McCartney [Hardcover]

Christopher Sandford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2006

Between 1963 and 1970, Paul McCartney sold 160 million albums throughout the world; co-authored with John Lennon twenty-five US and UK number one singles; recorded the first rock album with Rubber Soul and established the concept of rock-as-art with Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. As a member of the most important rock band ever, Paul McCartney compelled millions of kids to pick up electric guitars and others to burn vinyl. He helped usher in the Swinging Sixties, the Love Generation, rock n' roll's studio era, and left the world dumbfounded when the Fab Four called it quits in the early 70s. However, to this day McCartney remains one of the world's most beloved and respected musicians.

McCartney is a tale of self-destruction and epic excess as well as creative genius and brilliant music. The Beatles' bloody in-fighting, the sex, the drugs, and McCartney's extraordinary marriages are revealed here in full. Yet, while the revelations will genuinely astound, this book remains a celebratory feast for millions of fans, capturing the glorious rush of the best songs and revealing the untold stories behind them. McCartney is the definitive biography, charting not only the pop legend, but the man and his era.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

McCartney's success has long affronted rock aesthetes as proof that facile talent and showmanship trump soulfulness, an opinion that will be complicated, but not reversed, by this serviceable biography. Sandford, a music journalist and biographer of Kurt Cobain and other rock stars, considers McCartney the Beatles' true visionary, the driving force behind Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and other artistic milestones and a perennially interesting pop innovator throughout his Wings period and recent solo efforts. In contrast, Sandford's unremittingly negative portrait of John Lennon paints the deep one as a musical philistine as well as a morose, spiteful personality, regularly drunk, stoned or strung out on heroin. Nonetheless, McCartney feels far less compelling than his music. He emerges as an ambitious, disciplined artist, a hardheaded businessman and "a genuinely nice, down-to-earth fellow," but his Mozartean gift for melody seems unrooted in any profundity of character. The author has trouble imparting an arc to his story, and the post-Beatles narrative devolves into a busy but aimless routine of record releases, tours, reunion rumors, minor marijuana busts and an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of lawsuits pitting various Beatles against each other and assorted managers, publishers, record companies, memorabilia vendors and copyright violators. Sandford offers more of a comprehensive chronicle than a coherent character study. (Feb. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Christopher Sandford has been writing about pop music for twenty years, his articles appearing in The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Spectator and the New York Times, amongst others. In 1998 Rolling Stone called him ‘the preeminent author in his field today’ and ‘a man with his finger on the pulse of pop culture’. His books on major pop figures have been sold to fifteen countries and have featured on both the Sunday Times and the New York Times bestseller lists. He lives in Seattle with his family but returns frequently to the UK.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (February 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786716142
• ISBN-13: 978-0786716142
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,704,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is just a horrible little book!, March 31, 2006

By 

Bradley A. Crouser (Charleston, WV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: McCartney (Hardcover)

This is one of the most poorly-written books about a Beatle that has even been published. A major McCartney fan, I was sorely disappointed in it. The writer tries to be hip by using British idioms and inside jokes that few Americans will even understand. He skips over, with merely a sentence, major portion's of Sir Paul's life or explanations of what happened. He teases you with just a small portion of a story, with inadequate detail. It seems to contain few, if any interviews or original documentation; it's all excerpts of previously written stuff. If I hadn't read other bios, I wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about half the time. Almost any book out there will give you a much better picture of this musical genius than Sandford's, which seems to be no more than an extended article in a cheap magazine. He's more interested in style, than in providing the proper biography that Paul deserves.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new look at the Beatles' genius, February 4, 2006

By 

Tearwrist666 (Marlborough CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: McCartney (Hardcover)

The genius of the Beatles is that all 4 contributed to their success -- it needed Lennon but it needed McCartney too. It needed Harrison and it needed Ringo -- Pete Best wouldn't have worked. But time has a way of sorting out the survival of the fittest. And it is Paul McCartney -- genius songwriter, versatile singer, creative bass player, great piano player, guitarist and drummer, and innovative production and marketing man. Founding rock'n'roller and show biz ballad writer/singer. The first Beatle to get his girlfriend pregnant (way back in 1962); the last bachelor Beatle in swinging London; the Beatle who impressed Beat writer William Burroughs with his adaption of the 'cut-up technique' to music loops; the Beatle who hung out in the clubs with Keith Richards and Brian Jones, and turned Mick Jagger on to marijuana; the Beatle who was into the artsy crowd while his fellow Beatles, including John Lennon, led a suburban life; the Beatle who Yoko Ono approached first with her work; the Beatle who in 1969 conceived the notion of the famous band hitting the clubs under an assumed name and blowing everyone's mind; and the first rock star who in 1965 both experienced and embraced stadium rock when the Beatles played Shae Stadium. This book fills in a lot of the gaps in the story of McCartney and the Beatles......it helped to convince me that McCartney was an much a music innovator as Lennon ever was. Takes us through the 70s (when McCartney hosted parties with Dean Martin and Led Zepplin and Bob Dylan in attendance) through the 80s through the 90s to 2005 when Paul played the Super Bowl half-time. As a Beatle fan from 1964 who has read every biography on them (including Lennon's)...... A great book worth getting.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lacks insight, April 13, 2006

By 

Zami - See all my reviews

This review is from: McCartney (Hardcover)

The editorial review for this book points out Paul McCartney's Mozartean gift for melody. A pity then it didn't also point out two other Mozartean traits that McCartney shares; a preference for expressing his feelings in music rather than words, and a great love of performing for an audience. Much like this review, Christopher Sandford patronises his subject by failing to understand the essence of McCartney's character leaving him vulnerable to accusations of superficiality. He has gathered together an assortment of acquaintances and associates from the Beatles and post-Beatles era whose embellished recollections are no more reliable than those of the Beatles themselves. True, Paul McCartney can be gauche; he may well lack the middle class sensibilities of a Lennon or a Dylan if that is important to people. But Sandford, like so many before him, never really grasps that it is for these very reasons that McCartney has had such an impact on so many people. The music itself resonates because it doesn't rely on easy words to tell his story and because he refuses to package his numerous personal tragedies into some commodity to be enjoyed. McCartney is no fool, it is to his credit that he won't pander to the pious gravitas expected of him by his detractors. For this, and to remain true to himself, he pays the price by having scorn and derision heaped upon him. The pleasant affable nature protects not only the intensely private man he is but also those close to him. This is a book, like most books on Paul McCartney, for those who want their opinions of a "showman" confirmed and who are not prepared to look any further.