Customer Reviews

Way Beyond Compare: The Beatles' Recorded Legacy, 1957-1965

5 star:		(7)
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The other reviewers have it right: This Is Essential.

So is Part 2: 1966-1970, and here's where you can find it: http://members.aol.com/multiplusbooks/ .....or via a Google search on Multiplus Books.

And if you're feeling flush, there's a Volume 3, too -- this one catalogues the EMI tape library and is necessarily a somewhat drier read, but still an essential companion to Lewisohn's Recording Sessions.

Definitely one of the finest reference works available for collectors! Mr. Winn has taken on a project that even Sulpy and Lewisohn wouldn't touch: Identifying and cataloguing every known interview, film clip, and newsreel featuring one or all of the Beatles. Studio sessions, concert appearances, and Radio/TV performances are also chronicled in a very clear and concise format, which complements rather than competes with the aforementioned authors.
This book is absolutely essential for serious collectors, while being an enjoyable read for the casual fan. Volume Two is due in the near future, and if it's even half as good as Volume One, it will be "core collection" as well.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

The amount of detail in this first volume is staggering! When I received my copy, I could not put it down and am now anxiously waiting for volume 2. I put this publication in the same *essential* category as the Lewisohn tomes. This book has helped me identify and catalog many of the previously vaguely-detailed interviews & press-conferences of the Fab 4 plus the description of many of their studio-sessions has been most informative as well as entertaining. Bring on volume 2!!

This book is simply amazing. John Winn has obviously dug and sifted through an immense archeology of Beatles recordings and films, TV and Radio appearances, listing reviewing and analyzing every known appearance--be it hand-held 8mm home movie, reel to reel tape, vinyl acetate, as he says: "If it's out there, it's in here."

Beatles collectors, from the amateur fan to the die-hard completist have been waiting for this book for decades. From the earilest Quarrymen's performance where John met Paul, for EVERY known film and sound recording, the reader is told what to listen for, if and why the recording is significant, and where it fits into the bigger picture; stereo mixes, mono mixes, film mixes, studio sessions, it's all in here!

Unbelievably exhaustive. Thousands of entries. This book is the perfect gift for any Beatles fan! My *only* complaint is having to wait several more months for the release of Volume 2!

WARNING: Learning about *all* the Beatles material out there may cause obsessive collecting, trading, and downloading from obscure websites.

WAY BEYOND COMPARE is the first of two exhaustive volumes chronicling all known recordings of The Beatles. John Winn's insightful study details far more than just the recordings that have been officially released over the years. He's heard every available studio outtake, concert performance, interview, press conference, newsreel, and TV & radio appearance. The author documents where and when each of these recordings were made in addition to identifying the sources you can hunt down to hear them for yourself.

This is an important work that already ranks in my top five of the best Beatles books. Winn painstakingly details each Fab recording, yet he does so in an eminently readable way that belies the scholarship behind each entry. You can read WAY BEYOND COMPARE from cover to cover for shear enjoyment or you can use it as an indispensable, chronologically arranged reference to the recorded legacy of The Beatles. Either way, you will not be disappointed.

But you needn't take my word for it. Search out John C. Winn's WAY BEYOND COMPARE page on the World Wide Web and read a couple of samples from this authoritative and satisfying book for yourself.

I wouldn't give 5 stars for a book unless it makes me enjoy each of its text lines. And 'Way Beyond Compare' does it.
This book is a complete guide of every recording of The Beatles in music, video and speech. With a very organized sorting codes each of the technical specifications gives you the source of the recording, the facts around it, and a genealogy of the recordings where can found it. Very useful for vinyl and CD collectors.
The text is very readable and sometimes with a great sense of humor.
The author mantains a web site where you can find extras and updates (the last week there was one), and keeps you informated about the next release (1966-1970).
finally, the ultimate guide for the released Beatles recordings.
If you want to know everything, it is there.

I have been collecting the Beatles for close to 25 years now, and anyone who has tried to do the same knows what a daunting task it can be. Once you move beyond the officially released canon available at any CD store in the world, the waters become murky very, very quickly.

To begin with, dozens of mixing variations were released around the world, making some of the best-known songs ever sound different, depending on what country you lived in. It took a major effort to find out what was out there, let alone how to get it all. Then, the move into the world of recordings "circulating among collectors" is a move not for the faint-of-heart....the underground nature of collecting has always spawned a ton of misinformation, misdirection and a lot of wasted money. And let's not get into the world of spoken-word interviews or video of the Beatles....those areas of collecting were so unexplored, no author had ever dared to even touch them.

Thankfully, all of that has changed. John Winn has written a book that explores every tape (audio and video) of the Beatles that is in circulation in an amazingly comprehensive text that literally leaves no stone unturned. The motto on the book is "If it's out there, it's in here," and it couldn't be more accurate. I thought my knowledge of the Beatles was deep and labyrinthine, but John has pulled out all the stops, surprising me on almost every page with a tape that I didn't know was out there.

It's not meant to be a static text, either...since the publication, some new tapes have shown up, all of which John updates regularly on his web site. So the information will always be updated.

It's not a static text in another sense, either...a book that just listed facts and dates and places would be valuable, but horribly boring and dry. Fortunately, John Winn is a sharp writer with a great sense of humor and wit, which effectively turns this book into more than just a catalog of what tapes exist; it becomes a cracking good biography of the Beatles as well.

Winn writes that he wrote this book because it's the book he's always wanted to have on the Beatles. Me too....I've waited for this book for a quarter of a century....and it's only half the story! The years 1966-1970 will be covered in the second volume later this year. If you love the Beatles, this book is a warm and witty look at their early years, and a nice way to get a feel for what they did day by day. But if you're a collector who is just starting to explore the world beyond EMI's CDs (or needs to organize your massive but scattered collection, like I did), this book is utterly invaluable. True Beatles fans know that there are really only a handful of scholarship-based books on the group that are worth anything at all (Lewisohn, Sulpy and Madinger/Easter all come to mind)....thank goodness! That all-too-short bookshelf just got a bit more crowded. Buy this without hesitation.