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33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No "Paperback Writer" Here; The Author Deserves His Hard Cover, May 7, 2006
Is the world ready for a thousand-page critical history of the boys from Liverpool? The answer is a resounding yes, because Bob Spitz addressed this project with the thoroughness of a presidential biography. Moreover, he is a magnificent story teller, and even at its length this work is a page turner. The young reader will find this a remarkable tale of a defining moment in the entertainment industry, while old "Uncle Alberts" like myself will remember the days when we all hacked around on guitars to get that opening chord to "Hard Day's Night," George Harrison's G7 with an added ninth and a suspended fourth, as the author explains. [502] So what can the reader expect to learn from this compelling tale of the foursome?
The British Setting. All four Beatles grew up in a country recovering from war, in an industrial port town [Liverpool], where the natives called themselves "Scousers" and nurtured a long-standing inferiority complex regarding London and England's upper class. The government owned radio station, the BBC, effectively embargoed the emerging US rock music as substandard. Teenagers like John Lennon devoured American artists like Elvis and the Everly Brothers from a rogue radio station in Luxembourg, of all places, while reveling in England's youth pop of the time, Skiffle.
The Lennon-McCartney Brotherhood. Spitz is masterful in describing the twelve year relationship of the two, who met at roughly the age of 17. They became like brothers, though in the mold of Esau and Jacob, perhaps. Much has been written of their composing mastery, but Spitz documents just how prolific and spontaneous they actually were. What is equally surprising is how they composed during periods of terrible strains in their relationships. When John and Paul could no longer be reconciled, the Beatles dissolved.
Brian Epstein. He is, as the story unfolds, the best thing and the worst thing to happen to the Beatles. He was the young manager of the record department in his family's department store, who for a multitude of reasons made the Beatles his project. His moxie, coupled with the Beatles' stage charisma and not a little luck, landed the group's contract with Britain's recording giant EMI [and its American subsidiary, Capital]. Again, for complex reasons, Epstein was able to control the group's inner dynamics after it became internationally famous. But he was a dreadful business manager--the EMI contract, for starters, paid pennies for most of the Beatles' greatest hits and copyrighted lyrics, and as an afterthought he sold marketing rights to Beatles' products to an unknown entrepreneur for a 10% return. [465ff] Distracted by a dark and violent homosexual lifestyle, he probably cost the group close to a billion dollars in lost revenue.
Ringo Starr. Aren't drummers a dime a dozen? Not superstar drummers, apparently. As the Beatles stood on the threshold of their breakout in 1962, McCartney and Lennon determined that the absence of a first rate drummer was the missing piece. Although it meant parting with the handsomely popular but average stroker Pete Best and a lot of fan fallout, the Beatles raided Rory Storm's band for Richie "Rings" Starkey, and the rest, as they say...
The Turbulent American Tours. Those of us who remember the two Beatles' tours of the US-including that Sunday night TV extravaganza with Ed Sullivan-will probably be shocked to discover the Beatles' own bitter reactions to their treatment by American audiences. Mick Jagger attended the Shea Stadium concert in the stands and became "visibly shaken," telling a friend "it's frightening." [577] Aside from stage crashing and riots in the audiences, American fans mistook "jelly babies," the little gummy candies reportedly enjoyed by the Beatles, for "jelly beans" and pelted the group mercilessly with these painful missiles. John Lennon in particular became convinced that the noisy crowds had no interest in their musical art [impossible to hear in the melees] and after their second tour of the US the group decided to become a recording studio group only.
Reinvention. Spitz carefully examines the evolution of Beatles' style and substance. The milestone markers of the evolution were the albums. Beatle fans to this day can probably identify each Beatle album as a particular statement of where they were-artistically, emotionally, philosophically-at the time of release. And within the group itself, George Harrison came on strong at the end to establish himself as a lyricist, soloist, and musician. Harrison brought Eastern sound to the medley and later penetrated the mysteries of the new "synthesizer," making the Beatles the first to use new age gadgetry in the recording process.
John Lennon's Drug Addiction. Spitz does not back away from the truth that the Beatles were no strangers to mind altering substances, and all indulged prodigiously in alcohol, amphetamines, and marijuana [not to mention tobacco and, apparently, coffee]. But Lennon became a regular LSD user, and believing it expanded creative powers, he was enraged with McCartney's caution about the drug. Lennon later declined into serious heroin use, which led to paranoia. He came to believe, for example, that "Hey Jude" was McCartney's permission for Lennon to court the questionable Yoko Ono.
Yoko Ono. In a departure from his uniform decorum, Spitz refers to Ono as "loopy," and this may be an understatement. What else can be said about a woman who marketed the sound of her miscarried child's heartbeat on an album? [834] Of course, by the time she "stole" the deeply disturbed Lennon from the Beatles, it was petit larceny at worst.
George Martin. A middle-aged man with classical tastes, he was assigned the task of producing everything we know, love, and remember of the original Beatles' sound. Underpaid, infinitely patient [particularly in the Yoko Ono days], and remarkably open-minded in his shirt and tie, he gave the imprimatur to every sound of every track. Of everyone in this book, Martin is the man of shining character. God bless him.
You will never hear the Beatles again in quite the same way.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well written but with a lot of factual errors, November 14, 2005
Bob Spitz's book THE BEATLES: THE BIOGRAPHY is well written with lots of intelligent insight into the band, their personalities and has lots of previous untold stories littered throughout the book. It does suffer from one flaw that can't be excused of any book--loads of incorrect dates, ages and other factual errors that most Beatle fans would catch in their sleep. I understand the need to get this to market before Christmas but, honestly, a good editor would have picked up on most of these errors. The scholarship isn't always top notch but the writing is quite good and makes this one of the most readable bios out there.
Spitz does attempt to dig through the myth and find the truth about the band's history. The most compelling part of the book covers their early years before, during and shortly after Hamburg. Spitz is an evocative writer; you can practically smell the smoke, beer and see the band struggle through their set on stage to an indifferent audience. Still, that doesn't excuse the lazy copy editing of the book. As many people have pointed out dates, facts and even ages are wrong (Spitz claims, for example that "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" is a song penned by Harrison when, in fact, it was penned by Harrison's idol Carl Perkins. He also claims in the conclusion that Ringo Starr was 31, Lennon 30 when the band broke up. That's something simple to confirm and correct).
Again, the attraction for Beatle fans will be the loads of tapes that Albert Goldman (a friend of Spitz's. Spitz disagreed with Goldman's sloppy and exploitative biography of Lennon)never transcripted. Goldman interviewed lots of people who knew the Beatles before and after fame. He never aired any of these interesting stories focusing instead on the most sensational ones. These bits and pieces of Beatle lore will attract fans that have read just about every other book on the band out there. On the other hand, it makes some of these stories a little suspect because of the errors that riddle the book.
I'd recommend this book with caution. It's got lots of good points but many bad ones as well. If you're looking for a solid book on the band's music try and find Mark Hertsgaard's excellent A DAY IN THE LIFE: THE MUSIC AND ARTISTRY OF THE BEATLES. Hertsgaard focuses the music and its inspiration weaving in a bit of biography here and there. It's also something that can be appreciated by nonmusicians.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Are there no fact-checkers anymore?, November 8, 2005
It seems pretty inexcusable, after all these years, that a book of this size, with so much promotion behind it, should be riddled with so many errors. Others have noted the lack of emphasis on the music, and recommended Mark Hertsgaard's pretty good book on that topic (not amazing, but there haven't been many efforts in this regard of any quality, speaking as a trained music theory-monger). Personally I would have been very happy with a book that was purely biographical. But so much of these men's lives is either public record, or accessible through other sources, that it's hard to understand how Spitz got away with this mess. Inaccurate captions, chronological errors, mislocation of crucial events: all these make one wonder about the new information that is presented. Spitz is presenting a stronger, more fully human picture of this glorious, sometimes tragic collaboration. But biographies lose credibility and emotional power quickly when the factual errors keep stacking up.
Someday a writer will take the time to do this right. I would have thought 35 years since the break-up of the band would be enough time, but apparently not.
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