Ticket to Ride: The Extraordinary Diary of the Beatles Last Tour [Paperback]

Barry Tashian (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 142 pages
• Publisher: Dowling Pr (August 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964645246
• ISBN-13: 978-0964645240
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,152,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who were the Remains and what happened to them?, January 13, 2002

By 

john r. newbrough (nashville, tn USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ticket to Ride: The Extraordinary Diary of the Beatles Last Tour (Paperback)

This little book is an extraordinary chronicle of the Beatles' second tour in 1966 as told by the leader, Barry Tashian, of the opening band, The Remains. Tashian's father, anticipating the potential historical importance of the tour, sugggested he keep a journal. Tashian did that and also took photos. In the book, he builds a story line around the chronology of the concerts, presenting for each concert a photo of the city, tickets, journal entries, photographs of the musicians, fan mail and incidental information from a variety of published sources. I got the clear view of a traveling troup presented by an insider, and I could imagine what it must have been like making this trip as one of the entourage.
Barry and the Remains were unknowns to the music world, their selection for the tour being something of an accident. Tashian's journal entries tell of the group feeling themselves catapaulted into a realm beyond their abilities. During the course of the tour, he developed the closest relationship with George Harrison and began to get a glimpse of him as a real person. It would be interesting for Tashian follow up this book with the story of this experience.
The Remains had a tremendous opportunity to make it big following this tour. But instead Barry disbanded the group, believing that they were not ready for touring. Tour life is very stressful, being confronted with amazing temptations. One can only speculate what the Remains might have become if they had stayed together.
Interestingly enough, the Remains recordings are still available. And it turns out that the original band has been playing over the past two years. There is a new CD in the works.
The interested reader will have the opportunity to hear for themselves their music.
I enjoyed this book very much. It adds to the corpus of Beatles material some important details and perspective.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must" for all Beatles fans!, March 3, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ticket to Ride: The Extraordinary Diary of the Beatles Last Tour (Paperback)

Ticket To Ride: The Extraordinary Diary Of The Beatles' Last Tour is musician and song writer Barry Tashian's personal journal of a landmark musical event profusely illustrated with great, never-before-published photographs of The Beatles, both onstage and behind the scenes. Also included in this fascinating eye-witness narrative are first-hand accounts from fans who attended the shows as well as from musicians and other members of The Beatles' touring party. Ticket To Ride is a vivid, candid, city-by-city, travelogue of the "Fab Four" sojourn across North American and provides true "insider" glimpses of life on tour with The Beatles. Ticket To Ride is a "must" for all dedicated Beatles fans.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good musician's account of the 1966 tour, October 8, 2000

By 

Paul Douglas Reiners "music biography maven" (Rochester, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ticket to Ride: The Extraordinary Diary of the Beatles Last Tour (Paperback)

An excellent book. To tell you the truth, before reading this book (and, believe me, I've read a lot of books about the Beatles), I didn't even know that the Beatles had opening bands on their American tours; I just assumed that the Beatles played for 30 minutes and that was the whole show. Barry Tashian's book gives a very good fellow musician's perspective on the Beatles' 1966 summer tour.

The most refreshing part of the book was learning that the Beatles (George, particularly) were quite friendly to their fellow musicians and not stand-offish. Particularly interesting is an account Tashian gives of playing a new Tim Hardin album for John and being fascinated by Lennon's musical analysis of it.