The Beatles: The Biography

The Anthology was great: it was huge; loaded with photos; lots to read from the words of each individual Beatle. Of course, it was all from their point of view and in the rose-colored glass shading of fallible human memory with who knows how much self editing. Still I was very happy to have it, and I thought that I had read (after some 20-odd bios) everything there was to be read about the Beatles.Then came along "The Beatles: The Biography" by Bob Spitz, and I couldn't believe how enthralled I was. It was like really, freshly, rediscovering the Beatles. Such details that one can easily imagine how painstakingly arduous the research and background work must have been. Amazingly, new textures appeared, and onion layers long thought to have been peeled were removed on four fascinating (still, very much so) personalities.If you're just now getting into the Beatles, this is an excellent place to start - add perhaps, "Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles" by Geoff Emeryck, for some excellent technical detail. If you're a Beatles-nut and you don't have this - what the hell is wrong with you? If you already have the hard copy version, perhaps a nice paperback edition to dog-ear, and maybe even scribble notes on.(Addendum to original review)Of course, there are timeline issues (I only found two that were sort of jarring: Paul's 21st B-day written as celebrated in 1963, and the time between dragon-lady-Y and Tony Cox meeting and the birth of Kyoko), but after a second reading, I got the sense that things were skewed a bit in favor of the dramatic retelling sense of flow (in Bob's mind, I suppose).Upon second reading -What I appreciated:The compiling of quite diverse material into one volume, which I think is what "shed more onion layers" for me - everything put together, and the way in which the story is told, that is.What annoyed me:The all too common juxtaposition of "they were a lousy group" at the same time that "audiences went wild for them." That kind of contradiction started to stink on ice for me, along with the very similar "we didn't sign them also because they weren't very good at the time." They did evolve and become better instrumentalists, but I sense that fairly early on they had great flair and energy - much more than many are willing to give them credit for in their recollections.

I'm getting a little tired of reading about all the errors in this book when it's clear they are peripheral to the main story. Does it really help to know where George met Patti or other inconsequential points?I was born in the UK in 1944 and was involved with rock bands, and I can say that this book captures beautifully the gestation of the Beatles. We saw pictures of dozens of U.S. bands with Fenders and Gibsons but in Britain you'd have to be doing very well to own one. With poor-quality equipment it was amazing that the British groups managed to establish a style with what they had to make their sounds.Because of this we had to use people who owned equipment rather than those who could play it best. Of the dozen or so rock musicians in our town, there was a singer who couldn't sing and a drummer that couldn't drum, but ownership of a P.A. system and a drum kit respectively kept them in bands for a year or more.For many people the Beatles came out of nowhere, and the commercial rock music scene was so centered on London I only heard of Liverpool as a rock center a few months before the Beatles' first record. I saw them on their second or third British tour when they were second on the bill to Roy Orbison.Spitz' book captures all this. Maybe it's not quite accurate in the details, but it's the best book on the Beatles I've ever read. It's a page-turner, and you'll find information you never knew about the group.It's also an insider's story. When the Beatles broke up, it is obvious from the book why this happened. And there's plenty about the road to success, such as constant rehearsal and being told that playing in a band will never get you any money. In fact I suspect that had our parents bought us equipment and supported us, we could have had a bigger success than the professional non-music careers we eventually adopted.So buy this book and get an insight that you won't get anywhere else. Not everything is correct, but the background is just as important as the details.

Great story, well written and filled with info that I had never heard. I was really surprised by the trip John took with Brian Epstein; maybe a little bi? Not many details about that. So much material to reference in there, very loooong book.

Com uma narrativa que romantiza cada detalhe da história da vida dos membros dos Beatles, o livro acaba por cansar o leitor com uma pesada carga de histórias paralelas, desde descrições detalhadas das vidas dos avós de cada um, chegando quase na metade do livro antes mesmo de contar sobre a entrada do Ringo Starr na banda. Me incomodou também o endeusamento exagerado, como se a genialidade musical dos garotos de Liverpool transcendesse a divindade. Recomendo apenas para hardcore-fãs da banda.

ottimo

A small fault was described accurately and otherwise the book was in great shape. A very good price too.

Extreme led detailed and comprehensive write up on Beatles - as if somebody amongst them wrote it. Very good language and vocabulary use that I liked. For people looking to understand life in 1960s , recommended even if they are not hard rock lovers!