Probably rock’s most famous muse, Pattie Boyd was the inspiration for 3 of the greatest love songs of the last half of the twentieth century: George Harrison’s “Something,” Eric Clapton’s “Layla” and Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.”

Pattie shot to fame in the early 1960s, becoming an international success as a model. Her work on a potato chip commercial (called “crisps” in the UK) led that commercial’s director, Richard Lester, to cast her as a schoolgirl in the first Beatles film, A Hard Day’s Night.

Boyd was 19, George Harrison was 20. He was instantly smitten and began pursuing Ms. Boyd – proposing to her before they even had their first date. The couple were wed in 1966.

In the course of things, George introduced her to his new best friend, Eric Clapton. Clapton also became infatuated with Boyd. The fact that she was married to his best friend only made things worse. Someone then gave Clapton a 12^th-century Persian poem called “The Story of Layla and Majnun.” (I bet you can guess where this story is going.) 

In the story, Majnun is desperately in love with Layla, but can’t have her. He eventually goes mad and wanders in the desert, never consummating his love. Obviously, this led Clapton to write his now-classic song “Layla.” In fact, his anguish about Pattie is all over his “Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs” album.

But the story of Pattie and Eric traveled a different route than that of Layla & Majnun.
 Infidelities on both George and Patti’s part had put stress on their marriage. Patti chose to resume her modeling career against the wishes of her husband. Then, Pattie discovered that George was having an affair with Ringo Starr’s wife, Maureen. That apparently was the last straw. The couple separated in 1974, eventually divorcing in 1977.

Boyd and Clapton quickly became a couple, eventually marrying in 1978. That there was no ill will between Eric & George is evident in the fact that George joined his old mates Paul McCartney & Ringo to play at Clapton’s wedding reception. (Apparently, no ill will between Ringo and George either.)

But there was no happily ever after here either. Pattie was unable to conceive and Eric ruled out adoption. This caused strain in the marriage. To make matters worse, Pattie found out that Clapton had actually fathered other children while he was married to Boyd. On top of that, Clapton’s alcoholism was out of control and he frequently beat her as well. The couple split in 1987 and were formally divorced in 1989.

Two years later, she met real estate developer Rod Weston. The two became a couple, but didn’t marry until 2015. After 24 years as a couple, Weston quipped, “It's almost our silver anniversary, so we thought we had better get on with it.”

Boyd has been active in addiction recovery work, co-founding SHARP (Self-Help Recovery Program) with Ringo’s second wife Barbara Bach.

She has also written her autobiography (with help from a professional writer), titled – what else? – Wonderful Tonight.

From the pages of 16 Magazine, what Sally Fields really thinks of the Monkees, Bobby Sherman and more!

No. No, you aren't.

“Shout” by the Isley Brothers was already a classic when the movie Animal House launched it into a kind of musical immortality few songs ever achieve. It might surprise you to know that “Shout” was never really intended to be a song at all.

Like a lot of R&B acts at that time, the Isleys were hugely influenced by Jackie Wilson, who was pioneering an energetic style of performing that was electrifying audiences. In 1959, the Isleys were closing their shows with their version of Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops,” a song that had been a hit just a year before. The Isley Brothers were booked into the Uptown Theater in Philadelphia as part of a soul revue, with 15 other acts. The group’s lively rendition of “Lonely Teardrops” landed them the coveted spot closing the bill.

One night during the run of this engagement, the audience got particularly excited, leaving their seats and dancing in the aisle. Lead singer, Ronald Isley began improvising lyrics to keep the song going. One of those ad-libs was “You make me wanna shout!” The band responded with “Shout!,” so he repeated the line. Now, the crowd joined in with “Shout!”

The brothers continued to perform the song this way for the rest of their engagement. When they next entered the recording studio, they discussed recording the song with their producers, Hugo & Luigi. It was the producers who suggested they drop “Lonely Teardrops” and just concentrate on the “Shout” portion.

When they were finished, the Isley Brothers had a song that was too long for just one side of single. So, they cut it in two and released “Shout Part 1” and “Shout Part 2” as a single. And from that time until today, they still close every live show with “Shout.”

You may think you have enough socked away, but financial planners caution that these items may derail some of the best-laid plans:

Luxury Auto: Average cost $55,000

Dream Wedding For Your Child: Average cost $33,000

Dream Around-the-World Cruise: Average cost $25,000

Big Toys: 22-foot sailboat average Cost $25,000 + upkeep

When we were first adopting blue jeans as our official look, many times our parents would refer to them as dungarees. Ever wonder where that name came from?

The word traces all the way back to 1600s when a rough, cheap cloth was imported to England from India. The cloth took the name from the seaside village that produced it, Dongri. The Hindi name for the cloth was dungri. In the UK, that became “dungaree.”

As the cloth was cheap to produce and very long-lasting, it became a favorite of the poor working class in the UK. The same held true when it was imported into the United States many years later. The most typical pieces of clothing made from this cloth were men’s pants and overalls. As it took two pieces of dungaree to make pants, those pants became known as dungarees – even after denim became the fabric of choice for their manufacture.

Their traditional use by poor laborers and farm field hands is another reason your parents (and your school dress code) typically frowned on blue jeans back in the day.

Believe it or not, red peppers – which are green peppers that have been allowed to ripen fully. They contain more nutrients, like beta-carotene and Vitamin C than their little green brothers.

Lots of bands have logos. Chicago made a recording career out of spinning endless variations of their logo into album covers. But the oldest and certainly most iconic is the Beatles logo – the one with what is known as the “Drop-T” design. But who the heck created it?

The Beatles original logo was a somewhat uninspired affair that played on the insect-like nature of their name. And as he did with so much of the Beatles physical look, it was manager Brian Epstein who brought about the change in the boys’ logo.

In 1963 as the band was starting to really take off in the UK, Epstein called on local Liverpool music retailer Ivor Arbiter to obtain a better drum kit for Ringo. He also asked Arbiter if he had any ideas for a revised logo for the group. Arbiter quickly sketched out the design we all know so well.

How much was Ivor paid for the design? Five pounds (or $6.50 American).

But Arbiter had one other condition. The Beatles had to leave the Ludwig logo on the bass drum. That little move probably netted the Ludwig drum company millions in the years that followed.

And now you know the story of a little piece of artwork that will outlive us all!

Lou Reed is a giant in rock & roll history. As one of the key members of the Velvet Underground in the late 1960s, commercial success may have eluded him; but the Velvets were a huge influence on both the punk and new wave movements of the 1970s.

Yet, the failure of the band to find a mass audience led Reed to temporarily abandon rock music to work as an accountant at his dad’s business. Fortunately, that didn’t last long and Lou soon strapped on his guitar again and embarked on a solo career. With his second solo LP, "Transformer," in 1973, Lou found the commercial success the Velvets missed with one of the most unlikely pop hits of that era – “Walk on the Wild Side” produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. As the song deals with transsexualism, drugs and male prostitution, to say nothing of Reed calling out “And the colored girls go…,” that the song found acceptance on Top 40 radio – let along climbing into the Top 20 (and the Top 10 in the UK) – is remarkable.

Predictably, Reed was never able to repeat that Top 40 success, but continued to release albums through 2007. He is a double member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (both as a member of the Velvet Underground and as a solo performer), which makes him somewhat unique among “One-Hit Wonders.”

Reed passed away in 2013, leaving an estate valued at the time at over $10 million dollars. Imagine if he ever had had a second hit record!