McCartney Times

By Ann Pierceall, Correspondent More than 50 years since Beatlemania swept across the United States, fascination with the British rock stars and their music still holds strong.

As evidence, witness the popularity of the stage production “Let It Be: A Celebration of the Music of The Beatles,” which opened in 2012 in London, and has continued its run before appreciative audiences in Great Britain, the United States and around the world ever since. More than 2 million people have seen the show.

“Let It Be,” coming to the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Springfield on Sunday night, is a two-act show that takes the audience on a tour of the Beatles and the times from their shot to stardom in 1962 through to 1970, when the group broke up. That’s the first act of the show, and includes video highlights of what was going on in the world during the group’s meteoric rise. The second act of the production explores the music the men created as soloists and at later reunions.

The four men from Liverpool — Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — created a music phenomenon the impact of which is felt 50 years later, and whose musical legacy as a group and as individuals begs to be revisited and explored.

Of the four, of course, only McCartney and Starr remain alive today. Lennon was assassinated in 1980, and Harrison died of cancer in 2001.

For the men portraying the Fab Four, the show is both a love affair with the brilliance of the music, and feeling the weight of the responsibility of portraying men considered musical icons by most definitions.

Source: Beatlemania returns: ‘Let It Be’ at PCCC celebrates the Fab Four