David Bowie confirms retirement from touring

David Bowie has confirmed that he has definitely retired from touring for good.

That’s according to Bowie’s longtime booking agent John Giddings, managing director of Solo Music Agency.

“David Bowie is one of the best artists I’ve ever worked with. But every time I see him now, before I even speak to him, he goes, ‘I’m not touring’ and I say, ‘I’m not asking’,” said Giddings during an interview at the recent International Festival Forum (IFF), a two-day event aimed at festivals and booking agents. Giddings promoted Bowie’s 1987 Glass Spider shows at Wembley Stadium. He also represents major artists such as Madonna and U2.

Giddings added: “David has decided to retire and, like Phil Collins, you can’t demand these people go out there again and again and again. I’m really pleased and proud that the last show he ever did in the UK was the 2004 Isle Of Wight Festival.”

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What would YOU give to save the life of a stranger’s child? That’s the emotive question posed by this heartwarming novel of selfless courage, a quest for forgiveness, and a Swinging Sixties first love that never grew old.

“Gilbert’s Gift” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Fiction & Literature/Brian Will Oliver), Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store, and from KoboBooks.

You can read a FREE sample of “Gilbert’s Gift” HERE (USA) or HERE (UK).

‘Lost’ Beatles recording found after 50 years

Photo: Johnnie Hamp

A recently re-discovered original recording of The Beatles singing ‘Some Other Guy’ at the legendary Cavern Club in 1962 is to go under the hammer as part of a Rock & Pop Memorabilia auction in Liverpool on 4 November 2015.

The old reel-to-reel tape had been languishing in a desk drawer for more than 50 years.

On 22 August 1962, The Beatles were filmed by a Granada Television crew at The Cavern, performing ‘Some Other Guy’ and ‘Kansas City’ for a TV programme called Know The North. However, the sound quality was so poor that it was unable to be broadcast.

When The Beatles came back to Liverpool after recording ‘Love Me Do’ at Abbey Road Studios in London, Granada TV sound engineer Gordon Butler returned to The Cavern with the band on 5 September 1962, with the intention of obtaining a better quality audio recording to dub over the original film footage. Butler took three microphones – two of which he placed on Lennon and McCartney.

The re-recording of ‘Some Other Guy’ reportedly sounded so good that the band’s manager Brian Epstein asked Butler to make five acetate copies which Epstein intended to use to promote the band.

Butler returned to Granada with the re-recorded tape and gave it to legendary TV producer Johnnie Hamp. But due to legal issues with other acts on the show, the programme was never screened and the tape remained in Hamp’s desk drawer for 50 years. He recently discovered it, and, with the help of Beatles historian Paul Wilde, listened to it on a reel-to-reel tape machine. He found the sound quality was still crystal clear five decades later.

The whereabouts of four of the ‘Some Other Guy’ acetates are unknown, but the fifth was sold at auction in 1993 for £16,000 to Apple Records, the label set up by The Beatles in 1968.

All proceeds from the sale of the tape will be donated to charity.

# # # #

What would YOU give to save the life of a stranger’s child? That’s the emotive question posed by this heartwarming novel of selfless courage, a quest for forgiveness, and a Swinging Sixties first love that never grew old.

“Gilbert’s Gift” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Fiction & Literature/Brian Will Oliver), Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store, and from KoboBooks.

You can read a FREE sample of “Gilbert’s Gift” HERE (USA) or HERE (UK).

 

Heartwarming novel ‘Gilbert’s Gift’ tells the uplifting story of a living donor who gifts a lung to save a dying boy he doesn’t know

Inspired by real events, Gilbert’s Gift, the heartwarming new novel by Brian Will Oliver, tells the story of sixtysomething Gilbert Shilling—an aspiring rock star back in the Swinging Sixties—who, against his family’s wishes, decides to donate one of his lungs in a desperate bid to save the life of a dying boy he has never met.

The novel pays tribute to all the courageous individuals who become altruistic living donors—selfless men and women who, while still alive, are willing to donate organs, such as a lung or a kidney, to help save the lives of others.

Against this backdrop, Gilbert’s Gift poses the emotive question:

What would YOU give to save the life of a stranger’s child?

Having given up on his music career long ago, big-hearted Gilbert Shilling is now an ordinary working man leading an ordinary life—just another baby boomer lucky enough to have made it into his sixties in one piece.

Still grieving over the death of his own baby son many years previously, Gilbert is deeply affected when he hears about a 10-year-old boy with cystic fibrosis who desperately needs a double lung transplant. Without the transplant, the child will die within weeks.

Gilbert sees a way of bringing new purpose into his empty existence by volunteering to donate one of his own perfectly healthy lungs to help save the little boy’s life.

Despite warnings that the transplant procedure could hold life-threatening risks for someone of his age, Gilbert insists on going ahead—driven by a determination to help save this little boy after he wasn’t able to save his own son.

With echoes of Nicholas Sparks, Gilbert’s Gift is also a poignant tale about baby boomer love—teenage love in the Swinging Sixties, lost and then found again decades later.

When the tragedy surrounding the lung transplant gains widespread media coverage, it brings Gilbert’s first love back into his life … just when he needs her most. But is she too late?

Gilbert’s Gift is a moving tale which blends a poignant theme with gentle humour. It is available from Amazon as a US paperback, a UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Fiction & Literature/Brian Will Oliver), Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store, and from KoboBooks.

A FREE sample of Gilbert’s Gift can be read HERE (USA) or HERE (UK).

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