Customer Reviews

Read the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter

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This is an extremely well-put-together anthology of writings about the Beatles, spanning their entire career as a group and then following each in their post-Beatles years. It includes most of the seminal reviews, interviews and articles about the Beatles from beginning to end (such as the Maureen Cleve/Lennon interview, the William Mann London Times reviews legitimizing the Beatles as serious musicians and songwriters, sections from the Playboy interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, excellent writing on the elusive George Harrison and his musical contributions by David Simons, and much more) and essays on why the Beatles still matter.

The book is set up in three distinct parts

I. Articles written during the Beatles years, in chronological order.
II. Articles written about individual Beatles post-Beatles, arranged by individual.
III. Articles and essays about the Beatles legacy.

I knew quite a bit about the Beatles before reading this book, but I learned much that was new and interesting that has heightened my appreciation of these fine musician/songwriters and their legacy.

Five stars, and then some. A+

Although I may be a bit biased (I'm the author of one of the books excerpted here: "Turn Me On, Dead Man: The Beatles And The Paul-is-Dead Hoax"), I thoroughly enjoyed this compendium of Beatles writings, past and present. Some really interesting articles and book excerpts are included in this tome, including many appearing for the first time in decades. My only gripe: no photos. However, for the price of a movie ticket, it's a real bargain. Andru Reeve sez check it out.

I loved it. This is a collection of some of the finest writers of our time, writing about the finest group of our time. It's divided into two parts; 'Together' and 'Apart', with sub headings under each of those. Each piece is either an expose', piece of poetry, newspaper article or magazine article.

The first story is appropriatly titled, 'The Afternoon Hours',from the book, 'The Day John Met Paul'. It goes from there, with a varied selection of writings from every concievable type of writer from Gloria Steinem to William Mann. Some of the writings are quite controversial like one piece by a journalist named Paul Johnson called, 'The Menace of Beatlism'. This appeared in a British journal in 1964, and it's very interesting to see how people were divided along the generational lines at that time. This leads me to the famous, William Mann article from 1963, which established the group as serious musicians and song writers when everyone over a certain age was saying they were a gimmick with no talent. Mann who was certainly over 30 was a visionary, ahead of his time. He was also a musicologist who knew what he was talking about, even if John Lennon did think he was talking about "Exotic birds". I loved that article and was glad it was included. Another facinating piece stands out. A Gloria Steinem expose' which appeared in Cosmopolitan in 1964. Most of her piece is about trying to get close enough to John Lennon to interview him during the boys' '64 North American tour. Even though she was given permission to do the interview, she finds it impossible to penetrate the Aspinall, Evans, Taylor shield that was erected around them because of their growing distrust of the media. I don't know what she had been planning to ask John because she never really gets to do a proper interview. Instead we are treated to a revealing look at the Beatles behind the scenes, on tour, complete with groupies and assorted hip friends like Bob Dylan and his manager (this was after the pot party, so Dylan had become a permanent fixture by this time.) Gloria even gets to go to the concert, a charity event at the New York Paramount, where she stands at the front of the stage with three very pretty girls from Philly who were just hanging out with them. You know like friends of the band...hmmm. Their are other groupies around also, and with typical 1964 decorum, Gloria discloses what she sees with the utmost taste, leaving the reader to fill in the spaces of what it NOT said. At one point she reports that Paul had barracaded himself in his bedroom, refusing to come out. This made the groupies from Philly cry. As you can see, I loved this article. I thought it was very revealing, and Ms. Steinem leaves you wanting more.

There are other standout articles like the 'looking back' articles, "Ten Great Beatle Moments" from a 2002 news piece, and "They Were the Most Brilliant,Powerful,Lovable Pop Group on the Planet...But Now They're Really Important", from Q Magazine in 1995. Interviews with the fabs like a 1965 Redbook interview with Ringo. One of the best parts is, the last section called 'A Way of Remembering' which includes writings from fans about the Beatles' impact on their lives. One that stands out is from a man who was in the navy at the time of the Beatles first visit to the states in February 1964. He is on leave with his navy buddies and staying at the Deaville Hotel in Miami Beach, where the Beatles are staying. He spys them in the hotel bar and he goes on to tell what his first impression was of this strange group of guys from England. He encounters Lennon standing next to him, ordering drinks at the bar, and the ensuing, brief exchange they have turns into a hilarious misunderstanding of British and American slang. It could have been an episode of 'Seinfeld'. I couldn't stop laughing.

This book is wonderful. If you are a Beatles scholar you will find it invaluable. It's one of my favorites, and I've read many. You will learn a lot more from these pages than you will ever learn from books like 'Shout' or 'The Love You Make'. There were one or two exposes' from the 'Pepper' period that I thought were pretentious and boring, but those are few. The things I wish were included are, pictures of course, and the 1965 'Playboy' article is missing. If you haven't read that, you are missing a very important piece of Beatle writing. Luckily you can see it online. Don't miss it. In the mean time, this book is a must.

This book is a delightful Beatles' smorgasbord of their writings; articles about them and a plethora of anecdotes. Although I wish photographs of the Fabs had been included, I still really like this book and heartily recommend it. Five Stars plus and a resounding "yeah, yeah, yeah!"

A treasure-trove of writings about, & interviews of the Beatles. Insightful in many levels--as those who have experienced the rock'n'roll rebirth that took over the world almost half a century ago, as well as those that only lived to see the remnants of the glory that was the music of the Fab Four, deconstruct what made this band bigger than any other group (and even bigger than themselves) in the heyday of the 60s and 70s, and stretching still into the 21st century. The book holds a certain appeal as it also attempted to present less-than-complimentary essays about the Beatles, the Beatlemania, and their songs, particularly that of the Sgt. Pepper's album.

Worth savoring are excerpts of interviews that showed an altogether different, and, dare I say it, more vulnerable side of Lennon and of McCartney, their love-hate relationship post-Beatles, as well as a look into the mystery that is Yoko Ono.

However, like Philip Norman's "Shout!", there was still a distinct lack of (though not entirely missing) attention attributed to Harrison and Starkey, which is really a shame, as both are intensely interesting persons by themselves, and have certainly left their own signatures in the unprecedented and certainly never-again-to-be-imitated hold that the band unconsciously commanded all over the world.

Definitely worth reading, this is a treat for any fan, and even for someone who wishes to know just what makes a musical icon transcend the boundaries of pop and rock'n'roll, then to be forever hailed as indubitable legends.

Read The Beatles is a collection of previously published articles, interviews & excerpts about the most influential musical act in history. The book touches on every era including the pre-fame years, Beatlemania, break-up & the aftermath. It also devotes sections to the solo years of all four members. The best stuff is from the early days of Beatlemania where you get articles that appeared in print from that time that speculate about what the group means, criticism of their music and most especially a great article from Gloria Steinem where John Lennon himself considers the Beatles a fad and contemplates what his next career move will be after the bubble bursts. As with most books of this kind, it isn't necessary to read it from cover to cover. Overall, for any fans of the group, this is a fine addition to your Beatles library.

Having recently rediscovered The Beatles (as in, I had gone a few years and not listened to their music), it's amazing to me the number of people still writing about them. The fascination is itself, fascinating.
This book is yet a different approach from many others: the writings of journalists and "observers" who covered the decade, both up close and from across the ocean, as well as some recent entries.
One of the elements of this book that makes it worth reading is the sense that you are not prying this time...not delving into private moments or contributing to the guilty pleasures of fan gossip.
This is a true journalistic, sometimes intellectual appraisal of what happened during those ten years in and around The Beatles: a time when the world was morphing from post war aesthetics and ethics into the mind blowing sixties and all that it encompassed for the generations to come.
Keep this book on a table and just pick it up from time to time. It's not a straight read, so enjoy it at a leisurely pace while you listen to some Beatles' tunes...it's all good.

It's always interesting to read articles and excerpts from books that were published at the time something was happening rather than through the hindsight of research and reassessment. For that reason most of this book is an engaging compilation. It is divided into 2 parts. Part 1 is a chronological compendium of pieces following the typical progression in Beatles history. Some well known writers contribute, and it's nice to have the Maureen Cleave article that includes John's Beatles/Jesus remark that caused such a fuss. Easy to see why the American reaction took John by surprise. Part 2 has 5 chapters. The first four focus on each Beatle in the usual progression - John, Paul, George, and Ringo. That has become a worn out way to think of the individuals in this group. As usual John dominates. He gets 7 articles, Paul gets 3, George gets 4 (including one by Philip Glass which is cool), and Ringo 2. Why? I don't know. John is the self-proclaimed genius, the tortured one, the this, the that, but, love him as I do, much of John's chatter seems like self-mythologizing and he clearly had a gift for self-promotion. If there's genius here it is in the mix of these four musicians, so a little more balance in the chapters devoted to each Beatle would have been more interesting. The last chapter of Part 2 collects 9 short personal testimonials about the Beatles. I found this pretty uninteresting for the most part and Steve Earle contributes "The Ten Most Important Beatles Songs." Ugh. I closed the book before reading all these testimonials. Other readers might find them more engaging than I did and the pleasure of having the other articles collected here far outweigh, for me, the slight falling off of this last chapter. Books like this also save us the trouble of hunting down articles we hear about and want to look at. So thanks to editor June Skinner Sawyers for doing a lot of that work and pulling together a fine, and nicely priced, collection worth having,