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The Beatles: The Biography

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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.

The uproar among Beatles fans about this book suprises me, but it probably shouldn't. It reminds me of Ayatollah Khomenei's reaction to the Satanic Verses: anything short of hagiography is seen as vicious, and anything short of factual perfection is seen as unforgivable sloppiness. It is true that the photo captions are inaccurate to the point of perversity (the editor of these sections had clearly never even read Spitz's text, where the same mistakes are not repeated). The book also bears the scars of ruthless editing to get it down from a reputed 2700pp to a mere 850. As a result of this, sometimes things that seem to be foreshadowed (for instance, the Beatles first encounter with the Animals) never actually appear.

Despite an earlier comment, I would say that Spitz spends the most time on the Fabs early career, and tries to spend as little time as possible on the painful details of their last two or three years together. Despite another earlier comment that the book is a love-letter to Paul and a character assassination of John, I must respectfully disagree. Neither man emerges from Spitz's book as an especially nice person, but I found the portrait of John elicited more sympathy. Maybe it was just easier to relate to John's way of dealing with his problems, than it was McCartney's relentless perfectionism and bossiness. Ringo comes off very well, and George gets high marks for his spiritual development. What really brings the book through is the storytelling. This book is about the men, not the music, insofar as it is possible to separate them. It may not be THE book on the fabs for all time, but it is a pretty good one for right now.

The wonderful Arab expression, the dogs bark but the caravan moves on, certainly applies to the many derisive and dismissive negative reviews of Bob Spitz' excellent new biography of the Beatles.

None of the carping on the Amazon site will seriously impact on the sales of this book, given the consistent positive reviews by professional critics in the national press. Anyone who bothers to actually pick this book up in a store and leaf through its text will see pretty quickly how shallow the criticism and complaints by previous posters are.

The jibes and nitpicking centering on photo captions in a book with 850 pages of text and over 100 pages of notes and sources should give some sense of the agenda being pursued by these fans and lay-historians of the modern rock era.

Don't be put off by these amateurish complaints.

'The Beatles. the Biography' is an outstanding piece of work, scrupulously sourced, that took over seven years to produce. There is nothing in its text that feels rushed at all. It is the most complete story of this band to date, period. It is not intended as a dissection/examination of their songs -- that's material that has been covered well by numerous other authors.

This book is, as stated on the dust jacket, the biography of the group. There is material contained here that has never been explored in this detail, some from sources that have never before been available. This is one of a small handful of works on the Beatles that will stand the test of time.

If you're looking for glossy fan semi-fiction, repetition of tall tales and legends and an attitude of worship, this is certainly not the book for you. But if you are interested in a serious biography that treats all its subjects as human beings with both talents and flaws, you'll find a compelling story here.

Spitz has compiled so much information and writes so well that you don't have to be a fan to enjoy this. Anyone who wants to understand one major piece of what the 1960s were all about will find this biography required reading.

In 1971 John Lennon told Jann Wenner, "We were just a band that made it very, very big, that's all." That's only part of the story. To learn the rest, read 'The Beatles, The Biography.'

It's the gift giving time of year again and everyone will be looking for books of interest to place under the tree. That is when I usually get the latest tomes on what my family members know is my favorite subject: The Beatles.

You'll read a lot here about this book from different reviewers and I think it's important to make a quick distinction before you go on. This book is NOT for the die-hard, already know everything hardcore Beatles fanatic. So if you are buying for them, chances are they have already read it when it first came out. And no doubt they have some strong opinions about it. But if you are buying for one of the millions of other casual to enthusiastic Beatles fans who loved their music during the 1960s, and then grew up and followed them from a distance since then, this is THE book to buy for them, again, if they haven't already read it, now that's it's been out for awhile.

Why not for the fanatic? That's part of the controversy and I'll speak briefly about it. When this book first appeared, it was rushed out for the Christmas season. For a book that took eight years of research and writing, it appeared with 6 glaring photo caption errors. Hardcore Beatles fans instantly caught that and then started to look for any other error in the book. It turned into a feeding frenzy and lots of print went back and forth, especially the poor way the author responded to the criticism. Now there will always be errors in books. Spitz admitted that there was no excuse for the incorrect photo captions and they were corrected in the second printing. But it didn't stop there.

Part of what Spitz wanted to do with his book was two fold: 1) Tie the whole Beatles story together into one book so that those who have not read any or most of the 500 books on the group could walk through their lives from beginning to end and feel like they've walked there with them and now understand a great deal more of the "why" and "how" of this pivotal cultural story of the 20th century, but also 2) Dispel a large part of the Beatles mythology that was purposely perpetrated on the unsuspecting public not only during the band's day in the sun but every since. Biographies by Hunter Davies and others have gone pretty much unchallenged for the false truths, made up stories, and deliberate omissions and those books that have come afterward have included these myths. Spitz set out to debunk the myths and reveal the truth and a lot of traditionalists weren't happy with it. So he was attacked for that too.

This still doesn't excuse the out and out errors in the book but they are few and not many, and mostly timeline mistakes concerning when a song was recorded or an event happened. From what I understand, the later editions of The Beatles: The Biography have had all factual errors corrected so that should no longer be a problem. The myth debunking has not been altered. And that's a good thing.

What the first time reader will get is an earthy, overwhelming look at where the Beatles story began, how it progressed, how close it came to NOT happening (ie John's father returned for him to take him forever to Australia before the band happened) and a taste of what it was like to be born in and grow up in Liverpool during and after WWII. The reader will marvel at how from such a spot on the earth, a musical ensemble could rise within a few years and shake the cultural foundations of the earth. It just doesn't seem possible. Spitz' writing is easy and casual and relaxed, though not always economical. He can get wordy and his choice of terms can get old after awhile. But this is a nit pick.

What the reader will have to sift through is personal opinion. Spitz does lend his own grease to things he writes about and this is probably my only real complaint about the book as he does it a great deal. If he would have stated it as opinion, then that would negate any feelings against an observation. But to just throw out something as fact when it really is an opinion on a song or an event violates that unbiased place a journalist or reporter is supposed to report his story from. Again, this is more of a nit pick than anything else.

The story of the Beatles gets very gritty and we see all of the Beatles in a real light in this book then in most and that's okay. That's what we want. In fact, Spitz could have gone a lot tougher on all of them, especially after Lennon came out with his Rolling Stone Magazine interviews and revealed pretty much everything to the world. Not much of that is in this book.

As a first time read or gift, The Beatles: The Biography will be an entertaining and pleasant journey for the millions of other non-hardcore fans and casual first time wonderers who haven't read it yet. And for those who still see the mop tops as the squeaky clean quartet the way they were marketed in the sixties, get ready for a wild and revealing ride!

Also recommended as a companion book to this one is Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by Geoff Emerick, which reveals The Beatles on the inside of the recording studio, dealing with many of the same issues, from the eyes of those whose job it was to put their music on tape.

I found "The Beatles" to be a very compelling read. As someone who grew up during Beatlemania but hadn't thought much about it for decades, Spitz's book brought back the excitement of the era. It was fun to recall and relive the excitement of each song as it was released. But it was also insightful to learn about Lennon and McCartney's Irish heritage, which obviously had something to do with their capability as wordsmiths. And it was interesting to see the painfully slow process of the group acquiring and discarding bandmembers as they became the Beatles. They slogged away for years, serving an apprenticeship that was longer than the careers of many rival entertainers. And Spitz does a great job of recreating their early world, from the seedy postwar gloom of Liverpool to the harsh lights of Hamburg's red light district. There's loads of trivia, which is always fun. And while I might not always agree with the author's analysis of a given song or motivation, his opinions, by and large, tend to be short and incisive. It's the big story itself that's the reason to read this. It's so energetic that the book moves along like a juggernaut.

I've read a number of Beatles books over the years, from the famous ('Revolution in the Head' by Ian Macdonald) to the more obscure ('Magical Mystery Tour: My Life with the Beatles' by Tony Bramwell). This band is an incredible passion of mine and I know their history very well at this point. When I read a new Beatles book, I traditionally look not only for factual accuracy but for innovation: I like to see the authors bring something new to the table...to tell the familiar story in a new and insightful way. I finally got around to reading Bob Spitz' basically well-received and epic 'The Beatles: The Biography' this week and I was mostly very impressed by the work. I whipped through its 800+ page length in just three days. I couldn't put the thing down! Many others have already reviewed this book, so I'd just like to share some brief personal opinions about it.

Here are the basic positives and negatives of Bob Spitz' achievement in my eyes:

POSITIVES: (1) Spitz is an evocative and talented writer. His prose is both colorful and straight-forward, making for a very enjoyable reading experience. He doesn't just list the facts to you. He really brings you into another world. (2) He is clearly a fan of the Beatles, which I found refreshing, positive and wonderful. So many Beatles authors seem entirely uninterested and unmoved by the music itself, preferring to focus on behind-the-scenes drama, but Spitz devotes pages to unabashed praise for and discussion of the records and songs themselves.

(3) The incredibly detailed first 200 or so pages detailing the band's infancy are wonderful. I've never read such a well-researched and enchanting account of the Beatles' early years. (4) A wealth of new anecdotes and interviews are included in the story, giving 'The Biography' a fresh outlook and giving a hardcore fan new details and stories to enjoy. (5) A commitment to the truth: the Beatles and their inner circle are presented neither as infallible angels or horrific devils, as in other books. They are explored and written as human beings capable of both greatness and mistakes. (6) A Lennon-McCartney balance. Most writers and Beatles historians are completely enamored of the complex and colorful John Lennon and he is here given a rich and honest portrayal. However, Spitz is equally interested in the often comparatively ignored Paul McCartney. I loved seeing that. I believe John and Paul were geniuses of EQUAL stature and I was thrilled to not see Paul getting tossed off as a light-weight alternative to the Gospel of Lennon as he so often is.

NEGATIVES: (1) I wish that the entire book had the same level of intimate detail as the first 200 pages. It may have ballooned the book to well over a 1,000 pages but I think it would have been worth it. The book picks up considerable pace right around 1964 and it starts to feel a bit rushed and not nearly as rich as the beginning. The end of the book, in particular, feels abrupt and unfocused, as if Spitz had smelled the barn door. (2) There are some factual mistakes, mix-ups and general errors. Nothing that truly compromised the integrity of Spitz, but nonetheless things that Beatles fans will recognize right away and which could have easily been fixed. (3) Familiar scenes and moments in the Beatles story are skipped over completely or barely glanced at. I do like reading all the new anecdotes, but there were still some puzzling omissions. For example, why cut the joyful moment in Paris early '64 when the band learned they had gone #1 in America and Brian Epstein wore a chamber-pot on his head?

(4) Compared to the insightful and focused renderings of John and Paul, Spitz seems positively uninterested in the exploits of George and Ringo. As a major George Harrison fan, it was particularly troubling that Spitz barely spared a word for any of George's wonderful compositions. He spends pages upon pages describing "Sgt. Pepper" and its influence in loving detail without ever even mentioning "Within You Without You." It's as if the song doesn't exist. The same is true of pretty much every single George song. (5) Along similar lines, the final 4 Beatles records are discussed with considerably less finesse than those through "Sgt. Pepper." For example, review quotes pulled for "Abbey Road" describe the album as "boring" and Spitz never even discusses the innovation and grace of the second-side medley. I don't think these albums are represented entirely accurately: as the masterpieces that they are.

FINAL WORD: For such a huge effort (literally), Bob Spitz has achieved something very, very good with 'The Beatles: The Biography.' Though it is imperfect, I'd easily categorize it as the best general history of the band I've yet read. It treats the band and their story with respect, interest, and skill. Despite a few hiccups, it was a highly engaging read, I learned some new things and it furthered my love and respect for this remarkable, remarkable band. You can't really ask for much more than that. I highly recommend it for both new and veteran Beatles scholars.

I have mixed feelings about this book. As other reviewers have mentioned he makes some very simple errors such as the picture of the Beatles holding a child in Central Park during the Beatles first visit to America. In the caption, it is identified as Julian who was not on that trip and is clearly not the child pictured. Elsewhere he seems to mess up the chronology of certain events. There are other time where he gives various players accounts of the same events and seems to randomly choose which one to believe. Another glaring error is when he is giving the account of the first station to play the Beatles in America. The station is Washington, D.C.'s DC-101 or as it was known in those days, WWDC. He gets the call letters right on first reference, but then mangles them in subsequent ones. Sloppy.

He also revisits the tired speculation of John Lennon and Brian Epstein's alleged sexual encounter. Here's the thing: only two people can know what happened. One of them (Brian) NEVER spoke publicly about it. There are second and third hand accounts, but are hardly what you would call evidence. The other person (John) ALWAYS PUBLICLY DENIED IT! So why would you draw the conclusion that something definitely happened? It seems like tabloid journalism to me. Who cares?

He also falls back on the characterization of Paul McCartney as an egomaniacal jerk. It seems that Beatle biographers have fun to painting Paul this way. I get the feeling that he may have stepped on a lot of toes over the years. That being said, you can get a better idea of what Paul was like by reading Tony Bramwell's book (Magical Mystery Tours). It gets tiring reading the John=genius/Paul=Jerk scenario.

Finally, while he does have the courage to pull no punches on Yoko, he minimizes the effect John's first wife, Cynthia, had on his life. Like many in the Beatle universe, he paints her as the shrinking violet who John was forced to marry. The truth is more complex. See Larry Kane's recent book for a better analysis as well as Cynthia Lennon's book, John.

That being said, I enjoyed the book. I particularly liked the detail about the early days of the Beatles in Hamburg and Liverpool (prefame).

I have a feeling Mr. Spitz will be writing a book just on John soon seeing as how he had access to all of Albert Goldman's taped interviews and he claims Goldman left out a mountain of material in favor of publishing the scandalous stuff.

I am currently reading this book and find it quite entertaining. Now to the point. I am sick and tired of reading reviews on books, CDs and DVDs where the reviewer has not even read the book, listened to the CD or watched the DVD. Give me a break. If you did not read, listen or watch then keep your comments to yourself.

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.

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.