Just a quick fyi: The Man­ches­ter Ben­e­fit con­cert is hap­pen­ing now, and stream­ing live on YouTube. Cold­play, Phar­rell Williams, Justin Bieber, Katy Per­ry, Miley Cyrus, Niall Horan, Ush­er, and Ari­ana Grande will all per­form. Click play above to stream the live video feed.

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When we think of LSD and the Bea­t­les, John Lennon invari­ably gets the nod as the main mind expander of the group. After all, despite all protes­ta­tions to the con­trary, “Lucy in the Sky with Dia­monds” lit­er­al­ly spells out Lennon’s indul­gence in the psy­che­del­ic drug.

But it was Paul, as seen in this above news­reel, who announced that he him­self had dropped acid before any oth­er band mem­ber admit­ted to such. And in doing so, know­ing the whole world was watch­ing, McCart­ney insist­ed on telling the truth and fac­ing the music, as it were.

The inter­view was record­ed on June 19, 1967, a day after Paul’s 25th birth­day. Their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band had been released three weeks pri­or on June 1, ush­er­ing in a par­tic­u­lar psy­che­del­ic era in Lon­don, though the band had been drop­ping hints (as well as lyser­gic acid) as ear­ly as 1966’s Revolver and 1965’s “Day Trip­per.”

McCart­ney had already let it be known he had tak­en the drug in an inter­view a few days before in Queen mag­a­zine, which Life then reprint­ed.

After I took it (LSD), it opened my eyes. We only use one-tenth of our brain. Just think what we could accom­plish if we could only tap that hid­den part. It would mean a whole new world.

The quote sent ITV crews to McCartney’s back­yard gar­den on Cavendish Ave. for this con­fronta­tion­al inter­view, where the inter­view­er wants to know first where he got the LSD from, but then chas­tis­es the singer for not keep­ing such a per­son­al event qui­et.

McCart­ney respond­ed:

Mmm, but the thing is — I was asked a ques­tion by a news­pa­per, and the deci­sion was whether to tell a lie or tell him the truth. I decid­ed to tell him the truth… but I real­ly did­n’t want to say any­thing, you know, because if I had my way I would­n’t have told any­one. I’m not try­ing to spread the word about this. But the man from the news­pa­per is the man from the mass medi­um. I’ll keep it a per­son­al thing if he does too you know… if he keeps it qui­et. But he want­ed to spread it so it’s his respon­si­bil­i­ty, you know, for spread­ing it not mine.

The reporter, look­ing for an angle, asks “Do you think that you have now encour­aged your fans to take drugs?”

McCart­ney puts the onus back on the reporter for sen­sa­tion­al­iz­ing a per­son­al mat­ter.

No, it’s you who’ve got the respon­si­bil­i­ty. You’ve got the respon­si­bil­i­ty not to spread this NOW. You know, I’m quite pre­pared to keep it as a very per­son­al thing if you will too. If you’ll shut up about it, I will.

Fun­ni­ly enough, it was Paul who came to LSD long after Lennon and Har­ri­son had tak­en it for the first time…inadvertantly, that is:

John, George and their wives were slipped a dose on a sug­ar pill in their evening cof­fee by den­tist John Riley, who had the cou­ples over for din­ner, and pos­si­bly some free love. Instead the four went club­bing and had their minds expand­ed. You can read the whole sto­ry over here at this fas­ci­nat­ing his­to­ry of Bea­t­le drug use. Also hear John tell it in the ani­ma­tion above.

McCart­ney final­ly dropped acid–the last Bea­t­le to do so–on March 21, 1967 after a record­ing ses­sion for “Get­ting Bet­ter.” Lennon had tak­en some acid by acci­dent and sat out the ses­sion, unable to con­tin­ue and McCart­ney took him home to his flat, where he decid­ed to try LSD, to “sort of catch up” with his friend. The Beat­les­Bible site quotes from McCartney’s bio by Bar­ry Miles, Many Years from Now.

And we looked into each oth­er’s eyes, the eye con­tact thing we used to do, which is fair­ly mind-bog­gling. You dis­solve into each oth­er. But that’s what we did, round about that time, that’s what we did a lot. And it was amaz­ing. You’re look­ing into each oth­er’s eyes and you would want to look away, but you would­n’t, and you could see your­self in the oth­er per­son. It was a very freaky expe­ri­ence and I was total­ly blown away.

There’s some­thing dis­turb­ing about it. You ask your­self, ‘How do you come back from it? How do you then lead a nor­mal life after that?’ And the answer is, you don’t. After that you’ve got to get trepanned or you’ve got to med­i­tate for the rest of your life. You’ve got to make a deci­sion which way you’re going to go.

I would walk out into the gar­den — ‘Oh no, I’ve got to go back in.’ It was very tir­ing, walk­ing made me very tired, wast­ed me, always wast­ed me. But ‘I’ve got to do it, for my well-being.’ In the mean­time John had been sit­ting around very enig­mat­i­cal­ly and I had a big vision of him as a king, the absolute Emper­or of Eter­ni­ty. It was a good trip. It was great but I want­ed to go to bed after a while.

I’d just had enough after about four or five hours. John was quite amazed that it had struck me in that way. John said, ‘Go to bed? You won’t sleep!’ ‘I know that, I’ve still got to go to bed.’ I thought, now that’s enough fun and par­ty­ing, now … It’s like with drink. That’s enough. That was a lot of fun, now I got­ta go and sleep this off. But of course you don’t just sleep off an acid trip so I went to bed and hal­lu­ci­nat­ed a lot in bed. I remem­ber Mal com­ing up and check­ing that I was all right. ‘Yeah, I think so.’ I mean, I could feel every inch of the house, and John seemed like some sort of emper­or in con­trol of it all. It was quite strange. Of course he was just sit­ting there, very inscrutably.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Ani­mat­ed John Lennon Describes His First Acid Trip

Meet the Icon­ic Fig­ures on the Cov­er of The Bea­t­les’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper’s Album Cov­er Gets Reworked to Remem­ber Icons Lost in 2016

How The Bea­t­les’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band Changed Album Cov­er Design For­ev­er

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

The leg­end of Simon & Gar­funkel is big­ger than either per­former, though only one of them remained a major star after their breakup, while the oth­er became… too often the butt of unkind jokes. At the pin­na­cle of their fame in 1970, Art Gar­funkel, the tall angel­ic singer with the gold­en halo of curls, walked away from the duo as their rela­tion­ship soured. Gar­funkel moved to Con­necti­cut and became a math teacher for a spell. “I would talk them through a math prob­lem,” he remem­bered in 2015, “and ask if any­one had any ques­tions and they would say: ‘What were the Bea­t­les like?’”

Paul Simon, Gar­funkel recalled of the acri­mo­nious split, “was get­ting on my nerves. The jokes had run dry.” Per­haps it’s for the best they quit when they were ahead since their friend­ship nev­er recov­ered. After their famous Cen­tral Park reunion con­cert in 1981, a planned tour fell apart when they stopped speak­ing to each oth­er. At their 1990 induc­tion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the duo played three songs and report­ed­ly left with­out a word exchanged between them. “Arthur and I agree about almost noth­ing,” Simon remarked. Their split has all the qual­i­ties of a ter­ri­ble divorce.

Luck­i­ly for their fans, the two have infre­quent­ly giv­en their part­ner­ship anoth­er shot, stag­ing tours in 1993 and 2004. And in 2009, Gar­funkel showed up for three songs dur­ing a Simon con­cert at New York’s Bea­con the­ater. This led to a tour of Asia and Aus­tralia and, as you can see up top, an appear­ance togeth­er at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th Anniver­sary Con­cert at Madi­son Square Gar­den, where they played one of their biggest hits—and arguably one of Simon’s great­est songs—“The Sound of Silence” (1964). If you didn’t already know that they can’t stand each other’s com­pa­ny, you’d hard­ly guess it from the video.

After Simon’s gen­tly plucked gui­tar intro, they exchange brief but gen­uine smiles, then launch into har­mo­ny, their voic­es blend­ing with all the haunt­ing beau­ty of their hey­day. In fact, it’s pos­si­ble that—despite the bit­ter­ness and wear of sev­er­al decades—they sound bet­ter than they ever did. Com­pare this per­for­mance to that below, a live Cana­di­an TV appear­ance from 1966. (Simon earnest­ly, and iron­i­cal­ly in hind­sight, intro­duces the song as a com­ment on strained com­mu­ni­ca­tion.) The ear­ly per­for­mance seems rushed and man­nered com­pared to their impas­sioned reunion in 2009.

It’s a tru­ly haunt­ing expe­ri­ence fit­ting a tru­ly haunt­ing song, and made all the more poignant by the fact that they may nev­er per­form togeth­er again. In 2010, what is like­ly their last reunion end­ed when Garfunkel’s voice failed him. Diag­nosed with a con­di­tion called “vocal pare­sis,” he’s spent the past few years regain­ing his singing abil­i­ties. But, while Simon has ruled out anoth­er reunion, Gar­funkel, for all his ran­cor and regret, holds out hope. “When we get togeth­er,” he told The Tele­graph in 2015, “it’s a delight to both of our ears. A lit­tle bub­ble comes over us and it seems effort­less. We blend. So as far as this half is con­cerned, I would say, ‘Why not, while we’re still alive?’” They may have made a very unhap­py cou­ple, but the mag­ic that brought them togeth­er clear­ly has­n’t suf­fered for it.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Paul Simon Feelin’-Very-Groovy Moment

Paul Simon, Then and Now: Cel­e­brat­ing His 70th Birth­day

Art Gar­funkel Lists 1195 Books He Read Over 45 Years, Plus His 157 Favorites (Many Free)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Ask accom­plished blues and south­ern rock gui­tarists who they lis­ten to and you’ll hear a num­ber of names come up: Duane All­man, Albert King, Bud­dy Guy… the list of gui­tarists’ gui­tarists could go on and on. One name you’ll hear from near­ly every­one: Ste­vie Ray Vaugh­an, the king of Texas blues, before whom even the very best play­ers stand in awe, a gui­tarist whose leg­end has only grown in stature since the music world lost him in a trag­ic, fatal heli­copter crash in 1990.

The most icon­ic gui­tarists get asso­ci­at­ed with their instru­ments of choice, and Vaugh­an is no excep­tion. The Fly­ing V defines the look and sound of Albert King; the cus­tom black Gib­son 335 (“Lucille”) that of B.B. King. And when we think of Vaugh­an, we may imme­di­ate­ly think of “Num­ber One,” the beat up Fend­er Stra­to­cast­er he loved so much he called it the “first wife.” One of a num­ber of Strats Vaugh­an played through­out his too-brief career, “Num­ber One” has become “a cen­ter­piece” at the Texas State His­to­ry Muse­um, and for very good rea­son.

Almost no gui­tarist before or since has ripped such raw emo­tion and sear­ing pow­er from an instru­ment, with the excep­tion per­haps of Vaughan’s hero, Jimi Hen­drix. Like Hen­drix, Vaugh­an is known entire­ly as an elec­tric gui­tarist, his tone so leg­endary it has inspired a cult fol­low­ing all its own. But give SRV, as his fans call him, an acoustic gui­tar and you’ll see right away why the most the dis­tinc­tive fea­ture of that myth­ic tone is how sparkling clean it is.

Vaugh­an need­ed no effects to pro­duce his mas­sive sound, though he used a few on occa­sion (most notably a clas­sic Vox wah ped­al that once belonged to Jimi). The tone, as old­er gui­tarists will for­ev­er tell aspir­ing new­bies, was in his fingers—in the dynam­ics of his pick­ing, his bends and slides, his inti­mate, force­ful engage­ment with the fret­board. In the rare acoustic ses­sions here, see just why Vaugh­an is so revered. Above watch him launch into a six-string 12-bar acoustic blues.

And just above, see Vaugh­an tear it up on a 12-string acoustic gui­tar in his MTV Unplugged appear­ance in 1990, the year of his death. Gui­tarists and seri­ous fans of the blues and coun­try gui­tar will often namecheck Dan­ny Gat­ton—the Wash­ing­ton, DC wun­derkind so incred­i­bly tal­ent­ed that he earned the nick­name “The Humbler”—as the great­est gui­tarist they’ve ever seen. It’s hard to argue with that assess­ment. But Vaugh­an wasn’t just an amaz­ing play­er, he was also a beau­ti­ful­ly under­stat­ed per­former. Here we have the unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to see his show­man­ship and skill stripped to their essence.

via Soci­ety of Rock

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jimi Hen­drix Plays the Delta Blues on a 12-String Acoustic Gui­tar in 1968, and Jams with His Blues Idols, Bud­dy Guy & B.B. King

B.B. King Changes Bro­ken Gui­tar String Mid-Song at Farm Aid, 1985 and Doesn’t Miss a Beat

Ste­vie Ray Vaughan’s Ver­sion of “Lit­tle Wing” Played on Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment, the Gayageum

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness