Music-versary: Paul McCartney announces his departure from the Beatles via press release on April 10, 1970
On April 10, 1970, London’s Daily Mirror declared that the Beatles were history. The tabloid was armed with a press release that included an explosive question-and-answer interview with Paul McCartney, who wouldn’t be speaking to the media but still wanted to … Continued
On April 10, 1970, London’s Daily Mirror declared that the Beatles were history. The tabloid was armed with a press release that included an explosive question-and-answer interview with Paul McCartney, who wouldn’t be speaking to the media but still wanted to offer reporters an explanation — accompanied by a copy of his debut solo album, McCartney.
The breakup had been coming for a long time as each of the Fab Four had begun to make their own music and yearned for autonomy — “It’s no news that we argue,” Lennon told the New Musical Express that January — but the finality in McCartney’s words were was still a blow to a hopeful public. According to Rolling Stone, fans in need of consolation flocked to the Apple office the next day. The scene prompted one broadcaster to say, “The event is so momentous that historians may mark it as a landmark in the decline of the British Empire.”
Mourning fans still had the opportunity to hear a lot of solo music from each member in 1970. Ringo Starr’s first solo album Sentimental Journey had just come out in the UK a little over a week before McCartney’s announcement and would be released in America on April 24. A second album, the country-tinged Beaucoups of Blues, followed in Se
