**1970**

February 11
THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN (movie) featuring Ringo Starr and Peter Sellers premieres in New York .

February 20
John Ono Lennon with The Plastic Ono Band: INSTANT KARMA (WE ALL SHINE ON) / WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND (single) is released (Apple Records)

February 25
Mosport Peace Festival Canceled

"After an argument over whether or not a charge should be made for admission, John and Yoko disassociate themselves from the planned Toronto Peace Festival, due to take place 3-5 July. It doesn't," wrote Mark Lewisohn in his book "The Beatles Day by Day." 

Interestingly enough, printed on March 25 for newsstand sales until April 16, 1970, RollingStone Magazine gives John Lennon's response about the cancellation after a query was made to him from the publisher.  "In the early stages we weren't sure whether the show would be free or not," said Lennon. "There was a lot of talk about the Stones' disaster and we were swayed into thinking maybe if it's free, people would have less respect or some such bullshit. However, Brower and Yorke persuaded us to come to Canada and 'announce the peace festival,' which we did in our usual way.

"Later, when we were in retreat in Denmark , we began thinking, 'Why shouldn't it all be free? Surely they can hustle some big firms or something to put up the money," exclaimed Lennon. "And anyway, it looked like the national and local government were interested. Wouldn't it be a great plug for 'Young Canada' -- and the tourist trade?"

However, promoter John Brower on at least on particular point disagrees about the two levels of government cooperating together for the Mosport Peace Festival: "We had tremendous problems with the Ontario government at the time," he said to William Ruhlmann of Goldmine Magazine, "which was a Conservative [Party] government, as opposed to the federal government, which was Liberal [Party]. And since the prime minister of Canada was Liberal and had met with Lennon, therefore the Conservative government was against the festival, because they felt that if it was staged in Ontario it would make the Liberal prime minister look good, and they didn't want to do that."

Brower also went on to say that Lennon "gave us every opportunity to 'Get it together, man,' so to speak, and when we were not able to get a site together and we were not able to consummate financing that would allow us to put the festival on in a way that John felt was most appropriate, he walked away from it."

February 26
HEY JUDE (THE BEATLES AGAIN) (lp) is released (Apple Records)

March 1
"Ed Sullivan Show" - From the Let It Be movie, two film clips are presented to the viewing audience: "TWO OF US" and "LET IT BE"

March 11
LET IT BE / YOU KNOW MY NAME (LOOK UP THE NUMBER) (single) is released (Apple Records)

April 10
Paul McCartney publicly announces he has left the Beatles because of "..personal, business and musical differences"

April 20
McCARTNEY (lp) is released by Paul McCartney (Apple Records)

April 24
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY (lp) is released by Ringo Starr (Apple Records)

May 4
IN THE BEGINNING (Circa 1960) (lp) is released (Polydor Records)

May 11
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD / FOR YOU BLUE (single) is released (Apple Records)

The orchestral score for "The Long and Winding Road " was conducted and arranged by Richard Hewson and not scored by Phil Spector as some Beatle fans would assume. Hewson also did the orchestral score for Mary Hopkin's "Those Were The Days", "Goodbye" and her album "Postcard". He would later do the same for McCartney's "Thrillington" album.

"The Long and Winding Road " single sells 1,200,000 copies within two days.

May 18
LET IT BE (lp) is released (Apple Records) (before its release, the album had 3,700,000 advance orders)

May 20
MOTION PICTURE: "Let It Be" is released (running time: 80 minutes).

An Apple production released through United Artists
Produced by: Neil Aspinall
Directed by: Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Yoko Ono, Linda Eastman
Photography: Tony Richmond, Les Parrott and Paul Bond
Edited by: Tony Lenny and Graham Gilding
Sound Technicians: Peter Sutton, Roy Mingaye and Ken Reynolds
Sound Engineers: Glyn Johns, Malcolm Evans
Filmed in 16mm and blown up to 35mm for commercial distribution
Filmed in Technicolor
MPAA rating: G
Cast: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and Yoko Ono

The Beatles comment on how the band had broken up:

John Lennon (interview with David Wigg, PBR Records): "The Beatles were disintegrating slowly after Brian Epstein died - and it was a slow death. It was happening: it was evident on "Let It Be"...it was evident in India when George and I stayed there and Paul and Ringo left. And it was evident on the "White Album, you know..."

Paul McCartney (interview from Musician & Player on "When did the Beatles bubble burst?"): "About a year before the Beatles broke up, I suppose...friction came in, business things came in, relationships between each other. We were all looking for like...people in our lives, like, John had found Yoko. It made it very difficult. He wanted a very strong intimate life with her, at the same time, we always reserve the intimacy for the group. So we're starting to find those things flashing at you - with Yoko. You had to understand, he had to have time with her. But, does he have to have that much time with her was the sort of feeling in the group. And, uhm, so these things started to create in movable objects and pressures that was just too big."

Ringo Starr (interview from Anthology): "You know Allan, a lot of days even with all the craziness it really works still. Instead of working every day, it worked like two days a month, you know, and then there were still good days, we were still really close friends, then it would split up again into some madness."

George Harrison (interview from Anthology): "I just like spent like the last six months producing an album of the fellow Jackie Lomax and hanging out with Bob Dylan and The Band in Woodstock and having a great time and for me to come into the Winter of discontent with the Beatles in Twickenham was very unhealthy and very unhappy....I thought I'm quite capable of being relatively happy on my own and if I'm not able to be happy in this situation, you know, I'm getting out of here."

Beatles record producer, Sir George Martin (excerpt from Canadian Music Week, television broadcast, 1998): "John got very heavily into drugs and his relationship with Yoko was very disruptive with everybody because...I mean, at one point she was always at the sessions -- her very presence was disturbing. She wasn't even introduced to me until four weeks into this, you know. At one point she was ill and John insisted on bringing her bed into the studio so she could lie there ill and watch us make records, and that isn't the best atmosphere to make a record." And, "What upset me most of all, wasn't the fact that I was losing control, which I was, but the fact that they were fighting so much amongst each other. I mean, at one point, John and George actually hit each other - they had a fist fight. And it was very sad because they were such mates. And John was acting very strange at that time...the Let It Be thing..."

Footnote: Despite their "ill-will feelings" towards each other during filming of Let It Be and under their more "amicable" recording sessions of Abbey Road, unknown to Beatle fans, Paul McCartney instructs Neil Aspinall to collect all past TV newsreels about the Beatles to be culled from around the world: "You should collect as much of the material that's out there, get it together before it disappears." Recalls Neil: "So I started to do that, got in touch with all the TV stations around the world...got news footage in...we edited something together." In 1996 at the 2nd Annual Ottawa Beatle Convention, Louise Harrison revealed that her brother George had discussed with her back in 1970, the plans for a future Beatle project tentatively called: "The Long And Winding Road*". It would be 25 years later before the project would be realized and under a completely different name: "The Beatles Anthology". Note: Ian MacDonald's book, "Revolution in the Head" claims Neil collected 100 minutes worth of video material from various news sources. An eyewitness to the project was Apple's house-hippie, Richard DiLello, author of the "The Longest Cocktail Party" who wrote in his book said that "a massively ambitious cinematic Beatle document that chronicled their rise from the Cavern to Savile Row" was being overseen by Neil Aspinal. "With his two assistants, Tony and Graham, he had amassed all existing footage of the Beatles...the entire gamut of Beatlogical film history..."

December 18
BEATLES CHRISTMAS ALBUM is issued to fans club members only. Compiled on the album were all the previous holiday greetings (45 r.p.m. singles) done by the group and becomes the final yuletide gift. This album was distributed by "Beatles (U.S.A.) Limited, Headquarters of the Beatles Fan Club." The fan club's central registry was Radio City Station, PO Box 505 , New York , N.Y. 10019 .

December 30
Paul McCartney begins legal procedures to end the Beatles partnership. The band is estimated to be worth about $100 million at the end of the year.

GRAMMY AWARD (1970):
Best Original Score Written for A Motion Picture or TV Special, The Beatles "Let It Be."
Note: Only Paul and Linda McCartney appeared on stage at the Grammy's to pick up the awards on behalf of the Beatles