way her songs often explore themes of love, heartbreak, and relationships. Many men can relate to the emotional depth of her lyrics and the vulnerability she displays in her music. Her songs have provided a source of comfort and catharsis for many men who have gone through similar experiences
Adele’s talent, honesty, and relatability have made her a significant figure in the music industry, and her impact on men is undeniable. Her music has provided a source of comfort, understanding, and emotional release for many men, and her influence will continue to be felt for years to come.
Joel Parkinson Adele bit comes in a little after thirty-five minutes.
Elton John’s favourite song by The Beatles is an unlikely choice
Elton John’s favourite song from The Beatles is unexpected given their huge amount of hits. Picture: Getty
It’s a fact: The Beatles paved the way for a generation of stars that followed them.
During their ten year tenure as a group, the Fab Four broke an insurmountable series of records and completely changed the landscape of pop and rock music.
They were the perfect package of charming personalities and songwriting chops that shifted ahead of the times, moulded popular music culture to their whim as they went.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon, together with the talents of George Harrison and Ringo Starr, also wrote an inexplicable number of enduring hits that remain as potent today as ever.
We surely all remember the first time we heard The Beatles and all have our favourite song of theirs – the band have provided the soundtrack to most of our lives.
But not everyone was completely enamoured by the Liverpudlians, including some of the most celebrated artists that followed in their footsteps.
At least they weren’t at first, namely Elton John, who remembered that it took him some convincing before admitting he was a fan.
In 2019, the ‘Rocket Man’ revealed which song changed his opinion and remains his favourite song of theirs to this day. The song? ‘We Can Work It Out’.
Elton John admitted it took him longer than most to warm to The Beatles. (Photo by Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images). Picture: Getty
Exposed to The Beatles by a school friend of his – who was also a member of their official fan group – Elton admitted that he didn’t warm to the legendary band immediately.
“I remember being at school and my friend Michael Johnson came with a 45 and said ‘I’ve just heard this band, they’re gonna be the biggest band in the world, and it was ‘Love Me Do’.”
“I’ve listened to and said, ‘It’s not bad, it’s not bad’. I couldn’t see that they would be the biggest band in the world, and he turned out to be right. I think he was number four in the fan club. So he spotted them a mile off.”
“Of course, what the 1950s did with rock ‘n’ roll, The Beatles were extraordinary”, Elton told broadcaster Ken Bruce.
“They revolutionised the way things were recorded, even though it was with quite simple equipment, they experimented, and they wrote fantastic songs”.
But his favourite song of the band’s, ‘We Can Work It Out’, didn’t even appear on an album of theirs, though it was released as a Double-A single in 1965 with ‘Day Tripper’.
The Beatles in 1965. Picture: Getty
We Can Work It Out (Remastered 2015)
Talking about why ‘We Can Work It Out’ means so much to him, Elton said: “‘We Can Work It Out’ is such a wonderful song. Stevie Wonder did an amazing version of it.”
“I can’t even begin to think of how many people covered Beatles songs. There is so much I could have chosen.”
“I was amazed when I was at Sain-Tropez playing at the Papagayo Club with my band Bluesology, Revolver was out and it was a big part of my life. But I’ve chosen (‘We Can Work It Out’) because I just love the song.”
Though he confessed it took him much longer than most to become a full convert to The Beatles, Elton remains hugely grateful for their work and the deep influence it had on his decision to become a musician.
What must’ve been even stranger for Elton, was that he would later befriend one of the band’s key songwriters in John Lennon, and would even collaborate with him.
Elton became good friends with Lennon, who appeared on-stage together in what would be John’s final ever live concert performance in 1974. (Photo by Steve Morley/Redferns). Picture: Getty
During the celebrations of Lennon’s 80th birthday in 2020, Elton revealed to his son Sean Lennon the impact his father and his former band had on Elton’s musicianship.
He referred to the time they’d spent together in the 1970s when they collaborated on Lennon’s huge solo hit ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night’.
Elton would provide harmonies and piano parts for the track which appeared on John’s fifth solo album Walls & Bridges in 1974.
“That was the kind of wonderful two or three-year whirlwind romance we had, and it was such an important thing in my life, Sean” he revealed.
‘It just really helped me. It gave me so much confidence. Your dad was as kind and as generous and sweet, and we just hit it off immediately.”
“We laughed so much because we talked about the 50s and 60s and where we grew up”, Elton said, revealing that his music world came full circle.
The Beatles: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr turn back the clock on the red carpet
Stella McCartney enlists her family and friends for her Paris Fashion Week show.
The Beatles are in some ways as together now as they have been since the mid-1990s.
Not only are they continuing their major re-releases and reliving the past with Get Back, last year they even finished off their Last New Song together, the stunning ‘Now and Then’.
Surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are clearly still the best of friends, and we saw that at the weekend when they had an in-person reunion at the Stella McCartney Winter 2024 show during Paris Fashion Week in support of Paul’s daughter.
Pictures from the event itself show Paul and his wife Nancy in attendance alongside Ringo and his wife Barbara Bach, as well as snaps of the Beatles with Stella herself, and also Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris.
Even better still, video footage from the red carpet show Paul and Ringo turning back the clock with some Beatles-style antics that wouldn’t be out of place on footage from the mid-1960s.
As the snappers did their thing, Ringo placed himself in front of Paul and quipped “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”
Barbara Bach, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and Nancy McCartney. Picture: Getty Images
Paul and Ringo are the sole surviving members of the Fab Four of course, following the death of George Harrison in 2001 and murder of John Lennon in 1980.
Over the years since The Beatles split in 1970, they’ve continued to work together and appear on each others’ albums.
Paul McCartney, Paris Jackson and Ringo Starr. Picture: Getty Images
The Beatles years will be covered in depth in four separate biopics planned for release in 2027.
All will be directed by Sam Mendes, with each focusing primarily on each of The Beatles.
“The dating cadence of the films, the details of which will be shared closer to release, will be innovative and groundbreaking,” we’ve been promised.
Elton John’s favourite song from The Beatles is unexpected given their huge amount of hits. 
Elton John admitted it took him longer than most to warm to The Beatles. (Photo by Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images). 
The Beatles in 1965. 
Elton became good friends with Lennon, who appeared on-stage together in what would be John’s final ever live concert performance in 1974. (Photo by Steve Morley/Redferns). 
Barbara Bach, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and Nancy McCartney. 
Paul McCartney, Paris Jackson and Ringo Starr.