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whatsthestorywishbone's review
5.0
What made me, who seldom reads anything but kids books these days and who is only casually a Beatles fan, read a 900 page book about the Beatles pre 1963. Not sure. My mom had made me (reluctantly) watch the Get Back documentary and I realized quickly how little I knew about them…so on a whim decided to pick up an audiobook to learn more. What I found was there are A LOT to choose from and this one had 5 stars everywhere I looked (although it wasn’t on any best of Beatles biographies lists - why?!), and I kept coming back to it. I figured Get Back was near the end why not start at the beginning? I am 100% sure I made the right choice. I learned SO much from this book and found it riveting. I laughed, I cried and I paused it to play music on Spotify. It may not make you like them as people, but it won’t make you hate them either. It is long though so be prepared and there are short bits I could have done without but someone else probably loved them and hated pieces I found fascinating. That is to be expected from a complete book. Have patience, they don’t become the Beatles until a long way in, but the build up is key and the way the author weaves in cultural touch points is vital to truly understanding why they are the way they are.
Learn how they met, how Ringo got his name and learned to play drums in the hospital, how they got their Beatles haircut, how they stole guitars, got kicked out of school, took a bus across town to learn a new chord from a total stranger, all got engaged/ unengaged or married and then cheated like crazy. Learn how line ups and names changed though the years and then how they came up with THE name and THE line up. Become engrossed in Stu’s heartbreaking story, and feel bad for Pete Best while understanding 100% why that was the correct decision. Learn about the songs they liked and played. Learn how they wrote their own stuff and how Lennon/McCartney came to be. Learn how they recorded/came up with each song on their first album. I will never be able to listen to the Please Please Me album the same way again.
100% would recommend to anyone. Even a casual fan who like me, liked them as a child but probably hadn’t listened to a full album in 25 years. A winner.
Learn how they met, how Ringo got his name and learned to play drums in the hospital, how they got their Beatles haircut, how they stole guitars, got kicked out of school, took a bus across town to learn a new chord from a total stranger, all got engaged/ unengaged or married and then cheated like crazy. Learn how line ups and names changed though the years and then how they came up with THE name and THE line up. Become engrossed in Stu’s heartbreaking story, and feel bad for Pete Best while understanding 100% why that was the correct decision. Learn about the songs they liked and played. Learn how they wrote their own stuff and how Lennon/McCartney came to be. Learn how they recorded/came up with each song on their first album. I will never be able to listen to the Please Please Me album the same way again.
100% would recommend to anyone. Even a casual fan who like me, liked them as a child but probably hadn’t listened to a full album in 25 years. A winner.
keebleman's review
informative
5.0
I remember when I first heard about this project, probably around 2009 or so. I was very sceptical. Lewisohn said he felt the story had never been told 'properly'. Well, even if this is the case, I thought, and I wasn't sure what 'properly' could mean, is Mark Lewisohn the guy to do it? He's a reference book guy: lists, dates, minutiae, that's his field.
Well now that I have read his book, ten years after it had been published (but still without Vol 2 in sight!) I can confirm I was entirely wrong. The details Lewisohn unearthed are not irrelevanItt and they are not just dumped on us. He uses them to place the Beatles in any number of contexts: musical, social, geographical etc. This book is about much more than just a pop group.
It's not perfect. One of the most extraordinary aspects of Beatles lore, that their right-hand man fathered a child with their ex-drummer's mother, doesn't receive as much focus as I thought it might, and the emphasis on Lennon-McCartney's songwriting - with which Lewisohn opens the book - is rather undermined by the fact that, as Lewisohn shows, they barely wrote at all between 1958 and 1962, were reluctant to play their compositions, and by the fact that it wasn't totally unheard of for stars of the time to pen their own stuff, Billy Fury being one contemporaneous example.
But that's just me looking for quibbles. This is a major achievement. All those, like me, who had thought, "Is it really going to be worth going through all this again?" have had our doubts resoundingly allayed.
Well now that I have read his book, ten years after it had been published (but still without Vol 2 in sight!) I can confirm I was entirely wrong. The details Lewisohn unearthed are not irrelevanItt and they are not just dumped on us. He uses them to place the Beatles in any number of contexts: musical, social, geographical etc. This book is about much more than just a pop group.
It's not perfect. One of the most extraordinary aspects of Beatles lore, that their right-hand man fathered a child with their ex-drummer's mother, doesn't receive as much focus as I thought it might, and the emphasis on Lennon-McCartney's songwriting - with which Lewisohn opens the book - is rather undermined by the fact that, as Lewisohn shows, they barely wrote at all between 1958 and 1962, were reluctant to play their compositions, and by the fact that it wasn't totally unheard of for stars of the time to pen their own stuff, Billy Fury being one contemporaneous example.
But that's just me looking for quibbles. This is a major achievement. All those, like me, who had thought, "Is it really going to be worth going through all this again?" have had our doubts resoundingly allayed.
jwells's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
Best, most detailed, and most carefully researched out of the eight or ten Beatles books I've read. I can't wait for the next volume.
Content Warnings
Minor: Drug use, Homophobia, Cursing, Grief, Alcohol, and Death of parent
klucero11's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
5.0
stuporfly's review
5.0
Lewisohn isn't just the foremost expert on the history of the Beatles and a devoted researcher, he also has a knack for making even the most arcane genaological factoid seem interesting. I've read a great many books on the Beatles, and this first of a proposed three volumes is among my favorites.
alexrobinsonsupergenius's review against another edition
5.0
Truly a comprehensive, even exhausting, look at the Beatles. It's over 800 pages long and only covers up to the end of 1962--they hadn't even recorded their first album!--so it's not for casual fans but hardcore Beatles fans will find plenty to enjoy and tons of interesting new info.
drecords's review
5.0
Am I turning into a Boomer with my recent obsession with the Beatles? Since the Peter Jackson documentary, I’m reading and watching anything I can on them. This book “only” goes up to the end of 1962, before their first record and Ed Sullivan, and it is still 40 hours long. Ringo isn’t even part of the band until August of 1962! They don’t even have a drummer until Year 3! Just some overall amazing facts that might serve me well at pub trivia.
Brian Epstein is the true MVP. No one worked harder than he did in the early days to get them famous.
Brian Epstein is the true MVP. No one worked harder than he did in the early days to get them famous.
musicdeepdive's review
5.0
The mass-market edition is the standard that all Beatle biographies will have to meet from now on. The expanded edition is the standard that all music biographies/historiographies will have to meet from now on.
The expanded edition runs 1700 pages (approximately), and every page is compelling and filled with great details. Lewisohn is a relatively hands-off writer in that he constructs a narrative but allows the subjects to speak for themselves a lot of the time. Not necessarily a beginner bio for the wannabe Fab Four aficionado, but certainly the definitive word on the band's pregame years, and very possibly the most well-researched and detailed music biography you will ever read.
The expanded edition runs 1700 pages (approximately), and every page is compelling and filled with great details. Lewisohn is a relatively hands-off writer in that he constructs a narrative but allows the subjects to speak for themselves a lot of the time. Not necessarily a beginner bio for the wannabe Fab Four aficionado, but certainly the definitive word on the band's pregame years, and very possibly the most well-researched and detailed music biography you will ever read.
toddlleopold's review
4.0
Finally finished Lewisohn's monumental biography of the Beatles - vol 1, which only gets to the end of 1962. Though it had its frustrations - Lewisohn isn't the weiter Philip Norman is, and there were times I thought I was fighting Zeno's Paradox, with the book getting longer the closer I got to the end - the breadth and depth of detail is unparalleled, and I still learned something about a band I know pretty well already . So when's vol 2?