McCartney Times

ROBERT Burns generated the same frenzy among his fans as did The Beatles 150 years later, according to a historian.The phrase “Burnomania” was coined just 15 years after the poet’s death by a contemporary literary critic, reveals Prof Christopher Whatley.The Beatles regularly had audiences of over 50,000 at their live shows and Prof Whatley, of Dundee University, believes Burns developed the same mass appeal after he died 1796, aged just 37.Prof Whatley says the peak of his cult status was reached in 1859, the centenary of his birth, and that over 872 mass events took place across Scotland, which were “bigger than Live Aid.”

Source: Robert Burns was the Beatles of the 19th Century, says academic – Deadline News