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Tune In is the first volume of All These Years—a highly-anticipated, groundbreaking biographical trilogy by the world's leading Beatles historian. Mark Lewisohn uses his unprecedented archival access and hundreds of new interviews to construct the full story of the lives and work of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
Ten years in the making, Tune In takes the Beatles from before their childhoods through the final hour of 1962—when, with breakthrough success just days away, they stand on the cusp of a whole new kind of fame and celebrity. They’ve one hit record ("Love Me Do") behind them and the next ("Please Please Me") primed for release, their first album session is booked, and America is clear on the horizon. This is the lesser-known Beatles story—the pre-Fab years of Liverpool and Hamburg—and in many respects the most absorbing and incredible period of them all. Here is the complete and true account of their family lives, childhoods, teenage years and their infatuation with American music, here is the riveting narrative of their unforgettable days and nights in the Cavern Club, their laughs, larks and adventures when they could move about freely, before fame closed in.
For those who’ve never read a Beatles book before, this is the place to discover the young men behind the icons. For those who think they know John, Paul, George, and Ringo, it’s time to press the Reset button and tune into the real story, the lasting word.
Ten years in the making, Tune In takes the Beatles from before their childhoods through the final hour of 1962—when, with breakthrough success just days away, they stand on the cusp of a whole new kind of fame and celebrity. They’ve one hit record ("Love Me Do") behind them and the next ("Please Please Me") primed for release, their first album session is booked, and America is clear on the horizon. This is the lesser-known Beatles story—the pre-Fab years of Liverpool and Hamburg—and in many respects the most absorbing and incredible period of them all. Here is the complete and true account of their family lives, childhoods, teenage years and their infatuation with American music, here is the riveting narrative of their unforgettable days and nights in the Cavern Club, their laughs, larks and adventures when they could move about freely, before fame closed in.
For those who’ve never read a Beatles book before, this is the place to discover the young men behind the icons. For those who think they know John, Paul, George, and Ringo, it’s time to press the Reset button and tune into the real story, the lasting word.
944 pages, Hardcover
First published October 10, 2013
About the author
Mark Lewisohn
39 books246 followersMark Lewisohn is the acknowledged world authority on the Beatles. Before embarking on The Beatles: All These Years his books included the bestselling and influential The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions and The Complete Beatles Chronicle. He was a consultant and researcher on all aspects—TV, DVDs, CDs and book—of the Beatles own Anthology and has been involved in numerous additional projects for them. Married with two children, he lives in England.
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September 11, 2019
Update:
Today (11 September 2019) we have an article in the Guardian about Mark Lewisohn and about Abbey Road and it includes the following :
Constant demands to know when Turn On (covering 1963-66) and Drop Out (1967-69) might appear are met with a sigh: “I’m 61, and I’ve got 14 or 15 years left on these books. I’ll be in my mid-70s when I finish.”
So my speculations (and others' too) about the titles of the next two books are proved correct! That doesn't mean I like these titles any more though. And (groan) it seems like we're going to be waiting for YEARS for the next books.
Here's the article:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/201...
************************************
A five star book with a one star title and a no star cover, so let’s get that out of the way now – Mark, what were you thinking? Tune In? It’s from Timothy Leary, right? So I am assuming that your three volumes will be Tune In, Turn On and Drop Out. It must have sounded cute to you. Not to me. It’s a wretched idea. And the cover – there are gorgeous photos of the young Beatles on the inside cover, where they can’t be seen. They would have done wonderfully. Or anything except what you ended up with! What a horrible cover.
Rant over. Review now follows.
A THOUSAND PAGES, GIVE OR TAKE A FEW
Like a stunning camera obscura or one of those enormous 19th century travelling dioramas, this huge book recreates a particular British working-class past in abundant, lavish, sensuous and psychological detail. Yes, you’ve all been here before – here’s sisters Mimi and Julia, posh Cyn, sullen Pete, and tragic Stu, and there’s sickly Richy, and arty Astrud, indeed the whole kit and caboodle, really the act you really have known for all these years. But in this incarnation, instead of whizzing by at speeds too fast to take everything in, everything is slowed down to the point where you can walk right round the events as they unfold, and see them in three dimensions, like one of those exploded diagrams of car engines. You can peer into the drawers in all the rooms, you can poke around the piles of rubbish in 3 Gambier Terrace or stick your head through the bedroom door of 20 Forthlin Road and overhear something interesting, do you recognise it ? Is it I’ll be On My Way? And is that one Hello Little Girl? There are fights, divorces, pregnancies, friendships, betrayals, cruelties, goodheartedness, viciousness, wit, boorishness, nothing papered over, everything admitted.
When I heard about this book I thought : yes, it will have all the facts, it will be the complete story, but will you be able to read it? How do we know that Mark Lewisohn can actually write? It takes more than a giant Beatle database to make a good book. Well, this is no Ellman’s-James-Joyce and probably not even Guralnik’s-Elvis but it’s just fine. He’s infinitely affable without being ingratiating; it’s like being in the company of an openhearted friend. Occasionally he can turn in a sentence like :
The show’s second half had the professional talent, and here at last was Gene Vincent – gut full of liquor, eyes full of mania, body full of pain – throwing himself about the stage in psychotically energetic defiance of his injuries and grief, just seventeen nights after surviving the death crash.
But more typical Lewisentences are :
Stuart so enjoyed Astrid’s black leather suit – the tight trousers and jacket – that she arranged to have an identical pair tailor –made for him. This was done at Hamburger Ledermodern, a smart, expensive leather store downtown, and it cost her DM1500 (about £128).
This book may be unique in one other respect too – no one will read it unless they want to know the arse end of every last possible Beatle fact, and so no reader will be disappointed. Can’t see anyone throwing it down on page 450 saying “Oh God, this is too much!” – if you don’t want nearly 1000 pages about the young pre-fame Beatles, then this is not the Christmas present for you, because that it what this is.
SUPERSTRINGS
You can tell that the Beatles were committed. The first 400 pages of Tune In is the story of them gradually burning all their bridges, leaving school, or being thrown out, with no qualifications (McCartney got one single A level). They were going to be in a rock band or they were going to end up as van drivers and building site labourers. They were deadbeats, the despair of their parents. At the beginning of 1960 they weren’t even in the top five groups in Liverpool. And the continual merry-go-round of members, never being able to find bass players or drummers, so that by mid 1960, they had John’s friend Stu on bass because he could afford to buy one and he was John’s friend, otherwise he had never played an instrument before in his life; and some kid they didn’t know on drums because his rich mum had bought him a set – that was Pete Best. It was, really, pitiful stuff, a shambles.
In 1961, the shambles was driven in a van to Hamburg and there an alchemical process began to turn base metal into something incandescent.
In so many ways, the rise of the Beatles is as unlikely as the rise of Christianity, almost to the point where a person might start believing in divine tinkering. I do not mean to be Lennonanistically blasphemous, but it was not likely that a tiny despised sect of an obscure ethnic group in the vast Roman Empire should become an unstoppable force to the point where it took over the entire Empire. It was also not likely that a bunch of four scallies from a poor Northern provincial town who were only the 12th best group in Liverpool in 1959 (out of 18) should become an unstoppable force and take over a large part of the world within a few years. I wish to point out the majorly curious coincidence of three brilliant songwriters being born at roughly the same time in the same city, and ending up in the same group. It’s one thing for Leiber and Stoller to meet up in LA or Rodgers and Hammerstein to discover each other in NYC, these are gigantic cities where all the top talent gravitates. Liverpool was the sticks. What came out of Liverpool? Ken Dodd and chip butties.
The formation of the Beatles therefore lends considerable weight to the fine-tuned universe argument - which is in this case a fine-tuned Liverpool argument, even more of a case for intelligent design.
8% HAD A FRIDGE
Mark Lewisohn promoted his book by saying that there would be revelations at every turn. My daughter Georgia who is 17 and a Beatle fan because brainwashing really does work said “Oh we’ll find out they had beans on toast when the other books said they had egg and chips” – she can be a little dismissive – but yes, I wouldn’t call this book rammed with explosive myth-busting info – but here is the full detail, all the twists and shouts, and there are a whole lot of curious crannies to the story, and every one is filled in and made to fit with all the other elements. As you read you can hear the cogs and gear wheels clicking in to place to create the gestalt event known as The Beatles – first John, then John brings in Paul, then Paul brings in George, then George brings in Ringo; Hamburg – click; the haircut, click; the manager, clackclack; the suits, click clack, whirr hummm; meanwhile offstage, a vast population of 10 and 11 year old kids waiting to become 13 and 14 year old kids when they will all go off their heads at the sight of what was, during the course of these 870 pages not counting the notes and index, being assembled, by means of unerring improvisation.
Mr Lewisohn also remarks on his website that he likes to think of this book as a social history of England with the Beatles at the centre. I see what he means. This must be the most detailed account of English provincial working class day to day life from the 40s to the 60s, as refracted through the lives of six or so scuffling wannabe pop musicians. The fags, the boozers (Ringo : “My parents were alcoholics and I didn’t realise it.”), the kneetremblers, the scouse, the unrelieved poverty of these lives. In 1960 only 18% of British households had a washing machine. And as for the refrigerator - by 1950 90% of American homes had one. By 1960, only 8% of British homes did.
In this story there is a lot of people not getting on with each other. J P & G did not get on with Pete Best, whose fans, when he was sacked, stomped and yelled “Pete Best forever, Ringo never” whilst standing in front of Ringo when he played his first Beatles gig. They were banned from various venues in Liverpool because of loutish behaviour and missing the odd concert. Mimi fell out with Julia and hated Cynthia. Paul was frosty with Brian for a while. And all parents disliked and feared John Lennon. But all of that, that’s life. Also part of life is death, and they got their fair share of people dying on them, from parents (Julia and Mary) to heroes (Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran) to Stuart Sutcliffe.
I NEVER LIKED IT
The chronology is startling. ML points out that their first night in Hamburg, 17 August 1960, was the exact 20th anniversary of the first Nazi attack on Liverpool. He can’t resist a little bit of preaching at this point, and I can’t resist quoting it :
Rock and roll music was taken to Hamburg by the children of the survivors, to be heard in turn by the children who’d outlived the Allies’ revenge blitz of 1943. Scorned by adult society as a force for evil and the work of the devil, black rhythm music out of America – and before there, of course, out of Africa – was bringing harmony where once had been hatred.
Well, yeah, harmony and fistfights!
Coming in at the tail end of this Brobdingnagian biography, they actually manage to release a record, Love Me Do, which I never liked, and neither did George Martin. It’s a pretty feeble song. The following year was when the music suddenly went up a few gears, and we’ll get that story in another 5 or 10 years when volume 2 comes out. But I suspect this book will be the best of the three. Wonderful stuff.
Today (11 September 2019) we have an article in the Guardian about Mark Lewisohn and about Abbey Road and it includes the following :
Constant demands to know when Turn On (covering 1963-66) and Drop Out (1967-69) might appear are met with a sigh: “I’m 61, and I’ve got 14 or 15 years left on these books. I’ll be in my mid-70s when I finish.”
So my speculations (and others' too) about the titles of the next two books are proved correct! That doesn't mean I like these titles any more though. And (groan) it seems like we're going to be waiting for YEARS for the next books.
Here's the article:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/201...
************************************
A five star book with a one star title and a no star cover, so let’s get that out of the way now – Mark, what were you thinking? Tune In? It’s from Timothy Leary, right? So I am assuming that your three volumes will be Tune In, Turn On and Drop Out. It must have sounded cute to you. Not to me. It’s a wretched idea. And the cover – there are gorgeous photos of the young Beatles on the inside cover, where they can’t be seen. They would have done wonderfully. Or anything except what you ended up with! What a horrible cover.
Rant over. Review now follows.
A THOUSAND PAGES, GIVE OR TAKE A FEW
Like a stunning camera obscura or one of those enormous 19th century travelling dioramas, this huge book recreates a particular British working-class past in abundant, lavish, sensuous and psychological detail. Yes, you’ve all been here before – here’s sisters Mimi and Julia, posh Cyn, sullen Pete, and tragic Stu, and there’s sickly Richy, and arty Astrud, indeed the whole kit and caboodle, really the act you really have known for all these years. But in this incarnation, instead of whizzing by at speeds too fast to take everything in, everything is slowed down to the point where you can walk right round the events as they unfold, and see them in three dimensions, like one of those exploded diagrams of car engines. You can peer into the drawers in all the rooms, you can poke around the piles of rubbish in 3 Gambier Terrace or stick your head through the bedroom door of 20 Forthlin Road and overhear something interesting, do you recognise it ? Is it I’ll be On My Way? And is that one Hello Little Girl? There are fights, divorces, pregnancies, friendships, betrayals, cruelties, goodheartedness, viciousness, wit, boorishness, nothing papered over, everything admitted.
When I heard about this book I thought : yes, it will have all the facts, it will be the complete story, but will you be able to read it? How do we know that Mark Lewisohn can actually write? It takes more than a giant Beatle database to make a good book. Well, this is no Ellman’s-James-Joyce and probably not even Guralnik’s-Elvis but it’s just fine. He’s infinitely affable without being ingratiating; it’s like being in the company of an openhearted friend. Occasionally he can turn in a sentence like :
The show’s second half had the professional talent, and here at last was Gene Vincent – gut full of liquor, eyes full of mania, body full of pain – throwing himself about the stage in psychotically energetic defiance of his injuries and grief, just seventeen nights after surviving the death crash.
But more typical Lewisentences are :
Stuart so enjoyed Astrid’s black leather suit – the tight trousers and jacket – that she arranged to have an identical pair tailor –made for him. This was done at Hamburger Ledermodern, a smart, expensive leather store downtown, and it cost her DM1500 (about £128).
This book may be unique in one other respect too – no one will read it unless they want to know the arse end of every last possible Beatle fact, and so no reader will be disappointed. Can’t see anyone throwing it down on page 450 saying “Oh God, this is too much!” – if you don’t want nearly 1000 pages about the young pre-fame Beatles, then this is not the Christmas present for you, because that it what this is.
SUPERSTRINGS
You can tell that the Beatles were committed. The first 400 pages of Tune In is the story of them gradually burning all their bridges, leaving school, or being thrown out, with no qualifications (McCartney got one single A level). They were going to be in a rock band or they were going to end up as van drivers and building site labourers. They were deadbeats, the despair of their parents. At the beginning of 1960 they weren’t even in the top five groups in Liverpool. And the continual merry-go-round of members, never being able to find bass players or drummers, so that by mid 1960, they had John’s friend Stu on bass because he could afford to buy one and he was John’s friend, otherwise he had never played an instrument before in his life; and some kid they didn’t know on drums because his rich mum had bought him a set – that was Pete Best. It was, really, pitiful stuff, a shambles.
In 1961, the shambles was driven in a van to Hamburg and there an alchemical process began to turn base metal into something incandescent.
In so many ways, the rise of the Beatles is as unlikely as the rise of Christianity, almost to the point where a person might start believing in divine tinkering. I do not mean to be Lennonanistically blasphemous, but it was not likely that a tiny despised sect of an obscure ethnic group in the vast Roman Empire should become an unstoppable force to the point where it took over the entire Empire. It was also not likely that a bunch of four scallies from a poor Northern provincial town who were only the 12th best group in Liverpool in 1959 (out of 18) should become an unstoppable force and take over a large part of the world within a few years. I wish to point out the majorly curious coincidence of three brilliant songwriters being born at roughly the same time in the same city, and ending up in the same group. It’s one thing for Leiber and Stoller to meet up in LA or Rodgers and Hammerstein to discover each other in NYC, these are gigantic cities where all the top talent gravitates. Liverpool was the sticks. What came out of Liverpool? Ken Dodd and chip butties.
The formation of the Beatles therefore lends considerable weight to the fine-tuned universe argument - which is in this case a fine-tuned Liverpool argument, even more of a case for intelligent design.
8% HAD A FRIDGE
Mark Lewisohn promoted his book by saying that there would be revelations at every turn. My daughter Georgia who is 17 and a Beatle fan because brainwashing really does work said “Oh we’ll find out they had beans on toast when the other books said they had egg and chips” – she can be a little dismissive – but yes, I wouldn’t call this book rammed with explosive myth-busting info – but here is the full detail, all the twists and shouts, and there are a whole lot of curious crannies to the story, and every one is filled in and made to fit with all the other elements. As you read you can hear the cogs and gear wheels clicking in to place to create the gestalt event known as The Beatles – first John, then John brings in Paul, then Paul brings in George, then George brings in Ringo; Hamburg – click; the haircut, click; the manager, clackclack; the suits, click clack, whirr hummm; meanwhile offstage, a vast population of 10 and 11 year old kids waiting to become 13 and 14 year old kids when they will all go off their heads at the sight of what was, during the course of these 870 pages not counting the notes and index, being assembled, by means of unerring improvisation.
Mr Lewisohn also remarks on his website that he likes to think of this book as a social history of England with the Beatles at the centre. I see what he means. This must be the most detailed account of English provincial working class day to day life from the 40s to the 60s, as refracted through the lives of six or so scuffling wannabe pop musicians. The fags, the boozers (Ringo : “My parents were alcoholics and I didn’t realise it.”), the kneetremblers, the scouse, the unrelieved poverty of these lives. In 1960 only 18% of British households had a washing machine. And as for the refrigerator - by 1950 90% of American homes had one. By 1960, only 8% of British homes did.
In this story there is a lot of people not getting on with each other. J P & G did not get on with Pete Best, whose fans, when he was sacked, stomped and yelled “Pete Best forever, Ringo never” whilst standing in front of Ringo when he played his first Beatles gig. They were banned from various venues in Liverpool because of loutish behaviour and missing the odd concert. Mimi fell out with Julia and hated Cynthia. Paul was frosty with Brian for a while. And all parents disliked and feared John Lennon. But all of that, that’s life. Also part of life is death, and they got their fair share of people dying on them, from parents (Julia and Mary) to heroes (Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran) to Stuart Sutcliffe.
I NEVER LIKED IT
The chronology is startling. ML points out that their first night in Hamburg, 17 August 1960, was the exact 20th anniversary of the first Nazi attack on Liverpool. He can’t resist a little bit of preaching at this point, and I can’t resist quoting it :
Rock and roll music was taken to Hamburg by the children of the survivors, to be heard in turn by the children who’d outlived the Allies’ revenge blitz of 1943. Scorned by adult society as a force for evil and the work of the devil, black rhythm music out of America – and before there, of course, out of Africa – was bringing harmony where once had been hatred.
Well, yeah, harmony and fistfights!
Coming in at the tail end of this Brobdingnagian biography, they actually manage to release a record, Love Me Do, which I never liked, and neither did George Martin. It’s a pretty feeble song. The following year was when the music suddenly went up a few gears, and we’ll get that story in another 5 or 10 years when volume 2 comes out. But I suspect this book will be the best of the three. Wonderful stuff.
April 25, 2014
First off, this is not a review of the 960-page standard edition of this book, which I haven't read.
Oh no. This is a review of the boxed, two-volume 'Extended Special Edition'. I got my copy on 14 November 2013 and finished it a month later, and given that it's 1728 pages, at an average of c. 58 pages/day, that's the fastest I've read any book in my life.
I had serious doubts about Mark Lewisohn's qualifications to write this book. I know that he's the most dedicated and conscientious Beatles scholar ever, with a rock-solid grasp of the chronology of what happened when and a talent for, and love of, delving in archives and finding out stuff nobody else had found out. However, biography is an art form and Lewisohn's earlier books about the Beatles had struck me as triumphs of research but, given that they were in chronicle form, hardly works of art. I found it very hard to believe that Lewisohn was going to come up with something that might rival the great cultural biographies of our time, which for me are books like Richard Ellmann's James Joyce, Ray Monk's Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius or David Bellos' Georges Perec: A Life in Words.
My doubt, especially when it came to this extended edition, was that Lewisohn would drown in research and produce an inert, baggy chronicle of the Beatles' day-to-day lives. Now, the thing about the Beatles that marks them out from every other band ever is the apparently inextinguishable fascination that fans have for yet more detail of the band's day-to-day life. It's what fuels the constant flow of books and articles about them -- even in the 80s, their bibliography had thousands of entries -- and is the reason why people are still compelled to write about them. But how could anyone ever knock all that into shape?
Apparently the short version is a great read. I have bad news for anyone who thinks so, because I can't imagine how it could be better than the long version. I was wrong to doubt Lewisohn; this is a masterpiece, certainly the most ambitious and wide-ranging rock biography ever written and possibly the greatest. What Lewisohn has produced is, to paraphrase the title of Greil Marcus' great essay on Elvis in Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll, a Beatliad: nothing short of part one of an epic about the birth of British rock and roll, as told through the story of the Beatles. He does this by skilfully threading together the stories of the many, many players in this huge tale, so that we begin by tracing the ancestry of the Beatles and we proceed by means of lists of their grandparents' dead siblings (chilling) and page-long digressions of the history of anti-semitism in early 20th century Liverpool (by way of explaining the Epstein family's status in the city). Such is the richness of detail that Lennon and McCartney's famous first encounter at Woolton Fete in 1957 doesn't take place until almost 200 pages in, and even then, Lewisohn raises the possibility that they may have already run into each other on a separate and less mythologised occasion.
Along the way, Lewisohn's passion for going to the sources and not just relying on press material distinguishes him from basically every other Beatle biographer. One thing that emerges strongly is the thoroughly crappy nature of much of Richard Starkey's early life, given that he spent so much of his childhood in hospital. When he finally emerged as a teenager, he'd missed so much of his education that he had no prospects as a low-level clerical worker and he was so physically puny that he had no chance of getting a decent manual job. The only thing that he could do, and liked doing, was play the drums, thanks to music lessons in the hospital. It would seem that Richard Starkey was literally born to be a drummer.
Elsewhere, the vast literature of memoirs and recollections by people who knew the band is under Lewisohn's critical scrutiny, and if a source isn't supported by further evidence, he's sceptical; so Alistair Taylor's claim that McCartney wanted to sign a separate management contract with Epstein just in case the Beatles broke up is found wanting, seeing as there's no other evidence for it. Not that this is a happy-clappy view of the band, either. Philip Norman's Shout!: The True Story Of The Beatles, once considered the best single book about the band, painted them as John Lennon and his backing band and at the nadir of the band's critical fortunes, during the late 70s and early 80s, that's how everyone saw them. Nowadays, Shout! comes across as superficial, partisan and skimpily researched; Norman wasn't the first writer to seriously underestimate the collegial nature of the band, but his contempt for McCartney in particular is clear on every page. After Lewisohn, it has to be consigned to the enormous heap of not-very-good books about the Beatles.
While Lewisohn is clear that Lennon was the leader throughout this part of the band's career, he sensitively traces the central creative relationship of the band, that between Lennon and McCartney. The initial spark came from McCartney's recognition of Lennon's creativity, and Lennon's recognition of McCartney's talent; without Lennon, McCartney might never have been bold enough to become a great songwriter but without McCartney, Lennon might never have become disciplined enough to write songs at all. Another aspect that comes out strongly is the extent to which Lennon, McCartney and Harrison's friendship, which had formed because they were the only three members of the Quarry Men to exhibit genuine dedication to music, persisted even when they had no bookings and were hardly a band at all, just three restless and arrogant teenagers kicking around Liverpool stealing other people's rock & roll records. Hundreds of pages go by as this central trio's friendship mysteriously persists, based on a shared pleasure in each other's company, a common but entirely irrational self-belief, and a feeling that opportunity was waiting for them. None of the Beatles come across as especially lovely characters, especially in terms of their relationship with women, but they clearly believed that they had charisma long before anybody else did.
It was only after a shambolic Scottish tour backing Johnny Gentle that the Beatles finally managed to persuade the lumpen Pete Best to come with them to Hamburg, where hundreds of Preludin-fuelled hours of gigging to drunken Germans forged them into the manic rock monster that they became. Lewisohn has done some revealing maths, here. Thanks to the Beatles' insane performance schedule in Hamburg, by the time they returned to play an explosive comeback show at Litherland Town Hall, they had become the most experienced band in Liverpool, but there was only one musician on the scene whose sheer dedication to playing live meant that he actually had more performance hours than them. It was Ringo Starr. Before the Beatles' ultimate lineup ever made a record, they'd played more shows than some bands manage in their entire careers.
Poor Pete Best; he emerges from this story as a man who never grasped what was going on, never understood how he was coming across to his bandmates, never lived up to the historical moment. Neil Aspinall, the Beatles' road manager and eventual factotum, was living with the Best family because he was in a relationship with the hapless drummer's mother, and the book's most chilling moment is when Pete and Neil are summoned to Brian Epstein's office only to be told that the others don't want Pete anymore and have decided that Ringo's the new drummer. They retire to a pub, Pete reeling with shock and his friend sympathetic, but when he suggests to Aspinall that they just get drunk, Aspinall has to decline on the grounds that he has to drive the band to the gig that night.
'But I've been fired,' says Pete.
'You've been fired,' says Aspinall, 'I haven't.' And Best wanders off into ex-Beatledom, while Aspinall hitches his fortunes to the rocket.
Another myth dispelled; that Brian Epstein 'tamed' the Beatles. The portrait of Epstein is one of the most convincing and sympathetic ever drawn. Lewisohn suggests that what Epstein did was show the Beatles how they came across, and persuade them that if they really wanted to make it as big as they wanted to make it, to the 'toppermost of the poppermost', then they had to smarten up -- but, and this was the realisation that made Epstein their perfect manager -- without losing their intensity. And so, over time, the leather-clad post-Hamburg Beatles gradually realise that going on stage in suits, and standing still during songs instead of jumping up and down and pulling faces, didn't make them lose fans, but actually helped them to gain more. (You could compare it, if you like, to Philip Larkin's realisation that he didn't have to 'pump himself up into poetry' but could make great poems out of something like his own voice, except that in Larkin's case it was part of a realisation that his own human weaknesses were an essential part of his greatness as a writer, whereas with the Beatles it was just about being honest that they wanted to rule the world more than they wanted to dress like their heroes.) If you watch the Beatles in their Royal Variety Performance rendition of 'Twist and Shout' with the sound turned down, they look studiedly cool; turn the sound up and close your eyes, and they sound insane. Thanks to Epstein's gift for presentation, the Beatles grasped that their appeal lay in a tension between rock & roll abandon, inscrutable cool and friendly approachableness. It was much stranger and more seductive hearing raucous beat music from four guys in sharp suits than it was hearing it from four guys dressed like Johnny Ray.
The story of how George Martin came to sign the Beatles to Parlophone emerges here as far more complex than the previously-told tale of somebody hearing a demo and saying to Epstein 'Hey, that sounds good.' Assuming that Lewisohn is accurate, it turns out to hinge on devious intra-EMI rivalries, partly based on the fact that Martin's marriage was dissolving because of an affair with his secretary Judy Lockhart-Smith, which other EMI staffers disapproved of. (Lockhart-Smith soon became Martin's second wife, and Martin went on to be the Beatles' producer, effectively silencing criticism.) It now appears that Martin was even less impressed with the band than was previously apparent, and that it wasn't until they went in for the session that would yield 'Please Please Me' that he finally became convinced that they were more than merely adequate. This, too, has been lost in the legend, which likes to pretend that everyone involved immediately spotted that the Beatles were going places.
Volume one ends at the end of December 1962, with the second single in the can and the year of reckoning about to dawn. I assume that Lewisohn has been working on volumes of the book concurrently and is not, so to speak, shooting in sequence; hopefully we won't have to wait eight years for the next volume. In the meantime, this extended edition must now be the standard against which other Beatles biographies will be measured. There will always be room for more critical writing about the band, but from now on, critics will need to have thoroughly absorbed Lewisohn (2013) before we start pontificating about the Beatles' early years.
Erratum: The original version of this review, published in Dec 2013, referred to Neil Aspinall as having a relationship with Pete Best's 'brother'. Pete Best has a half-brother, but Neil Aspinall was of course in a relationship with Mona Best, Pete Best's mother. Apologies for any embarrassment caused.
Oh no. This is a review of the boxed, two-volume 'Extended Special Edition'. I got my copy on 14 November 2013 and finished it a month later, and given that it's 1728 pages, at an average of c. 58 pages/day, that's the fastest I've read any book in my life.
I had serious doubts about Mark Lewisohn's qualifications to write this book. I know that he's the most dedicated and conscientious Beatles scholar ever, with a rock-solid grasp of the chronology of what happened when and a talent for, and love of, delving in archives and finding out stuff nobody else had found out. However, biography is an art form and Lewisohn's earlier books about the Beatles had struck me as triumphs of research but, given that they were in chronicle form, hardly works of art. I found it very hard to believe that Lewisohn was going to come up with something that might rival the great cultural biographies of our time, which for me are books like Richard Ellmann's James Joyce, Ray Monk's Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius or David Bellos' Georges Perec: A Life in Words.
My doubt, especially when it came to this extended edition, was that Lewisohn would drown in research and produce an inert, baggy chronicle of the Beatles' day-to-day lives. Now, the thing about the Beatles that marks them out from every other band ever is the apparently inextinguishable fascination that fans have for yet more detail of the band's day-to-day life. It's what fuels the constant flow of books and articles about them -- even in the 80s, their bibliography had thousands of entries -- and is the reason why people are still compelled to write about them. But how could anyone ever knock all that into shape?
Apparently the short version is a great read. I have bad news for anyone who thinks so, because I can't imagine how it could be better than the long version. I was wrong to doubt Lewisohn; this is a masterpiece, certainly the most ambitious and wide-ranging rock biography ever written and possibly the greatest. What Lewisohn has produced is, to paraphrase the title of Greil Marcus' great essay on Elvis in Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll, a Beatliad: nothing short of part one of an epic about the birth of British rock and roll, as told through the story of the Beatles. He does this by skilfully threading together the stories of the many, many players in this huge tale, so that we begin by tracing the ancestry of the Beatles and we proceed by means of lists of their grandparents' dead siblings (chilling) and page-long digressions of the history of anti-semitism in early 20th century Liverpool (by way of explaining the Epstein family's status in the city). Such is the richness of detail that Lennon and McCartney's famous first encounter at Woolton Fete in 1957 doesn't take place until almost 200 pages in, and even then, Lewisohn raises the possibility that they may have already run into each other on a separate and less mythologised occasion.
Along the way, Lewisohn's passion for going to the sources and not just relying on press material distinguishes him from basically every other Beatle biographer. One thing that emerges strongly is the thoroughly crappy nature of much of Richard Starkey's early life, given that he spent so much of his childhood in hospital. When he finally emerged as a teenager, he'd missed so much of his education that he had no prospects as a low-level clerical worker and he was so physically puny that he had no chance of getting a decent manual job. The only thing that he could do, and liked doing, was play the drums, thanks to music lessons in the hospital. It would seem that Richard Starkey was literally born to be a drummer.
Elsewhere, the vast literature of memoirs and recollections by people who knew the band is under Lewisohn's critical scrutiny, and if a source isn't supported by further evidence, he's sceptical; so Alistair Taylor's claim that McCartney wanted to sign a separate management contract with Epstein just in case the Beatles broke up is found wanting, seeing as there's no other evidence for it. Not that this is a happy-clappy view of the band, either. Philip Norman's Shout!: The True Story Of The Beatles, once considered the best single book about the band, painted them as John Lennon and his backing band and at the nadir of the band's critical fortunes, during the late 70s and early 80s, that's how everyone saw them. Nowadays, Shout! comes across as superficial, partisan and skimpily researched; Norman wasn't the first writer to seriously underestimate the collegial nature of the band, but his contempt for McCartney in particular is clear on every page. After Lewisohn, it has to be consigned to the enormous heap of not-very-good books about the Beatles.
While Lewisohn is clear that Lennon was the leader throughout this part of the band's career, he sensitively traces the central creative relationship of the band, that between Lennon and McCartney. The initial spark came from McCartney's recognition of Lennon's creativity, and Lennon's recognition of McCartney's talent; without Lennon, McCartney might never have been bold enough to become a great songwriter but without McCartney, Lennon might never have become disciplined enough to write songs at all. Another aspect that comes out strongly is the extent to which Lennon, McCartney and Harrison's friendship, which had formed because they were the only three members of the Quarry Men to exhibit genuine dedication to music, persisted even when they had no bookings and were hardly a band at all, just three restless and arrogant teenagers kicking around Liverpool stealing other people's rock & roll records. Hundreds of pages go by as this central trio's friendship mysteriously persists, based on a shared pleasure in each other's company, a common but entirely irrational self-belief, and a feeling that opportunity was waiting for them. None of the Beatles come across as especially lovely characters, especially in terms of their relationship with women, but they clearly believed that they had charisma long before anybody else did.
It was only after a shambolic Scottish tour backing Johnny Gentle that the Beatles finally managed to persuade the lumpen Pete Best to come with them to Hamburg, where hundreds of Preludin-fuelled hours of gigging to drunken Germans forged them into the manic rock monster that they became. Lewisohn has done some revealing maths, here. Thanks to the Beatles' insane performance schedule in Hamburg, by the time they returned to play an explosive comeback show at Litherland Town Hall, they had become the most experienced band in Liverpool, but there was only one musician on the scene whose sheer dedication to playing live meant that he actually had more performance hours than them. It was Ringo Starr. Before the Beatles' ultimate lineup ever made a record, they'd played more shows than some bands manage in their entire careers.
Poor Pete Best; he emerges from this story as a man who never grasped what was going on, never understood how he was coming across to his bandmates, never lived up to the historical moment. Neil Aspinall, the Beatles' road manager and eventual factotum, was living with the Best family because he was in a relationship with the hapless drummer's mother, and the book's most chilling moment is when Pete and Neil are summoned to Brian Epstein's office only to be told that the others don't want Pete anymore and have decided that Ringo's the new drummer. They retire to a pub, Pete reeling with shock and his friend sympathetic, but when he suggests to Aspinall that they just get drunk, Aspinall has to decline on the grounds that he has to drive the band to the gig that night.
'But I've been fired,' says Pete.
'You've been fired,' says Aspinall, 'I haven't.' And Best wanders off into ex-Beatledom, while Aspinall hitches his fortunes to the rocket.
Another myth dispelled; that Brian Epstein 'tamed' the Beatles. The portrait of Epstein is one of the most convincing and sympathetic ever drawn. Lewisohn suggests that what Epstein did was show the Beatles how they came across, and persuade them that if they really wanted to make it as big as they wanted to make it, to the 'toppermost of the poppermost', then they had to smarten up -- but, and this was the realisation that made Epstein their perfect manager -- without losing their intensity. And so, over time, the leather-clad post-Hamburg Beatles gradually realise that going on stage in suits, and standing still during songs instead of jumping up and down and pulling faces, didn't make them lose fans, but actually helped them to gain more. (You could compare it, if you like, to Philip Larkin's realisation that he didn't have to 'pump himself up into poetry' but could make great poems out of something like his own voice, except that in Larkin's case it was part of a realisation that his own human weaknesses were an essential part of his greatness as a writer, whereas with the Beatles it was just about being honest that they wanted to rule the world more than they wanted to dress like their heroes.) If you watch the Beatles in their Royal Variety Performance rendition of 'Twist and Shout' with the sound turned down, they look studiedly cool; turn the sound up and close your eyes, and they sound insane. Thanks to Epstein's gift for presentation, the Beatles grasped that their appeal lay in a tension between rock & roll abandon, inscrutable cool and friendly approachableness. It was much stranger and more seductive hearing raucous beat music from four guys in sharp suits than it was hearing it from four guys dressed like Johnny Ray.
The story of how George Martin came to sign the Beatles to Parlophone emerges here as far more complex than the previously-told tale of somebody hearing a demo and saying to Epstein 'Hey, that sounds good.' Assuming that Lewisohn is accurate, it turns out to hinge on devious intra-EMI rivalries, partly based on the fact that Martin's marriage was dissolving because of an affair with his secretary Judy Lockhart-Smith, which other EMI staffers disapproved of. (Lockhart-Smith soon became Martin's second wife, and Martin went on to be the Beatles' producer, effectively silencing criticism.) It now appears that Martin was even less impressed with the band than was previously apparent, and that it wasn't until they went in for the session that would yield 'Please Please Me' that he finally became convinced that they were more than merely adequate. This, too, has been lost in the legend, which likes to pretend that everyone involved immediately spotted that the Beatles were going places.
Volume one ends at the end of December 1962, with the second single in the can and the year of reckoning about to dawn. I assume that Lewisohn has been working on volumes of the book concurrently and is not, so to speak, shooting in sequence; hopefully we won't have to wait eight years for the next volume. In the meantime, this extended edition must now be the standard against which other Beatles biographies will be measured. There will always be room for more critical writing about the band, but from now on, critics will need to have thoroughly absorbed Lewisohn (2013) before we start pontificating about the Beatles' early years.
Erratum: The original version of this review, published in Dec 2013, referred to Neil Aspinall as having a relationship with Pete Best's 'brother'. Pete Best has a half-brother, but Neil Aspinall was of course in a relationship with Mona Best, Pete Best's mother. Apologies for any embarrassment caused.
October 8, 2021
A DISTURBING BUT ULTIMATELY UPLIFTING REVIEW OF THE EXPANDED EDITION
I want to give you an idea of the true comprehensiveness of this vast book, and then I want to talk about cripples. The entry for John Lennon in the index is divided into several sections including Banjo, Relationships, Songwriting, and so on. The first section is Appearance, under which we find glasses, hands, hair, tough look, Teddy Boy, picking his nose, fingernails, attitude to wearing suits, and so forth. And there is one entry entitled
“cripple” act
And here are the pages that describe this nasty sounding thing :
332
387
464
541
594
858-9
867
900
936
973
1025
1027
1036
1078
1126
1163
1196
1211
1344
1361
1365
1439
1520
1548
1559
1594-5
Yes, there are a whole lot of references to the “cripple” act. So what exactly was it, you will ask. The answer may fill you with dismay. This great book exactly, beautifully describes English working class culture and you know the phrase warts and all, well, here are the warts.
So began John’s strange and prolonged obsession with deformities, one that dovetailed with his need to rattle on about anything that marked anyone out as different – blacks, Jews, queers and more… at any time now, John would contort his face up into that of a cripple or spastic, or “crip” and “spaz” – the commonly used words of the period, voiced without thought of offence by adults as well as children. He’d thrust his tongue inside his bottom lip, make “spaz” noises and limp along the street – and the stage – hunching his back and dragging a leg like Quasimodo … while John’s crips made some people nervous or uncomfortable…they often made others laugh and join in with him.
He would do this making fun of disabled people act on stage, quite frequently, for example while Paul McCartney was singing one of his corny old ballads like "September in the Rain" or "The Honeymoon Song". John got quite impatient with those.
Okay, well – John Lennon growing up was quite an unpleasant piece of work in many ways. Even up to the point when they were a proper band he was doing this "crip" stuff. But wait, it carried on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kJ9v...
This is from 1964, in the middle of Beatlemania. Watch it and cringe. Pretty grisly. And there’s a lot of that kind of mockery in his little books too.
But the thing is that he completely changed. From 1964 to the bedins for peace in 1969 there was a some kind of personality transplant. Acid and Yoko had something to do with it I’m sure. He demonstrated that you're not condemned to be the straightjacketed mocker of the disabled that you began life as. You can change for the better.
Well, hmm, this is a book review of the expanded edition of Tune In not a public apology for John Lennon. As you can see, the expanded edition of 1633 pages (plus 65 pages of index) is really detailed. Imagine all the references to John Lennon's nose, for instance, or Pete Best's moroseness.
There’s a whole 738 more pages than the teensy one volume version.
I wanted to get this mighty beast when it first came out but it was too expensive. So I waited for the price to come down. And waited. It never happened.
I want to give you an idea of the true comprehensiveness of this vast book, and then I want to talk about cripples. The entry for John Lennon in the index is divided into several sections including Banjo, Relationships, Songwriting, and so on. The first section is Appearance, under which we find glasses, hands, hair, tough look, Teddy Boy, picking his nose, fingernails, attitude to wearing suits, and so forth. And there is one entry entitled
“cripple” act
And here are the pages that describe this nasty sounding thing :
332
387
464
541
594
858-9
867
900
936
973
1025
1027
1036
1078
1126
1163
1196
1211
1344
1361
1365
1439
1520
1548
1559
1594-5
Yes, there are a whole lot of references to the “cripple” act. So what exactly was it, you will ask. The answer may fill you with dismay. This great book exactly, beautifully describes English working class culture and you know the phrase warts and all, well, here are the warts.
So began John’s strange and prolonged obsession with deformities, one that dovetailed with his need to rattle on about anything that marked anyone out as different – blacks, Jews, queers and more… at any time now, John would contort his face up into that of a cripple or spastic, or “crip” and “spaz” – the commonly used words of the period, voiced without thought of offence by adults as well as children. He’d thrust his tongue inside his bottom lip, make “spaz” noises and limp along the street – and the stage – hunching his back and dragging a leg like Quasimodo … while John’s crips made some people nervous or uncomfortable…they often made others laugh and join in with him.
He would do this making fun of disabled people act on stage, quite frequently, for example while Paul McCartney was singing one of his corny old ballads like "September in the Rain" or "The Honeymoon Song". John got quite impatient with those.
Okay, well – John Lennon growing up was quite an unpleasant piece of work in many ways. Even up to the point when they were a proper band he was doing this "crip" stuff. But wait, it carried on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kJ9v...
This is from 1964, in the middle of Beatlemania. Watch it and cringe. Pretty grisly. And there’s a lot of that kind of mockery in his little books too.
But the thing is that he completely changed. From 1964 to the bedins for peace in 1969 there was a some kind of personality transplant. Acid and Yoko had something to do with it I’m sure. He demonstrated that you're not condemned to be the straightjacketed mocker of the disabled that you began life as. You can change for the better.
Well, hmm, this is a book review of the expanded edition of Tune In not a public apology for John Lennon. As you can see, the expanded edition of 1633 pages (plus 65 pages of index) is really detailed. Imagine all the references to John Lennon's nose, for instance, or Pete Best's moroseness.
There’s a whole 738 more pages than the teensy one volume version.
I wanted to get this mighty beast when it first came out but it was too expensive. So I waited for the price to come down. And waited. It never happened.
October 23, 2013
Over the years I have read more books about the Beatles than I care to admit to and they vary in quality from pretty good to absolutely terrible. However, when Mark Lewisohn announced that he would be writing the ‘definitive’ biography of the band, fans believed him. Lewisohn is not only THE Beatles expert, but he is also someone who has an obvious love for them. In other words, he is also a fan and the little details, which intrigue us, also interest him.
This first volume looks at their family history and childhood, then splits into five chapters; taking detailed looks at the years 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962. From the first, two things become abundantly clear – that the author understands the relationship between John and Paul and that he is keen to debunk myths that have become almost accepted – especially ones built around John’s childhood. Yes, his childhood was difficult, but films such as “Nowhere Boy” have created a totally fictional account of what happened and even recent books, such as “When They Were Boys” by Larry Kane, simply repeats them. Stories of Mimi dodging bombs to visit the baby John in hospital or John’s mother and father forcing him to choose between them in an emotional ‘tug of love’ are just that – stories. Mimi also gets a much more sympathetic portrayal and we learn how, rather than trying to keep John’s father away from him, she even allowed him to write to his son from prison. They may have lost touch, but it was certainly not Mimi’s fault that they did.
Having established that he wants to tell the story as the truth, Mark Lewisohn is certainly not portraying the band in a better light, or concealing their flaws. They were young boys at this time, each with their own character traits and faults, as everyone has. He also ties in what was happening to other people who enter the story at a later date – Brian Epstein, George Martin and other musicians are there, sometimes almost within touching distance, but their paths not quite intersecting. Most interestingly for fans, he has tracked down people that have simply not been heard from before – school friends, those who worked with them in early jobs, fans, people who were there but have not been considered perhaps important enough to be interviewed before – as well as the more obvious characters in the Beatles story.
This, then, is the complete timeline of those early years – the founding of the Quarrymen, John and Paul meeting at the St Peter’s Fete, George joining the band, Ringo becoming part of Rory and the Hurricanes, early auditions, success and failure, and of that first trip to Hamburg, which honed their sound and changed them into a band – even if they were always, “John, Paul, George and a drummer” at this stage. Lewisohn is not afraid to state what most fans have always known – that Pete Best was asked to go to Hamburg simply because they needed a drummer in order to fulfil the contract and that, almost from the point the poor man packed his kit into Allan Williams van, he was on borrowed time as a member and certainly never a Beatle.
Returning to Liverpool, there is the show at Litherland Town Hall which showcased how good they had become, as the Liverpool scene took off and the Beatles – sneered at before leaving – were undoubtedly now the top band in the city. They were the Kings of Liverpool but, as always, wanted more. Enter Brian Epstein, who Bob Wooler remarks, came to the Cavern to watch them – “he came, he saw and he was conquered.” There follows the long road towards a recording contract, a changing image with the arrival of suits, the death of Stuart Sutcliffe and the beginning of George, in particular, conspiring to get Ringo in the band. It was also the beginning of girls hanging around their houses, which would never stop from that point on.
With the Beatles finally achieving that recording contract, it was essential to change drummers. They were then no longer “John, Paul, George and a drummer” , but changed to “John, Paul, George and Ringo”- four equal members. “Love Me Do” peaked at number 17, but considering the lack of exposure and the resistance to the Beatles it was amazing the record ever took off. “So, what’s from Liverpool?” sneered Dick James, when George Martin told him about ‘the boys’. That North-South divide was about to be smashed down, as Merseybeat would explode on a jaded British pop market. If London was uninterested at first, then the US certainly resisted anything from England. However, even they would succumb to the charm, charisma, enthusiasm, energy and talent of the Beatles. For the Beatles itself, it was no surprise. As John Lennon said, they always knew they were “the best” and “it was just a matter of time before everybody else caught on.”
Sadly, Mark Lewisohn has not yet written the second and third parts of this trilogy, but if they are anything as complete, well written (his dry humour can almost rival the Beatles themselves) and his desire to tell the story as it should be told, then they will be worth waiting for. In the meantime, there is an extended, two volume edition of this book due out soon. I cannot imagine what Lewisohn may have left out, but I am quite sure that I will enjoy reading it to find out. This book has been needed for a long while, it is a triumph and I am sure it will become the definitive biography of the Beatles.
This first volume looks at their family history and childhood, then splits into five chapters; taking detailed looks at the years 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962. From the first, two things become abundantly clear – that the author understands the relationship between John and Paul and that he is keen to debunk myths that have become almost accepted – especially ones built around John’s childhood. Yes, his childhood was difficult, but films such as “Nowhere Boy” have created a totally fictional account of what happened and even recent books, such as “When They Were Boys” by Larry Kane, simply repeats them. Stories of Mimi dodging bombs to visit the baby John in hospital or John’s mother and father forcing him to choose between them in an emotional ‘tug of love’ are just that – stories. Mimi also gets a much more sympathetic portrayal and we learn how, rather than trying to keep John’s father away from him, she even allowed him to write to his son from prison. They may have lost touch, but it was certainly not Mimi’s fault that they did.
Having established that he wants to tell the story as the truth, Mark Lewisohn is certainly not portraying the band in a better light, or concealing their flaws. They were young boys at this time, each with their own character traits and faults, as everyone has. He also ties in what was happening to other people who enter the story at a later date – Brian Epstein, George Martin and other musicians are there, sometimes almost within touching distance, but their paths not quite intersecting. Most interestingly for fans, he has tracked down people that have simply not been heard from before – school friends, those who worked with them in early jobs, fans, people who were there but have not been considered perhaps important enough to be interviewed before – as well as the more obvious characters in the Beatles story.
This, then, is the complete timeline of those early years – the founding of the Quarrymen, John and Paul meeting at the St Peter’s Fete, George joining the band, Ringo becoming part of Rory and the Hurricanes, early auditions, success and failure, and of that first trip to Hamburg, which honed their sound and changed them into a band – even if they were always, “John, Paul, George and a drummer” at this stage. Lewisohn is not afraid to state what most fans have always known – that Pete Best was asked to go to Hamburg simply because they needed a drummer in order to fulfil the contract and that, almost from the point the poor man packed his kit into Allan Williams van, he was on borrowed time as a member and certainly never a Beatle.
Returning to Liverpool, there is the show at Litherland Town Hall which showcased how good they had become, as the Liverpool scene took off and the Beatles – sneered at before leaving – were undoubtedly now the top band in the city. They were the Kings of Liverpool but, as always, wanted more. Enter Brian Epstein, who Bob Wooler remarks, came to the Cavern to watch them – “he came, he saw and he was conquered.” There follows the long road towards a recording contract, a changing image with the arrival of suits, the death of Stuart Sutcliffe and the beginning of George, in particular, conspiring to get Ringo in the band. It was also the beginning of girls hanging around their houses, which would never stop from that point on.
With the Beatles finally achieving that recording contract, it was essential to change drummers. They were then no longer “John, Paul, George and a drummer” , but changed to “John, Paul, George and Ringo”- four equal members. “Love Me Do” peaked at number 17, but considering the lack of exposure and the resistance to the Beatles it was amazing the record ever took off. “So, what’s from Liverpool?” sneered Dick James, when George Martin told him about ‘the boys’. That North-South divide was about to be smashed down, as Merseybeat would explode on a jaded British pop market. If London was uninterested at first, then the US certainly resisted anything from England. However, even they would succumb to the charm, charisma, enthusiasm, energy and talent of the Beatles. For the Beatles itself, it was no surprise. As John Lennon said, they always knew they were “the best” and “it was just a matter of time before everybody else caught on.”
Sadly, Mark Lewisohn has not yet written the second and third parts of this trilogy, but if they are anything as complete, well written (his dry humour can almost rival the Beatles themselves) and his desire to tell the story as it should be told, then they will be worth waiting for. In the meantime, there is an extended, two volume edition of this book due out soon. I cannot imagine what Lewisohn may have left out, but I am quite sure that I will enjoy reading it to find out. This book has been needed for a long while, it is a triumph and I am sure it will become the definitive biography of the Beatles.
May 30, 2020
“Tune In” is one of the best books I have ever read. Even though this is my first Beatles book, I have no doubt British Beatletologist Mark Lewisohn has written the definitive book on the Fab Four’s formative years. Ringo does not join the band until nearly p. 700, but I thought the level of detail was just right. Full disclosure: I have always loved the Beatles. How can I not? My mother and daughter have their own songs on the White Album (“Martha My Dear” and “Julia.”).
Lewisohn grabbed me from his opening lines: “Jim McCartney would no more let Paul skip school than allow that boy in the house, so subterfuge was vital. Afternoon sessions, two till five, ended with a hurried wafting around of smoke and washing of dirty dishes, though by then they’d often written another song. “He’ll get you into trouble, son,” Jim warned Paul. Parents had been saying that about John Lennon since he was five--and rightly so” (p.7). Lewisohn ends his Prologue with a point I have made to my Julia countless times, “They were a union, stronger than the sum of their parts, and everything was possible” (p.17).
Lewisohn is a masterful writer, combining a level of detail and turn of phrase that is awe-inspiring. One minor example--John’s time working in the fields is referred to as his “summer of glove.” Almost every chapter ends with a paragraph or two of brilliant summation. The books that came to mind were Edmund Morris’s TR trilogy, but instead of dazzling readers with obscure words, Lewisohn offers countless Britishisms. Some we all know and some are explained (like “birds” and “on the drip”), but here are a few I still need to look up: baize, fug, naff, Scousers, and yobbos. The footnotes do not require the separate bookmark that a Morris volume requires, but the “Credits” should not be missed.
I had no idea how grimy and dangerous Liverpool was when John, Paul, George and Ringo were growing up, or how poor their families were. They rented TVs to watch Princess Elizabeth become queen. George had the most serene childhood, while John and Ringo had it the toughest with their fathers disappearing in their infancy. I also loved the mini-biographies of their producer George Martin and manager Brian Epstein--both played a critical role in the Beatles’ success. I also hadn’t fully appreciated just how trailblazing the Beatles were. The notion of “rock” or a “group” that wrote their own songs and played their own instruments was unheard of. I also realized that the Beatles didn't lead the British "Invasion," it was really a boomerang. They (and the Stones) worshiped American music.
The Covid-19 pandemic forced me to take a two-month reading break just as I reached the half-way point, but during that time, two important figures in the book passed away, musical inspiration Little Richard and the Hamburg student who took the most iconic pictures of the Beatles, Astrid Kirchherr. Both feature even more prominently in the second half of the book.
Two minor quibbles: “Tune In” cries out for a map of the Beatles’ Liverpool given how central so many locations and neighborhoods are to their story. Also, Lewisohn needs to include more of the pictures he describes. I can live without seeing John visit Paris with Paul, but I really wanted to see more pictures by Astrid and Mike McCartney (Paul’s younger brother). I couldn’t find much in my on-line search.
I can’t wait for Lewisohn to finish the second volume in his expected trilogy. In the meantime, my next Beatles book will be Mark Hertsgaard’s “A Day in the Life: The Music and the Artistry of the Beatles.” I also might give Phillip Norman’s “John Lennon: The Life” a try. His dark side notwithstanding, John remains the most fascinating and impressive Beatle.
Lewisohn grabbed me from his opening lines: “Jim McCartney would no more let Paul skip school than allow that boy in the house, so subterfuge was vital. Afternoon sessions, two till five, ended with a hurried wafting around of smoke and washing of dirty dishes, though by then they’d often written another song. “He’ll get you into trouble, son,” Jim warned Paul. Parents had been saying that about John Lennon since he was five--and rightly so” (p.7). Lewisohn ends his Prologue with a point I have made to my Julia countless times, “They were a union, stronger than the sum of their parts, and everything was possible” (p.17).
Lewisohn is a masterful writer, combining a level of detail and turn of phrase that is awe-inspiring. One minor example--John’s time working in the fields is referred to as his “summer of glove.” Almost every chapter ends with a paragraph or two of brilliant summation. The books that came to mind were Edmund Morris’s TR trilogy, but instead of dazzling readers with obscure words, Lewisohn offers countless Britishisms. Some we all know and some are explained (like “birds” and “on the drip”), but here are a few I still need to look up: baize, fug, naff, Scousers, and yobbos. The footnotes do not require the separate bookmark that a Morris volume requires, but the “Credits” should not be missed.
I had no idea how grimy and dangerous Liverpool was when John, Paul, George and Ringo were growing up, or how poor their families were. They rented TVs to watch Princess Elizabeth become queen. George had the most serene childhood, while John and Ringo had it the toughest with their fathers disappearing in their infancy. I also loved the mini-biographies of their producer George Martin and manager Brian Epstein--both played a critical role in the Beatles’ success. I also hadn’t fully appreciated just how trailblazing the Beatles were. The notion of “rock” or a “group” that wrote their own songs and played their own instruments was unheard of. I also realized that the Beatles didn't lead the British "Invasion," it was really a boomerang. They (and the Stones) worshiped American music.
The Covid-19 pandemic forced me to take a two-month reading break just as I reached the half-way point, but during that time, two important figures in the book passed away, musical inspiration Little Richard and the Hamburg student who took the most iconic pictures of the Beatles, Astrid Kirchherr. Both feature even more prominently in the second half of the book.
Two minor quibbles: “Tune In” cries out for a map of the Beatles’ Liverpool given how central so many locations and neighborhoods are to their story. Also, Lewisohn needs to include more of the pictures he describes. I can live without seeing John visit Paris with Paul, but I really wanted to see more pictures by Astrid and Mike McCartney (Paul’s younger brother). I couldn’t find much in my on-line search.
I can’t wait for Lewisohn to finish the second volume in his expected trilogy. In the meantime, my next Beatles book will be Mark Hertsgaard’s “A Day in the Life: The Music and the Artistry of the Beatles.” I also might give Phillip Norman’s “John Lennon: The Life” a try. His dark side notwithstanding, John remains the most fascinating and impressive Beatle.
January 6, 2016
The body of this book is 840 pages long.
That’s eight hundred and forty pages.
840 pages, and by the end of this weighty tome, The Beatles have got as far as recording their first two singles – one of which hasn’t been released yet. As the astute amongst you can guess then, this means a ridiculous amount of detail. There are successful presidents of the United States whose lives have not been chronicled with this level of meticulous care. Yes, this is The Beatles and The Beatles are important, but really, Lewisohn has made it damned simple for the smirking critic to write off this book as the kind of ridiculous self-indulgence that makes the Magical Mystery Tour resemble a sensible, rational headed enterprise. It’s The Beatles, but it’s The Beatles in paperwork, guitar shopping, burping, farting, shagging finery. If there’s a detail which can be known about The Fab Four (or even reasonably speculated upon) then rest assured that it will be included here.
And yet the whole is quite fascinating. Somehow the accumulation of all this information, of all these facts, of all previously half hidden truths just becomes incredibly engrossing. Obviously everybody who picks up this book know the characters involved (although Paul comes over as a much more spiteful, cheap git than he’d probably appreciate), but all these details just make the story of The Beatles and their coming together even more incredible. It is amazing to read about just how often they were close to breaking up, of all those moments where The Beatles came close to fading away to nothing. Or how different things might have been with just the smallest of changes. Everybody knows the story of Decca turning down The Beatles, but did you know that the cost of the lunch over which Decca told Brian Epstein that they weren’t going to sign the band was more than Decca’s standard signing-on fee? It would literally have cost them less to sign The Beatles than it did to turn them down. The rationale giving by Decca was of course that groups weren’t the future, but at exactly the same time that Decca was turning The Beatles down they were giving record contracts to singing decorators? Was 1962 really a time where singing decorators seemed like they’d inherit the Earth? But of course if The Beatles had signed for Decca they would never have encountered George Martin. Although George Martin was only assigned The Beatles because the strict and upright man who actually ran EMI had found out about Mr Martin’s extra-marital affair and so was punishing him by giving him a band he didn’t want.
So much is chance, so much is happenstance, so much of what we think of a divine march to glory, was complete and utter luck and fluke.
Okay, the weight of information sometimes swamps the prose style and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t the occasional boring passage, as Lewisohn is more intent on ticking off the facts than giving us sentences to toy with and bounce around the brain. And maybe when you have this amount of sheer stuff to unpack, an unflashy and unobtrusive prose style just works for the best. Certainly this is an historian’s book, with Lewisohn excellent at putting The Beatles into context within culture and society of late 1950s and early 1960s England. So that as the reader approaches page eight hundred and forty, when The Beatles have ‘Love Me Do’ out and are playing a gig in Nuneaten, whilst at the same time The Rolling Stones are playing one of their earliest gigs in a pub in North Cheam and Bob Dylan is also on stage that night in New York (not forgetting The Beach Boys who released their first UK single the same day as ‘Love Me Do’), we know the nature of the world that’s about to be swept away. And since we’re already privy to the story, we know just how exciting it’s all about to be.
840 pages then.
840 pages and you’re left wanting to read about what happens next, and you can’t ask for more than that.
That’s eight hundred and forty pages.
840 pages, and by the end of this weighty tome, The Beatles have got as far as recording their first two singles – one of which hasn’t been released yet. As the astute amongst you can guess then, this means a ridiculous amount of detail. There are successful presidents of the United States whose lives have not been chronicled with this level of meticulous care. Yes, this is The Beatles and The Beatles are important, but really, Lewisohn has made it damned simple for the smirking critic to write off this book as the kind of ridiculous self-indulgence that makes the Magical Mystery Tour resemble a sensible, rational headed enterprise. It’s The Beatles, but it’s The Beatles in paperwork, guitar shopping, burping, farting, shagging finery. If there’s a detail which can be known about The Fab Four (or even reasonably speculated upon) then rest assured that it will be included here.
And yet the whole is quite fascinating. Somehow the accumulation of all this information, of all these facts, of all previously half hidden truths just becomes incredibly engrossing. Obviously everybody who picks up this book know the characters involved (although Paul comes over as a much more spiteful, cheap git than he’d probably appreciate), but all these details just make the story of The Beatles and their coming together even more incredible. It is amazing to read about just how often they were close to breaking up, of all those moments where The Beatles came close to fading away to nothing. Or how different things might have been with just the smallest of changes. Everybody knows the story of Decca turning down The Beatles, but did you know that the cost of the lunch over which Decca told Brian Epstein that they weren’t going to sign the band was more than Decca’s standard signing-on fee? It would literally have cost them less to sign The Beatles than it did to turn them down. The rationale giving by Decca was of course that groups weren’t the future, but at exactly the same time that Decca was turning The Beatles down they were giving record contracts to singing decorators? Was 1962 really a time where singing decorators seemed like they’d inherit the Earth? But of course if The Beatles had signed for Decca they would never have encountered George Martin. Although George Martin was only assigned The Beatles because the strict and upright man who actually ran EMI had found out about Mr Martin’s extra-marital affair and so was punishing him by giving him a band he didn’t want.
So much is chance, so much is happenstance, so much of what we think of a divine march to glory, was complete and utter luck and fluke.
Okay, the weight of information sometimes swamps the prose style and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t the occasional boring passage, as Lewisohn is more intent on ticking off the facts than giving us sentences to toy with and bounce around the brain. And maybe when you have this amount of sheer stuff to unpack, an unflashy and unobtrusive prose style just works for the best. Certainly this is an historian’s book, with Lewisohn excellent at putting The Beatles into context within culture and society of late 1950s and early 1960s England. So that as the reader approaches page eight hundred and forty, when The Beatles have ‘Love Me Do’ out and are playing a gig in Nuneaten, whilst at the same time The Rolling Stones are playing one of their earliest gigs in a pub in North Cheam and Bob Dylan is also on stage that night in New York (not forgetting The Beach Boys who released their first UK single the same day as ‘Love Me Do’), we know the nature of the world that’s about to be swept away. And since we’re already privy to the story, we know just how exciting it’s all about to be.
840 pages then.
840 pages and you’re left wanting to read about what happens next, and you can’t ask for more than that.
December 31, 2019
#5 Best Book I Read in 2019
Do you want to know everything about the Beatles? I mean everything? Are you sure? Because that's what this book is. It's 1,000 pages that only cover up to December 31, 1962. It is detailed.
Sometimes that's great (we are there the first time each of the Beatles hear Elvis for the first time), sometimes it's just weird (we are there at the moment each of the Beatles reach puberty). But for a die-hard Beatles fan it's a fantastic ride.
I decided to listen to this book, though it's over 40 hours long. But the narrator is great and he does the Beatle voices perfectly. His American accent is awful, but there aren't many Americans in the book so it's fine. The only thing he consistently gets wrong is how to pronounce the Ray Charles song "What'd I Say," which he pronounces as "What Did I Say" and that's a little annoying because the book mentions the song so much.
That's actually the best part of the book for me - all the songs that influenced the Beatles. I knew most of them, but was introduced to several that I wasn't familiar with - "Lucille" by Little Richard. "Tennessee" by Carl Perkins. "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" by The Olympics. "Your Feet's Too Big" by Fats Waller. "Almost Grown" by Chuck Berry. "Solider of Love" by Arthur Alexander, which the Beatles' version of is incredible.
Some of my notes:
- Paul taught John how to play the guitar. Mind blown.
- They played Hamburg five times (I thought it was two). Their first show in Hamburg was 20 years to the day that Germans bombed Liverpool in WWII. And they had so much stage time in Hamburg that it made them great, and they played every Elvis song, every Buddy Holly song, every Carl Perkins song, because they had to fill all that time.
- I didn't realize how big the "twist craze" was. It was everywhere, and briefly changed the direction of popular music.
- The only reason the Beatles got a recording contract was because the head boss at EMI caught George Martin in an affair and decided to punish him by making him take the Beatles.
- "Yes, Brian was in love with John. We were all in love with John." - Paul McCartney
- One of the best parts of the book was the story of Little Richard and his relationship with the Beatles, and his conversion and un-conversion and re-conversion to Christianity. He was a tortured genius.
Do you want to know everything about the Beatles? I mean everything? Are you sure? Because that's what this book is. It's 1,000 pages that only cover up to December 31, 1962. It is detailed.
Sometimes that's great (we are there the first time each of the Beatles hear Elvis for the first time), sometimes it's just weird (we are there at the moment each of the Beatles reach puberty). But for a die-hard Beatles fan it's a fantastic ride.
I decided to listen to this book, though it's over 40 hours long. But the narrator is great and he does the Beatle voices perfectly. His American accent is awful, but there aren't many Americans in the book so it's fine. The only thing he consistently gets wrong is how to pronounce the Ray Charles song "What'd I Say," which he pronounces as "What Did I Say" and that's a little annoying because the book mentions the song so much.
That's actually the best part of the book for me - all the songs that influenced the Beatles. I knew most of them, but was introduced to several that I wasn't familiar with - "Lucille" by Little Richard. "Tennessee" by Carl Perkins. "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" by The Olympics. "Your Feet's Too Big" by Fats Waller. "Almost Grown" by Chuck Berry. "Solider of Love" by Arthur Alexander, which the Beatles' version of is incredible.
Some of my notes:
- Paul taught John how to play the guitar. Mind blown.
- They played Hamburg five times (I thought it was two). Their first show in Hamburg was 20 years to the day that Germans bombed Liverpool in WWII. And they had so much stage time in Hamburg that it made them great, and they played every Elvis song, every Buddy Holly song, every Carl Perkins song, because they had to fill all that time.
- I didn't realize how big the "twist craze" was. It was everywhere, and briefly changed the direction of popular music.
- The only reason the Beatles got a recording contract was because the head boss at EMI caught George Martin in an affair and decided to punish him by making him take the Beatles.
- "Yes, Brian was in love with John. We were all in love with John." - Paul McCartney
- One of the best parts of the book was the story of Little Richard and his relationship with the Beatles, and his conversion and un-conversion and re-conversion to Christianity. He was a tortured genius.
December 19, 2013
This is an absolute top notch historical joy-ride of a book. So much fun.
Some impressions: John was an arrogant arse. But he was the force behind the group--they never would have started without him. Paul was talented and good-hearted and the glue that created the whole and kept it together. George was the quiet one, but he might have saved the whole venture when he insulted George Martin's tie at the first recording session to break the ice and get people laughing. Stuart death in Astrid's arms was sad, but he wasn't going to be a Beatle any longer anyway. The betrayal of Pete hurts, but he really wasn't up to the task. And Richard Starkey was the odd man out for a dozen reasons, and yet the perfect fit.
It is amazing to me that after their second stint in Hamburg, as they returned to Liverpool in July of 1961, the Beatles were the most experienced rock band on the planet--and there probably wasn't a close second. On the first trip in 1960 they played over 90 nights for 6 hours a night. On the second trip they were onstage 92 nights for 7 hours a night. They worked very hard to include new material into the show--as the same old songs would drive them crazy after a while. So they knew literally hundreds of songs and had performed those songs hundreds of times. John said, "We went over [to Hamburg] as boys and came back as grown men." All the other acts in Liverpool were blown away by the transformation. The Beatles went to Hamburg as an average nothing-special Liverpool band, but when they came back, they blew everyone away when the took the stage. They owned the stage. It is ironic, and very sad, that the screaming and fainting teenage girls would soon make live performances impractical.
This is top-rate history done right. One of the better one I have ever read. If you love music and appreciate the Beatles, pick this one up.
Also, the insight to post-war England is beautiful too. This is the story of 6 families in Liverpool in the late 1950s and 1960s. The boys started a band that later became successful, but no one knew that at the time. Lives of quiet desperation in the victor-state of WWII. Very interesting study of a time and place, aside from the music.
Some impressions: John was an arrogant arse. But he was the force behind the group--they never would have started without him. Paul was talented and good-hearted and the glue that created the whole and kept it together. George was the quiet one, but he might have saved the whole venture when he insulted George Martin's tie at the first recording session to break the ice and get people laughing. Stuart death in Astrid's arms was sad, but he wasn't going to be a Beatle any longer anyway. The betrayal of Pete hurts, but he really wasn't up to the task. And Richard Starkey was the odd man out for a dozen reasons, and yet the perfect fit.
It is amazing to me that after their second stint in Hamburg, as they returned to Liverpool in July of 1961, the Beatles were the most experienced rock band on the planet--and there probably wasn't a close second. On the first trip in 1960 they played over 90 nights for 6 hours a night. On the second trip they were onstage 92 nights for 7 hours a night. They worked very hard to include new material into the show--as the same old songs would drive them crazy after a while. So they knew literally hundreds of songs and had performed those songs hundreds of times. John said, "We went over [to Hamburg] as boys and came back as grown men." All the other acts in Liverpool were blown away by the transformation. The Beatles went to Hamburg as an average nothing-special Liverpool band, but when they came back, they blew everyone away when the took the stage. They owned the stage. It is ironic, and very sad, that the screaming and fainting teenage girls would soon make live performances impractical.
This is top-rate history done right. One of the better one I have ever read. If you love music and appreciate the Beatles, pick this one up.
Also, the insight to post-war England is beautiful too. This is the story of 6 families in Liverpool in the late 1950s and 1960s. The boys started a band that later became successful, but no one knew that at the time. Lives of quiet desperation in the victor-state of WWII. Very interesting study of a time and place, aside from the music.
May 21, 2016
I read this book in preparation for a trip to Liverpool next month, where I hope to go on a Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles' history. Although I'm not a true Beatles obsessive, I do love their music. I have read quite a few books about them over the years, but discovered loads of information that was new to me from this truly massive tome.
Mark Lewisohn clearly loves the group and his enthusiasm comes across loud and clear, even if the level of detail is sometimes overwhelming. This enormous book only goes as far as 1962 and the recording of Please Please Me, with two more volumes promised for the future. It took me a long time to read through the exhaustive and repetitive descriptions of the four group members' school days, but I truly became caught up in the story when it got on to their early musical careers.
Lewisohn lovingly traces the years when the teenagers learned their craft in Liverpool clubs and halls, and their very tough stints in the bars and cellars of Hamburg. He is especially strong on tracing their musical influences and discussing all the songs they wrote, performed and borrowed from during these early years. I was pleased to see that he gives a lot of space to Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best's roles in the group. It's also very interesting to learn more about Ringo before he joined - this book gave me a new appreciation for just how successful he already was as a drummer before he became a Beatle.
Even though the book is so amazingly detailed, there are some gaps. For instance, it would be nice to hear more about some of the women and girls in the Beatles' lives. Cynthia and Dot were in relationships with John and Paul respectively for much of the period covered in the book, but they remain rather shadowy figures here. It's also sometimes frustrating when Lewisohn describes a photo in great detail, but the photo isn't actually included in the book - although I imagine copyright considerations are the reason for this. Overall, a rewarding read, which has sent me eagerly tracking down early Beatles recordings and videos of them at the Cavern Club ... but I won't be rushing to read the even longer special edition!
Mark Lewisohn clearly loves the group and his enthusiasm comes across loud and clear, even if the level of detail is sometimes overwhelming. This enormous book only goes as far as 1962 and the recording of Please Please Me, with two more volumes promised for the future. It took me a long time to read through the exhaustive and repetitive descriptions of the four group members' school days, but I truly became caught up in the story when it got on to their early musical careers.
Lewisohn lovingly traces the years when the teenagers learned their craft in Liverpool clubs and halls, and their very tough stints in the bars and cellars of Hamburg. He is especially strong on tracing their musical influences and discussing all the songs they wrote, performed and borrowed from during these early years. I was pleased to see that he gives a lot of space to Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best's roles in the group. It's also very interesting to learn more about Ringo before he joined - this book gave me a new appreciation for just how successful he already was as a drummer before he became a Beatle.
Even though the book is so amazingly detailed, there are some gaps. For instance, it would be nice to hear more about some of the women and girls in the Beatles' lives. Cynthia and Dot were in relationships with John and Paul respectively for much of the period covered in the book, but they remain rather shadowy figures here. It's also sometimes frustrating when Lewisohn describes a photo in great detail, but the photo isn't actually included in the book - although I imagine copyright considerations are the reason for this. Overall, a rewarding read, which has sent me eagerly tracking down early Beatles recordings and videos of them at the Cavern Club ... but I won't be rushing to read the even longer special edition!
August 23, 2016
I'm often wary of reading books on people or subjects that are so prolific in pop culture; more often than not, you get a summary of information that could have been gleaned from various websites along with lots of empty filler. In the multitude of Beatles "biographies", Tune In is a thrilling standout!
Mark Lewisohn took ten years researching the book and while not officially authorized by the Beatles, he had help from several inherent sources including Paul McCartney, Neil Aspinall and Yoko Ono. The book covers years 1845-1962. No, that isn't a typo. Lewisohn actually writes about each member's ancestry, which is just one of many charming and enlightening aspects of the book.
We visit their childhood homes, spend time with their parents, siblings, schoolmates and teachers before getting a front row seat at the many clubs where they honed their craft. We get to sit in on arguments, intrigues and betrayals. We travel with them to Hamburg and back to Liverpool and later London, Scotland and Paris.
Through it all, Lewisohn keeps a tight timeline, while weaving together several different threads (Ringo would not even become a Beatle until the end of 1962, nearly 5 years after the others had formed their first band). Brian Epstein and George Martin's lives before and with the Beatles is also covered here.
The book reads like a Dickens tale, with all the characters varied, princes and paupers, before eventually coming together at the end through a series of fantastic events. And it is amazing how shifts in business, families, music and world events played a part in what would arguably be described as one of the most influential bands in history. And Lewisohn captured it all in this, his first volume of three, Tune In Vol. 1.
An enthusiastic 5 stars and a must read for any Beatles fan!
Mark Lewisohn took ten years researching the book and while not officially authorized by the Beatles, he had help from several inherent sources including Paul McCartney, Neil Aspinall and Yoko Ono. The book covers years 1845-1962. No, that isn't a typo. Lewisohn actually writes about each member's ancestry, which is just one of many charming and enlightening aspects of the book.
We visit their childhood homes, spend time with their parents, siblings, schoolmates and teachers before getting a front row seat at the many clubs where they honed their craft. We get to sit in on arguments, intrigues and betrayals. We travel with them to Hamburg and back to Liverpool and later London, Scotland and Paris.
Through it all, Lewisohn keeps a tight timeline, while weaving together several different threads (Ringo would not even become a Beatle until the end of 1962, nearly 5 years after the others had formed their first band). Brian Epstein and George Martin's lives before and with the Beatles is also covered here.
The book reads like a Dickens tale, with all the characters varied, princes and paupers, before eventually coming together at the end through a series of fantastic events. And it is amazing how shifts in business, families, music and world events played a part in what would arguably be described as one of the most influential bands in history. And Lewisohn captured it all in this, his first volume of three, Tune In Vol. 1.
An enthusiastic 5 stars and a must read for any Beatles fan!
December 24, 2021
Fantastically readable, meticulously researched and passionately presented, this book is a fascinating joy to read. Like the cover quote says, there is a surprise (or two, or three) on every page. Lewisohn succeeds brilliantly in putting the Beatles in the context of their times, their music, their Liverpool, which, for someone born long after the group disbanded, established the detailed grounds from which the Fab Four sprung.
While I appreciated very much the timeline and context, it was the insights into each Beatle's personality and relationship to the others that was really eye-opening. I hadn't realized how unusual the Beatles were for their time, with journalists not even sure how to classify them musically (pop? R & B? Rock?) and that, when the Beatles were coming up in the late 50s and even until the end of 1962, a "vocal group that also plays instruments" was such a rare thing. (Nobody calls them a band.) One that wrote its own songs? Absolutely unheard of in the UK at the time.
Having read several Beatles biographies, and books by Cynthia Lennon and Pattie Boyd, also helped provide insight that's missing here as Lewisohn focuses on the Beatles, their families, Brian and the men who made them (local Liverpool promoters like Bob Wooler and up to George Martin), while he spares few words for Cynthia (though Astrid Kirchherr is given a lot of page space). Ex-/early Beatles Pete Best (and his mother Mona and best friend Neil Aspinall) and Stuart Sutcliffe also feature extensively as they're both a very important part of this early history. I kept waiting for Ringo, who pops up here and there, mostly as drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and who isn't offered the Beatles gig until well into 1962, the last year the book covers. His entry here is fairly quiet, and it's unclear if the Beatles took him to the top or if they never would have crossed the bridge to LP recording contract and stardom without him - probably the former, as John, Paul and George were clearly on a rocketship somewhere (although it did take 5 years to get there).
I can't wait to read the next installment, to kick off with 1963, when the album "Please Please Me" is recorded and released and Beatlemania becomes a bonafide thing. This is certainly a book to treasure and to reread. There is so much depth that the reading experience is really about the ride through 50s Liverpool, 60s Hamburg, and the grind of regular jobs, school, bus rides and Cavern shows, and less about absorbing every bit of the nitty-gritty. And what a ride it is.
While I appreciated very much the timeline and context, it was the insights into each Beatle's personality and relationship to the others that was really eye-opening. I hadn't realized how unusual the Beatles were for their time, with journalists not even sure how to classify them musically (pop? R & B? Rock?) and that, when the Beatles were coming up in the late 50s and even until the end of 1962, a "vocal group that also plays instruments" was such a rare thing. (Nobody calls them a band.) One that wrote its own songs? Absolutely unheard of in the UK at the time.
Having read several Beatles biographies, and books by Cynthia Lennon and Pattie Boyd, also helped provide insight that's missing here as Lewisohn focuses on the Beatles, their families, Brian and the men who made them (local Liverpool promoters like Bob Wooler and up to George Martin), while he spares few words for Cynthia (though Astrid Kirchherr is given a lot of page space). Ex-/early Beatles Pete Best (and his mother Mona and best friend Neil Aspinall) and Stuart Sutcliffe also feature extensively as they're both a very important part of this early history. I kept waiting for Ringo, who pops up here and there, mostly as drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and who isn't offered the Beatles gig until well into 1962, the last year the book covers. His entry here is fairly quiet, and it's unclear if the Beatles took him to the top or if they never would have crossed the bridge to LP recording contract and stardom without him - probably the former, as John, Paul and George were clearly on a rocketship somewhere (although it did take 5 years to get there).
I can't wait to read the next installment, to kick off with 1963, when the album "Please Please Me" is recorded and released and Beatlemania becomes a bonafide thing. This is certainly a book to treasure and to reread. There is so much depth that the reading experience is really about the ride through 50s Liverpool, 60s Hamburg, and the grind of regular jobs, school, bus rides and Cavern shows, and less about absorbing every bit of the nitty-gritty. And what a ride it is.
September 6, 2017
One of the best straight up biographies I have read in a very long time. Beautifully written, never boring.
However, this is a book with a lot of information in it, over 800 pages (or 70 hours on audio). This is Volume I of a planned three volume set on the Beatles. This volume only takes you from the childhood to just before the release of their first album in early 1963. Seemingly nothing that occurred to John, Paul, George or Ringo in the years between 1957 and 1962 is left unexplored. Extensive backstories on Brian Epstein, the Beatles Manager, and George Martin, their producer, is also included.
So, it really does help to be a Beatles fan, with a curiosity as to how they formed, and how their early lives led them to become the most successful and influential musical artists of the last 60 years. I count myself in that group, so I was hooked from the beginning.
While the book packs in a lot of information, it is never dense. You won't lose your place, or have thrown at you a lot of information in a short stretch that you struggle to remember. Lewisohn is a gifted writer so despite its length, it never becomes confusing.
The book does two very important things. First, it does a great job explaining the musical influences on young people in Britain at the beginning of the rock and roll era. Those influences were entirely American. Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis among many others, had a profound effect on the British rock and roll scene. So ironically, American rock and rollers were the influence for British bands, which then used that influence to create a new style that then became the biggest influence a decade later in America. I will be very interested in how Lewisohn treats that phenomenon in the next two volumes.
The second important thing about this book, is presenting the Beatles as people in a way that makes one rethink the stereotypes about them. Both John and Paul lost their mothers as teenagers, which had a profound effect on their lives. John in particular never had a semblance of an orderly home life, which helps explain the changes in his personality as the Beatles became more popular. Despite having to learn at a young age how to get by on the rough streets of Liverpool, which toughened him up, it left him most vulnerable to problems as the group got more popular. He, more than the others, always seemed to be in a period of trying to find himself. In many ways this made him a raging jerk, not thinking twice about hurting others with an offhand comment, perhaps trying to head off being hurt himself. He reacted more emotionally to being slighted than the others, which even came out in some of the interviews he did after the Beatles had broken up. This book helps explain why he behaved that way, and to have more sympathy for him in that regard.
It also dispels some of the condescension Ringo has received over the years. Sometimes viewed as the least talented of the group, in fact, it wasn't until he had joined them that they became the powerhouse group we recall today. He was the glue that held the group together musically.
There is way too much in the book to do a comprehensive review so I won't attempt it.
If you are a Beatles fan, run, don't walk to get this book. If you have an interest in social history, there is quite a bit here about the lives of the working class in Liverpool in the 1950s to interest you as well.
Highly recommended
However, this is a book with a lot of information in it, over 800 pages (or 70 hours on audio). This is Volume I of a planned three volume set on the Beatles. This volume only takes you from the childhood to just before the release of their first album in early 1963. Seemingly nothing that occurred to John, Paul, George or Ringo in the years between 1957 and 1962 is left unexplored. Extensive backstories on Brian Epstein, the Beatles Manager, and George Martin, their producer, is also included.
So, it really does help to be a Beatles fan, with a curiosity as to how they formed, and how their early lives led them to become the most successful and influential musical artists of the last 60 years. I count myself in that group, so I was hooked from the beginning.
While the book packs in a lot of information, it is never dense. You won't lose your place, or have thrown at you a lot of information in a short stretch that you struggle to remember. Lewisohn is a gifted writer so despite its length, it never becomes confusing.
The book does two very important things. First, it does a great job explaining the musical influences on young people in Britain at the beginning of the rock and roll era. Those influences were entirely American. Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis among many others, had a profound effect on the British rock and roll scene. So ironically, American rock and rollers were the influence for British bands, which then used that influence to create a new style that then became the biggest influence a decade later in America. I will be very interested in how Lewisohn treats that phenomenon in the next two volumes.
The second important thing about this book, is presenting the Beatles as people in a way that makes one rethink the stereotypes about them. Both John and Paul lost their mothers as teenagers, which had a profound effect on their lives. John in particular never had a semblance of an orderly home life, which helps explain the changes in his personality as the Beatles became more popular. Despite having to learn at a young age how to get by on the rough streets of Liverpool, which toughened him up, it left him most vulnerable to problems as the group got more popular. He, more than the others, always seemed to be in a period of trying to find himself. In many ways this made him a raging jerk, not thinking twice about hurting others with an offhand comment, perhaps trying to head off being hurt himself. He reacted more emotionally to being slighted than the others, which even came out in some of the interviews he did after the Beatles had broken up. This book helps explain why he behaved that way, and to have more sympathy for him in that regard.
It also dispels some of the condescension Ringo has received over the years. Sometimes viewed as the least talented of the group, in fact, it wasn't until he had joined them that they became the powerhouse group we recall today. He was the glue that held the group together musically.
There is way too much in the book to do a comprehensive review so I won't attempt it.
If you are a Beatles fan, run, don't walk to get this book. If you have an interest in social history, there is quite a bit here about the lives of the working class in Liverpool in the 1950s to interest you as well.
Highly recommended
January 5, 2014
Over 1000 page biography of the Beatles, only up to December 31, 1962! For those of us who have read many biographies with much information about their early days (starting with the authorized Hunter Davies book) it seems inconceivable that so much could be written in Tune In. It is a credit to Lewisohn's research that this biography is both readable and thorough.
My five stars is based on both the readability and the research. Lewisohn draws from many sources and interviews to discover as much truth as possible from that era. A few things became a bit more clear to me after reading this:
- Pete Best was somewhat ill-served by his sudden dismissal from the band, but as convenient (and necessary) as he was for their first Hamburg venture, the writing had been on the wall for a while. It also shows the ruthlessness of the music business in general.
- The Beatles needed breaks all along the road. Allan Williams scoring their Hamburg gig, Paul and George quitting jobs which parental pressure urged them to keep. Brian Epstein discovering them. Decca rejecting them but luckily for them landing with George Martin at Parlophone.
- Paul McCartney was not a happy camper at many points and the band could have broken up well before their success.
For fans this is a treasure trove. For newcomers to the Beatles story they might be best served with something shorter. Certainly pages will be skipped, especially during the "Love Me Do" breakthrough which seemed to go on for over a hundred pages. Publishers, publicists, fans, names are dropped all over. I look forward to the next installment. There is also musical analysis of their early sessions and what can be gleaned from Cavern and Hamburg shows.
My five stars is based on both the readability and the research. Lewisohn draws from many sources and interviews to discover as much truth as possible from that era. A few things became a bit more clear to me after reading this:
- Pete Best was somewhat ill-served by his sudden dismissal from the band, but as convenient (and necessary) as he was for their first Hamburg venture, the writing had been on the wall for a while. It also shows the ruthlessness of the music business in general.
- The Beatles needed breaks all along the road. Allan Williams scoring their Hamburg gig, Paul and George quitting jobs which parental pressure urged them to keep. Brian Epstein discovering them. Decca rejecting them but luckily for them landing with George Martin at Parlophone.
- Paul McCartney was not a happy camper at many points and the band could have broken up well before their success.
For fans this is a treasure trove. For newcomers to the Beatles story they might be best served with something shorter. Certainly pages will be skipped, especially during the "Love Me Do" breakthrough which seemed to go on for over a hundred pages. Publishers, publicists, fans, names are dropped all over. I look forward to the next installment. There is also musical analysis of their early sessions and what can be gleaned from Cavern and Hamburg shows.
November 24, 2013
This book probably goes more detail than you want. It's almost a thousand pages and only gets to December 31, 1962, when the Beatles are about to record their first album. Mark Lewisohn wants to know absolutely everything the Beatles did. His annoyance is palpable when there's a day trip that almost definitely happened but nobody remembers taking.
But as it happens, I *do* want all this detail. If you're sufficiently interested in the Beatles to consider reading it, it's going to blow your mind. I particularly like the amount of time that's spent on Ringo, because a lot of Beatles origin stories just bring him in when Pete Best leaves the band.
But as it happens, I *do* want all this detail. If you're sufficiently interested in the Beatles to consider reading it, it's going to blow your mind. I particularly like the amount of time that's spent on Ringo, because a lot of Beatles origin stories just bring him in when Pete Best leaves the band.
November 25, 2013
"Every once in a while, life conjures up a genuine ultimate," so begins Mark Lewisohn in his epic book on the Beatles, talking about them. This is not only true of the Fab Four but also of Mark Lewisohn's work itself.
In a new tome on the Beatles titled Tune In, which is the first of a three-volume series The Beatles: All These Years, Mark Lewisohn who is acknowledged as an authority on the Beatles, examines the early days of the group in superb, almost minute detail, which is likely to leave even obsessed fans with volumes and volumes of books on the Beatles in their personal collection (roughly about 800 book titles are devoted to the band) shaking their heads in disbelief.
The content is vast as is the massive knowledge of Mark Lewisohn on the subject. In order to construct a monumental and definitive work on John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, the author was not reliant on what he already knew, he also interviewed hundreds of people who knew, or were close to, the Beatles and their families. He even went to the extent of tracking down a friend of John Lennon's father who lives in New Zealand. And it was this family friend who deflated the oft-repeated story that John had to choose between living with his mother, Julia, in Liverpool and his father in New Zealand.
Tune In traces the remarkable journey of four unwavering and genuine young men whose natural gifts, combined with distinctive charisma and intelligence, won hearts and minds. The music they created was a new phenomenon. However, Tune In is not the full story of the Fab Four. It covers just a short period in their extraordinary journey, looking at their family history, childhood, and the years between 1958 - 1962. It is a painstaking work which takes the Beatles to the threshold of stardom, 31 December 1962.
"I declare that the Beatles are mutants, prototypes of evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with a mysterious power to create a new human species, a young race of laughing freemen," so said the LSD evangelist Timothy Leary a long time ago. A lot of things to a lot of people, the Beatles still enjoy a huge following, their music remains stimulating, and their accomplishments is ever unlikely to be bested. And the author has captured it all. The first volume consists of six exhaustive chapters:
-Old Before Our Birth
-Year 1, 1958: Thinking of Linking
-Year 2, 1959: Three Cool Cats
-Year 3, 1960: Competence, Confidence & Continuity
-Year 4, 1961: The Rock Age
-Year 5, 1962: Always Be True
Year 6, 1963 - you'll have to wait for the second volume...
In a new tome on the Beatles titled Tune In, which is the first of a three-volume series The Beatles: All These Years, Mark Lewisohn who is acknowledged as an authority on the Beatles, examines the early days of the group in superb, almost minute detail, which is likely to leave even obsessed fans with volumes and volumes of books on the Beatles in their personal collection (roughly about 800 book titles are devoted to the band) shaking their heads in disbelief.
The content is vast as is the massive knowledge of Mark Lewisohn on the subject. In order to construct a monumental and definitive work on John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, the author was not reliant on what he already knew, he also interviewed hundreds of people who knew, or were close to, the Beatles and their families. He even went to the extent of tracking down a friend of John Lennon's father who lives in New Zealand. And it was this family friend who deflated the oft-repeated story that John had to choose between living with his mother, Julia, in Liverpool and his father in New Zealand.
Tune In traces the remarkable journey of four unwavering and genuine young men whose natural gifts, combined with distinctive charisma and intelligence, won hearts and minds. The music they created was a new phenomenon. However, Tune In is not the full story of the Fab Four. It covers just a short period in their extraordinary journey, looking at their family history, childhood, and the years between 1958 - 1962. It is a painstaking work which takes the Beatles to the threshold of stardom, 31 December 1962.
"I declare that the Beatles are mutants, prototypes of evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with a mysterious power to create a new human species, a young race of laughing freemen," so said the LSD evangelist Timothy Leary a long time ago. A lot of things to a lot of people, the Beatles still enjoy a huge following, their music remains stimulating, and their accomplishments is ever unlikely to be bested. And the author has captured it all. The first volume consists of six exhaustive chapters:
-Old Before Our Birth
-Year 1, 1958: Thinking of Linking
-Year 2, 1959: Three Cool Cats
-Year 3, 1960: Competence, Confidence & Continuity
-Year 4, 1961: The Rock Age
-Year 5, 1962: Always Be True
Year 6, 1963 - you'll have to wait for the second volume...
May 26, 2014
Does the world really need another book about The Beatles? After reading the 803 pages of Mark Lewisohn's "Tune In" I'd say emphatically "Yes!" "Tune In" is a great book. And if the subsequent volumes in this trilogy are anywhere near the quality of the first, the world not only needs them, it needs them as soon as possible.
I'm a student of The Beatles. (Yes, I'm a fan.) I've read almost every book ever written about The Beatles. And Lewisohn's "Tune In" is the most objective, detailed and well written account I've ever seen.
The individuals are revealed in all their complexity (much of which is not flattering). The circumstance and events of their lives are documented with both depth and precision. And the narrative flows with a crispness that keeps the pages briskly turning.
If you are like me and you think you already know this story, you are in for a surprising experience. There is an incredible amount of new information in "Tune In". Numerous events are documented for the first time. Many myths are debunked. Several legends are deconstructed to their origins. Conflicting accounts are laid side by side and evaluated on the verifiable evidence.
And the story . . .
Here is one of the greatest stories of the 20th Century. And on these pages it is told better than ever before. The conception, birth and rise of an irresistible force.
"Tune In" is one of the greatest books I have read in my life.
I'm a student of The Beatles. (Yes, I'm a fan.) I've read almost every book ever written about The Beatles. And Lewisohn's "Tune In" is the most objective, detailed and well written account I've ever seen.
The individuals are revealed in all their complexity (much of which is not flattering). The circumstance and events of their lives are documented with both depth and precision. And the narrative flows with a crispness that keeps the pages briskly turning.
If you are like me and you think you already know this story, you are in for a surprising experience. There is an incredible amount of new information in "Tune In". Numerous events are documented for the first time. Many myths are debunked. Several legends are deconstructed to their origins. Conflicting accounts are laid side by side and evaluated on the verifiable evidence.
And the story . . .
Here is one of the greatest stories of the 20th Century. And on these pages it is told better than ever before. The conception, birth and rise of an irresistible force.
"Tune In" is one of the greatest books I have read in my life.
September 7, 2021
One of the best books I’ve ever read.
Sounds like hyperbole.
I don’t know how else to describe how much I ENJOYED reading this.
Unlike most Beatles biographies, this—the first volume in an expected three volume series—is focused on the boys from ancestry through the days just before they appeared on Ed Sullivan.
Which is a way of saying everything UP TO Beatlemania.
What’s amazing about the author’s feat here is that we all KNOW the story—at least we think we do. But at a minimum, I mean we know that they become the biggest band in the world. But while reading, as is the job of every good historian, what becomes clear is how much THE BEATLES were NOT inevitable. So many little choices, so much depends upon, if it hadn’t been for WWII, if John’s father had been in the picture, if his mother hadn’t been killed in an auto accident at that exact spot at that exact moment, if Brian Epstein were less honest or driven, or loving, if Ringo stayed with his previous band, It’s endless.
Concurrently, we see their eventual success emerged not from luck and circumstance but from INCREDIBLY hard work. We all “know” about the Hamburg years. But Lewisohn CREATES late 50s and early 60s Hamburg in all its sweaty hooligan red light “mach shau” amphetamine richness. The van the boys drove in after the shows. The mobsters they learned to avoid. They were SO young.
What shines through most clearly in this book are the relationships between the different members of the group, John being the lynchpin holding them all together.
Growing up, I was born in 1976, I’d gotten the impression that Paul McCartney was the heart and soul of the band. That belief was a combination of informational ignorance and context. In the 80s, McCartney was making songs with Michael Jackson, I knew a few of his solo songs: “No More Lonely Nights” (what an incredible song), and I remember when Flowers in the Dirt came out because a friend of mine got it right away, shaming me because I wasn’t aware of how AMAZING Paul was. And he was. And is.
But the book makes it clear beyond argument that John Lennon led the Beatles.
One of the other delightful upshots of reading this is that it led me to explore each member’s (sorry Ringo, not counting you) solo work. And alas! There it is. Lennon’s solo songs are incredible. Not just “Instant Karma” and “Come Together” and “Imagine.” Those are the songs I’m sick of hearing. I mean “Jealous Guy” and “Oh Yoko” (one of the most joyful expressions in music I’ve ever heard) and “God” and “Woman” and “Beautiful Boy” and “Isolation” and especially “Watching The Wheels.” And then George’s All Things Must Pass record. WOW. He had all THAT stored up???
Finally—and I know much of what I’m saying is obvious to die hard Beatles fans—this book made me do some research. And what I realized is that the Beatles, as a recorded musical entity, made music for SEVEN YEARS ONLY!!! All those songs, all those albums, all that evolution. It’s mind boggling. Yes, recording contracts and expectations were different then; artists HAD to keep producing. That’s not the issue. Lots of artists are prolific. They could have been forced by this constant pressure to write “crap”— Lennon/McCartney buzzword for anything subpar. The wonder is the QUALITY and endless fucking inventiveness of their songwriting.
Tune in to Tune In. You’ll be so happy.
Sounds like hyperbole.
I don’t know how else to describe how much I ENJOYED reading this.
Unlike most Beatles biographies, this—the first volume in an expected three volume series—is focused on the boys from ancestry through the days just before they appeared on Ed Sullivan.
Which is a way of saying everything UP TO Beatlemania.
What’s amazing about the author’s feat here is that we all KNOW the story—at least we think we do. But at a minimum, I mean we know that they become the biggest band in the world. But while reading, as is the job of every good historian, what becomes clear is how much THE BEATLES were NOT inevitable. So many little choices, so much depends upon, if it hadn’t been for WWII, if John’s father had been in the picture, if his mother hadn’t been killed in an auto accident at that exact spot at that exact moment, if Brian Epstein were less honest or driven, or loving, if Ringo stayed with his previous band, It’s endless.
Concurrently, we see their eventual success emerged not from luck and circumstance but from INCREDIBLY hard work. We all “know” about the Hamburg years. But Lewisohn CREATES late 50s and early 60s Hamburg in all its sweaty hooligan red light “mach shau” amphetamine richness. The van the boys drove in after the shows. The mobsters they learned to avoid. They were SO young.
What shines through most clearly in this book are the relationships between the different members of the group, John being the lynchpin holding them all together.
Growing up, I was born in 1976, I’d gotten the impression that Paul McCartney was the heart and soul of the band. That belief was a combination of informational ignorance and context. In the 80s, McCartney was making songs with Michael Jackson, I knew a few of his solo songs: “No More Lonely Nights” (what an incredible song), and I remember when Flowers in the Dirt came out because a friend of mine got it right away, shaming me because I wasn’t aware of how AMAZING Paul was. And he was. And is.
But the book makes it clear beyond argument that John Lennon led the Beatles.
One of the other delightful upshots of reading this is that it led me to explore each member’s (sorry Ringo, not counting you) solo work. And alas! There it is. Lennon’s solo songs are incredible. Not just “Instant Karma” and “Come Together” and “Imagine.” Those are the songs I’m sick of hearing. I mean “Jealous Guy” and “Oh Yoko” (one of the most joyful expressions in music I’ve ever heard) and “God” and “Woman” and “Beautiful Boy” and “Isolation” and especially “Watching The Wheels.” And then George’s All Things Must Pass record. WOW. He had all THAT stored up???
Finally—and I know much of what I’m saying is obvious to die hard Beatles fans—this book made me do some research. And what I realized is that the Beatles, as a recorded musical entity, made music for SEVEN YEARS ONLY!!! All those songs, all those albums, all that evolution. It’s mind boggling. Yes, recording contracts and expectations were different then; artists HAD to keep producing. That’s not the issue. Lots of artists are prolific. They could have been forced by this constant pressure to write “crap”— Lennon/McCartney buzzword for anything subpar. The wonder is the QUALITY and endless fucking inventiveness of their songwriting.
Tune in to Tune In. You’ll be so happy.
June 6, 2021
[UPDATE // 06 June 2021]
I was thinking about this book today. What specifically came to mind was how the author's voice was a pitch-perfect match to the whole atmosphere of the scene and time and band. It really was a a good read.
[ORIGINAL REVIEW]
It's good! You can tell it was written by someone that truly does love the Beatles. His passion makes for a fun read.
I'm still trying to grasp their rise. The way all the strands of destiny wove together over time is remarkable. It never seemed a sure thing. They nearly gave up on more than one occasion, and John himself had a few long hard thinks about whether he really wanted to continue. But they pressed on, and in a moment they exploded.
Even though the book is long (as in looong), it only covers the period up until their initial breakthrough. Ringo has barely joined the band when the book ends. Yet even though it tarries on each detail, it never feels like a slog. Lewisohn has a conversational style of writing that makes for easy reading, and the story gets better and better as it goes—from nobodies in the rough of Liverpool, to wildmen in Hamburg, to making an absolute splash when they returned home, to bored, doubting, smoldering wicks at risk of going out, to their revelation in Brian Epstein, who worked and worked and worked to get them noticed, to the reluctant George Martin who finally made it happen.
Their time performing in Hamburg is worth extra attention. They went there with raw talent but no real experience. All they had was a contract to play a seedy club in a redlight district and they wholly embraced the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll lifestyle. It's here they formed their lasting bond. They didn't each just contribute something to the group; they imparted something of themselves into one another, and it's Hamburg where that transfer truly took place.
It's also where they learned their craft. The anonymous back-alley digs gave them a risk-free environment to try things out musically. At the time, the way to get noticed as a band was in high-stakes auditions on radio contests, TV appearances, or at live performances. One flub could kill your career before it had started. In Hamburg, the Beatles were playing in front of drunk sailors who egged them on in their outlandish stage acts. They played for hours on end, day after day, tinkering with songs and learning as they went. It was the perfect environment to test things out.
What would have taken this to a five-star for me is more exploration of the larger dimensions of the band—how they fit in the bigger picture, what the ground conditions were at the time that made for their rise—general things like that, analyzing things from a higher plane. It wasn’t absent entirely, I would have just enjoyed more of it (though I’m aware others may prefer that stuff left out, enjoying the ripper of a narrative that it is on its own).
One final recommendation: keep Youtube or Spotify nearby, (or if you're a true fan, perhaps some vinyl). Lewisohn riffles through the catalog of influences and inspirations for the Beatles in addition to detailing their own early songs, both originals and adaptations. Listening to these tracks as you go along is a blast.
I was thinking about this book today. What specifically came to mind was how the author's voice was a pitch-perfect match to the whole atmosphere of the scene and time and band. It really was a a good read.
[ORIGINAL REVIEW]
It's good! You can tell it was written by someone that truly does love the Beatles. His passion makes for a fun read.
I'm still trying to grasp their rise. The way all the strands of destiny wove together over time is remarkable. It never seemed a sure thing. They nearly gave up on more than one occasion, and John himself had a few long hard thinks about whether he really wanted to continue. But they pressed on, and in a moment they exploded.
Even though the book is long (as in looong), it only covers the period up until their initial breakthrough. Ringo has barely joined the band when the book ends. Yet even though it tarries on each detail, it never feels like a slog. Lewisohn has a conversational style of writing that makes for easy reading, and the story gets better and better as it goes—from nobodies in the rough of Liverpool, to wildmen in Hamburg, to making an absolute splash when they returned home, to bored, doubting, smoldering wicks at risk of going out, to their revelation in Brian Epstein, who worked and worked and worked to get them noticed, to the reluctant George Martin who finally made it happen.
Their time performing in Hamburg is worth extra attention. They went there with raw talent but no real experience. All they had was a contract to play a seedy club in a redlight district and they wholly embraced the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll lifestyle. It's here they formed their lasting bond. They didn't each just contribute something to the group; they imparted something of themselves into one another, and it's Hamburg where that transfer truly took place.
It's also where they learned their craft. The anonymous back-alley digs gave them a risk-free environment to try things out musically. At the time, the way to get noticed as a band was in high-stakes auditions on radio contests, TV appearances, or at live performances. One flub could kill your career before it had started. In Hamburg, the Beatles were playing in front of drunk sailors who egged them on in their outlandish stage acts. They played for hours on end, day after day, tinkering with songs and learning as they went. It was the perfect environment to test things out.
What would have taken this to a five-star for me is more exploration of the larger dimensions of the band—how they fit in the bigger picture, what the ground conditions were at the time that made for their rise—general things like that, analyzing things from a higher plane. It wasn’t absent entirely, I would have just enjoyed more of it (though I’m aware others may prefer that stuff left out, enjoying the ripper of a narrative that it is on its own).
One final recommendation: keep Youtube or Spotify nearby, (or if you're a true fan, perhaps some vinyl). Lewisohn riffles through the catalog of influences and inspirations for the Beatles in addition to detailing their own early songs, both originals and adaptations. Listening to these tracks as you go along is a blast.
January 4, 2020
An excellent book for any Beatles lover. At just over 800 pages, this first volume of a 3 volume set takes the reader through a detailed examination of each member of the group, including those who did not end up in the final lineup (Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe, etc.). Amazingly, this volume only takes the reader through the end of 1962 when the Beatles are on the cusp of success.
The detail and wealth of information is tremendous. The first few chapters focus on each members' family history and how they ended up in Liverpool. You then learn of the childhoods of each member, leading up to that fateful day when John Lennon was playing at a local church with this band The Quarry Men and meets Paul McCartney. The band slowly evolves when Paul McCartney brings George Harrison to audition for John, and he is immediately asked to join the band.
As you see the evolution of the band, you also see how each person became who they were. John Lennon's unstable relationship with his mother and aunt, and the tragic loss of his mother as a teenager made him guarded and reluctant to trust others. Paul's loss of his mother from cancer also shaped him and gave him a unique insight and bond with John. George may have been "the quiet one" but he seemed to exude confidence. Ringo had a childhood in and out of the hospital that limited his education and forced him to grow up and start working early than most.
Overall, there is nothing here that hasn't already been told in other books, but Mark Lewisohn does offer a unique perspective by interviewing people who had not been talked to before and adding special insight to the story.
I look forward to the next volume, which is due out in the next few years.
The detail and wealth of information is tremendous. The first few chapters focus on each members' family history and how they ended up in Liverpool. You then learn of the childhoods of each member, leading up to that fateful day when John Lennon was playing at a local church with this band The Quarry Men and meets Paul McCartney. The band slowly evolves when Paul McCartney brings George Harrison to audition for John, and he is immediately asked to join the band.
As you see the evolution of the band, you also see how each person became who they were. John Lennon's unstable relationship with his mother and aunt, and the tragic loss of his mother as a teenager made him guarded and reluctant to trust others. Paul's loss of his mother from cancer also shaped him and gave him a unique insight and bond with John. George may have been "the quiet one" but he seemed to exude confidence. Ringo had a childhood in and out of the hospital that limited his education and forced him to grow up and start working early than most.
Overall, there is nothing here that hasn't already been told in other books, but Mark Lewisohn does offer a unique perspective by interviewing people who had not been talked to before and adding special insight to the story.
I look forward to the next volume, which is due out in the next few years.
March 29, 2017
Are you that kid in high school who bought The Beatles Live at the Star Club in Hamburg? (And more importantly, did you listen to it....repeatedly?)
Did you make a pilgrimage to Liverpool and Hamburg back when no American in their right mind would set foot there?
Did you tape the Beatles Anthology off television, then buy it on laser disc and then DVD?
Do you celebrate every February 7th like it is Liberation Day?
If you answered yes to these questions, this is the book for you. It is literally like following the Beatles from grammar school to the cusp of fame, step by step, day by day. Remember this is 800 pages which ends in 1962 (600 words per page, making it feel more like 1600 pages). The level of detail is incredible, not to mention that it sets the record straight on a lot of stories that are accepted as gospel (for instance, John was not forced to choose between his parents Alf and Julia on a pier in Blackpool as it is so often told). One also gets the sense that if one element of this story had not occurred in its proper sequence, the band might have broken up or missed a crucial opportunity to move forward.
And of course, there are a lot of laugh-out-loud stories like hanging out with Gene Vincent -- the first time they met one of their idols. It was culture shock prompting the Beatles to wonder, "Are all the American Rock n Rollers like this?"
Is this enough? No it is not. I want more. I did not want it to end. I am not sure if I can stand to wait until 2020 for the next installment (or 2023 for the one after that).
PS, the book also answers a burning question of mine. Were the Beatles instructed not to talk about Football (Soccer) or were they literally the only four guys in Liverpool who did not care?
Did you make a pilgrimage to Liverpool and Hamburg back when no American in their right mind would set foot there?
Did you tape the Beatles Anthology off television, then buy it on laser disc and then DVD?
Do you celebrate every February 7th like it is Liberation Day?
If you answered yes to these questions, this is the book for you. It is literally like following the Beatles from grammar school to the cusp of fame, step by step, day by day. Remember this is 800 pages which ends in 1962 (600 words per page, making it feel more like 1600 pages). The level of detail is incredible, not to mention that it sets the record straight on a lot of stories that are accepted as gospel (for instance, John was not forced to choose between his parents Alf and Julia on a pier in Blackpool as it is so often told). One also gets the sense that if one element of this story had not occurred in its proper sequence, the band might have broken up or missed a crucial opportunity to move forward.
And of course, there are a lot of laugh-out-loud stories like hanging out with Gene Vincent -- the first time they met one of their idols. It was culture shock prompting the Beatles to wonder, "Are all the American Rock n Rollers like this?"
Is this enough? No it is not. I want more. I did not want it to end. I am not sure if I can stand to wait until 2020 for the next installment (or 2023 for the one after that).
PS, the book also answers a burning question of mine. Were the Beatles instructed not to talk about Football (Soccer) or were they literally the only four guys in Liverpool who did not care?
November 26, 2013
Holy crap. This is the ultimate work of Beatles scholarship, and it only goes to December 31st, 1962. (Books two and three are, um, in the works. It took Lewisohn 8 years to write this; if I have to wait 16 years for this trilogy to be over, I'll cry. I'll also be 50 when the third books comes out. FIFTY. I really hope I'm not waiting 16 years for the third volume.)
Anyway, this is dense, obviously. It's 800 packed pages. You'd think it'd be boring, but it really wasn't. Then again, I have a pretty large obsession with the Beatles. Here's what I think: if you seriously LOOOOVE the Beatles, you have to read this. If you're just a casual fan, no. It's too much. Start smaller. But if you think, eh, I know it all, I've read it all, you're wrong, and you need to read this. I learned SO. DAMN. MUCH. And I've really made a good-faith attempt, before this, to read it all.
I think this is going to be the truest version of the story ever written. Seriously. So if you're a Beatles-lover, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't try to read this one. God, I hope it's not 8 more years. Fingers waaaay crossed.
Anyway, this is dense, obviously. It's 800 packed pages. You'd think it'd be boring, but it really wasn't. Then again, I have a pretty large obsession with the Beatles. Here's what I think: if you seriously LOOOOVE the Beatles, you have to read this. If you're just a casual fan, no. It's too much. Start smaller. But if you think, eh, I know it all, I've read it all, you're wrong, and you need to read this. I learned SO. DAMN. MUCH. And I've really made a good-faith attempt, before this, to read it all.
I think this is going to be the truest version of the story ever written. Seriously. So if you're a Beatles-lover, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't try to read this one. God, I hope it's not 8 more years. Fingers waaaay crossed.
Read
May 27, 2015The problem is, I'm just not a Beatles fan. I like the songs, they've been playing along in the background all of my life. I find the history interesting, as a phenomenon...but i'm not a fan. I don't care about the provenance of each song or the controversial historiography of minor events. Now, as history, this is enjoyable. A nice view into a time, place and industry, particularly the Liverpool of the 40s and 50s and Hamburg of the early 60s. But Lewisohn is a fan, a fanatic, an admirer. He cares about their minutiae, their personalities, their narrative. He's impressed by the Beatles, forgiving, fond. There's just something too incongruous for me when Lewisohns fairly dry, meticulous, adult view slides into unflinching admiration for these rowdy teenagers, almost unsettling. One doesn't know whether to question his judgement or just join in. After all, they're the Beatles, right?
February 10, 2023
This book is a "must read" for all Beatles fans. Period.
In fact, I'll go one step further. Even if you've read the book, you haven't lived until you've listened to the audiobook narrated by Clive Mantle. The guy does at least 100 different voices and accents. It is an absolute delight!
I would recommend this audiobook to even the most casual fans of The Beatles.
The only concern is length and time covered. This audiobook is 43 hrs and 43 mins at regular speed and only covers The Beatles early years. Ringo joins the band at the end of this volume.
That being said, this audiobook is worth your time.
Volume II is easily the most anticipated Beatles book of all-time. Lewisohn has been working on it for a decade. If you read this book, you know why. The information included is unbelievably well-researched and voluminous.
There is supposed to be a Volume III as well, but God only knows if we'll all live to see it.
In fact, I'll go one step further. Even if you've read the book, you haven't lived until you've listened to the audiobook narrated by Clive Mantle. The guy does at least 100 different voices and accents. It is an absolute delight!
I would recommend this audiobook to even the most casual fans of The Beatles.
The only concern is length and time covered. This audiobook is 43 hrs and 43 mins at regular speed and only covers The Beatles early years. Ringo joins the band at the end of this volume.
That being said, this audiobook is worth your time.
Volume II is easily the most anticipated Beatles book of all-time. Lewisohn has been working on it for a decade. If you read this book, you know why. The information included is unbelievably well-researched and voluminous.
There is supposed to be a Volume III as well, but God only knows if we'll all live to see it.
January 1, 2015
It took me nearly six months but I finally made it through this massive tome—a PART 1 history of The Beatles starting from roots so deep and providing such a detailed history that it wasn’t until nearly page 700 (out of 800) that Ringo became a Beatle. The length of time it took me to complete the book is by no means a reflection of my interest or the book’s grip on me. I was fascinated every time I picked it up to read and absolutely enjoyed meandering through it, not trying to retain every tidbit of knowledge or trivia but just enjoying the ride. The book also includes three sections of great photos, both black and white and color and is thoroughly annotated and indexed in some 130 pages at the end. I am hooked and can’t wait until the other two parts of the trilogy are published.
February 3, 2017
What can you say about 800 pages of Beatles history that ends in 1962? "Wow"
Marc Lewisohn's thorough examination of the early Beatles is only the first in a three part history that will cover the Beatles up to 1980. This first part "Tune In" is fantastic on its own, even to someone like me who has read dozens of books on the Beatles. New (to me) stories of their families, friends, influences and lucky breaks all combine for a truly enchanting story of four Liverpool lads who, against all odds, got a recording contract and saw their first single get up to number 17 in the charts (remember, this only goes to 1962). It's all here, warts and all, and any Beatles fan who thought the Anthology was enough needs to read this. Highly recommended.
Marc Lewisohn's thorough examination of the early Beatles is only the first in a three part history that will cover the Beatles up to 1980. This first part "Tune In" is fantastic on its own, even to someone like me who has read dozens of books on the Beatles. New (to me) stories of their families, friends, influences and lucky breaks all combine for a truly enchanting story of four Liverpool lads who, against all odds, got a recording contract and saw their first single get up to number 17 in the charts (remember, this only goes to 1962). It's all here, warts and all, and any Beatles fan who thought the Anthology was enough needs to read this. Highly recommended.
December 12, 2017
The brilliance of this book is to show how the members of the Beatles typified the young people of their time. Their musical brilliance set them apart, but this book, interestingly, focuses on their similarities with young people around the world growing up in the aftermath of WWII. They want to have fun. They want to cut loose and look good. The Beatles broke out of a conformist mode dominated by religious and secular institutions. Their musical and poetic talent made them geniuses, but breaking those bonds and inviting us all to “sing along” made them heroes.
April 8, 2022
This is such a fascinating look at the late 50s and early 60s. It's a comprehensive look at the Beatles and the overall societal and cultural conditions which lead to their initial success. The Beatles story really highlights the inequality and prejudices of England of the period and the ways archaic methods of thinking can hurt an industry.
September 19, 2020
If you are a passionate Beatles fan, there's simply no way you don't love the hell out of this book. It's absolutely astoundingly amazing. It's literally like a Truman Show look at each Beatles' upbringing in Liverpool, and, once they all come together, their collective development as rock n rollers, the birth of Lennon-McCartney as songwriters, and the infant stage of Beatlemania.
In addition to all the details about the boys and their childhoods and backgrounds, there is lots of fascinating history that contextualize the historical moment in which the Beatles began and flourished. For example, there is much discussion of skiffle, the quasi rhythm and blues genre popular in England in the fifties and from which rock n roll evolved. There is much discussion of how the music industry worked at the time, from record contracts to the writing, arranging, recording, and producing of popular music songs. It was truly unique among artists at the time that the Beatles wrote their own music. All the pioneers of rock n roll - Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Bill Haley, and Elvis - either didn't write songs at all or, if they did, had hired songwriters working closely alongside them. Not so with Lennon-McCartney. However, this singular aspect of the Beatles artistry is just the tip of the tip of the ice berg. There is so, so much more.
And that's the most frustrating thing!!!!! The book ends in 1962, just as the Beatles first few singles are rising up the charts. Indeed, it ends right on the precipice of Beatlemania. Like many other readers, I'm so eager to read more that I'm already going through Beatles withdrawals. And the fact that Lewisohn has no timetable for the latter two books in this trilogy certainly doesn't help with the cravings. But I won't badger that point here. Lewisohn shows with this book that he really is the world's foremost Beatles historian. He's also a good writer. The book is written with a strong attention to narrative and pacing. Yes, it's documentary style in its use of quotations and anecdotes from John, Paul, George, and Ringo themselves as well as many of the major players in their early career - Pete Best, George Martin, Brian Epstein, etc. But everything is weaved together so seamlessly and skillfully that it flows like a river. Again, if you love the Beatles, this is required reading.
In addition to all the details about the boys and their childhoods and backgrounds, there is lots of fascinating history that contextualize the historical moment in which the Beatles began and flourished. For example, there is much discussion of skiffle, the quasi rhythm and blues genre popular in England in the fifties and from which rock n roll evolved. There is much discussion of how the music industry worked at the time, from record contracts to the writing, arranging, recording, and producing of popular music songs. It was truly unique among artists at the time that the Beatles wrote their own music. All the pioneers of rock n roll - Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Bill Haley, and Elvis - either didn't write songs at all or, if they did, had hired songwriters working closely alongside them. Not so with Lennon-McCartney. However, this singular aspect of the Beatles artistry is just the tip of the tip of the ice berg. There is so, so much more.
And that's the most frustrating thing!!!!! The book ends in 1962, just as the Beatles first few singles are rising up the charts. Indeed, it ends right on the precipice of Beatlemania. Like many other readers, I'm so eager to read more that I'm already going through Beatles withdrawals. And the fact that Lewisohn has no timetable for the latter two books in this trilogy certainly doesn't help with the cravings. But I won't badger that point here. Lewisohn shows with this book that he really is the world's foremost Beatles historian. He's also a good writer. The book is written with a strong attention to narrative and pacing. Yes, it's documentary style in its use of quotations and anecdotes from John, Paul, George, and Ringo themselves as well as many of the major players in their early career - Pete Best, George Martin, Brian Epstein, etc. But everything is weaved together so seamlessly and skillfully that it flows like a river. Again, if you love the Beatles, this is required reading.
January 25, 2014
Volume 1 is 803 pages, not counting notes, acknowledgements, appeal for research support, and index(an expanded edition is available online). It covers the Fab Four, their family backgrounds and youth and the first five years of their professional life, 1958 through 1962. Okay. Eight hundred and three pages of what comes as close to a day by day history of four pop musicians who became a world-wide cultural phenomenon may seem a bit much, particularly as you remember there are two more volumes to come; but the best compliment I can think of is that the book might have been better at 789 pages but not less. It really only drags very briefly in one or two short spots. Otherwise, it is a fascinating, richly textured story, ably told.
Lewisohn manages to deftly introduce Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr within the context of the city and neighborhoods they were born (during the war) into and grew up in during a post-war depression. Liverpool is a unifying character, so even before the four meet up you can see them passing back and forth on the same buses, attending neighboring schools or in some cases the same school. There is a commonality of spirit, Liverpudlian wit and Teddy Boy toughness, and love for music, particularly but never exclusively American rock and roll music. All were smart; none were good students, though Paul was until he met John. Ringo never had a chance at school, being sickly and twice spending the better part of two years in hospital as a youngster. Two had their moms die when they were teenagers. Two had absent fathers. All bridled at being told what to do. All were working poor.
In the beginning was John and his skiffle band the Quarrymen. John played guitar. Then came Paul. Paul played guitar (and a little trumpet, piano, drums and pretty much any instrument he picked up). Then George. George too played guitar. Some original Quarrymen departed or were 86ed. John’s friend Stu Sutcliffe, an art student with little interest and less talent, was cajoled into playing bass. They got a gig playing in Mona Best’s club, The Casbah. They became The Beatles and were a rock and roll band. They played Elvis, Cliff Richard, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Motown, Carl Perkins, Goffin and King songs, and much other music. Then a gig in Hamburg through their then manager Allan Williams came along but the band needed a drummer or no deal. They offered an audition to Pete Best, Mona’s son, he passed by showing up. Meanwhile Richey Starkey was drumming around Liverpool for various bands. When the lads first went to Hamburg the band Richey was in, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, was Liverpool’s best band. The Beatles weren’t good enough to be considered in the listing. But in Hamburg they played hours and hours and hours and got good, real good, real fast. Everyone but the drummer, who was never better than okay for a bar band drummer, plus, as good looking as he was, he was stone-faced and moody and, except when they were on stage, kept his distance from John, Paul, George and Stu.
In Hamburg they met Astrid and Klaus. Stu fell in love with Astrid. Astrid took some really great photos, helped give The Beatles a look and when the boys returned to Liverpool they were suddenly the best group in Liverpool and the beginnings of Beatlemania took root in luncheon and evening shows at the Cavern. Their manager quit. They returned to Hamburg for a second intensive stay, taking Prellies to keep their energy up, and got even better. Stu decided to stay in Hamburg and pursue his art. Paul took over on bass. Brian Epstein, a local store manager, took an interest when they returned to Liverpool and became their manager, sure that they would be bigger than Elvis if he didn’t mess things up for them. He presented them highlighting what he thought made them unique: they were both a vocal group and an instrumental group, they didn’t have one singer but four, and they wrote their own songs. Epstein brought them to the attention of EMI, which wasn’t all that interested — they flubbed their audition (as they had with Decca earlier) and for third or fourth time they heard that they needed to get a better drummer.
George pushed for Ringo and Paul and John agreed to have Epstein do the dirty work of firing Pete Best. (So John brought in Paul, Paul brought in George, and George brought in Ringo.) After some finagling the lads get a recording date with George Martin, who also wasn’t interested in them after the audition, but was forced to record them and to release their first single with their own composition, Love Me Do as the A-side. Ringo was an upgrade in musicianship (though he so overplays in his first recording date that Martin decides to replace him with a studio musician for a follow-up date) and in personality over poor Pete Best. Martin moved on to more promising artists, ignoring, like most of EMI, the single’s release, except that Love Me Do became a hit, first because of the band’s Liverpool following but soon nation-wide, not a top ten hit but a top twenty hit — ironically it’s the version of Love Me Do that Ringo played drums on that got released. And the boys had more songs. They recorded Please Please Me for release in January 1963 and by now George Martin was as big a fan of “the boys” as Brian Epstein (and Dick James who wanted to create a publishing company just for Lennon-McCartney songs). Martin thought Please Please Me would be a number one. He wanted to record an album with the Beatles. Things look promising, but that is as far as it gets in Volume 1. John and Ringo are 22. Paul 20. George 19.
Lewisohn is a fan but an incredibly knowledgeable and well-researched one. He doesn’t shy away from the warts (John is a bit of a bully; Paul a little priggish and jealous of Stu and Brian for their closeness to John; Epstein is a very troubled gay man who took risks in pursuit of sex that left him blackmailed, beaten, and sometimes arrested; the boys are cocky and not very generous in their treatment of those who helped them). There is real tragedy. John loses a beloved uncle (his only father figure), his mother, and his best mate in less than ten years. (Lewisohn doesn’t credit rumors that either an alleged stomping by John or a definite beating by Teddy Boys contributed to Stu’s tragic death at 21.) But everyone--from young blue and white collar Liverpudlians to German gangsters and strippers and Little Richard--finds the lads charming and charismatic. They were special and Lewisohn does a remarkable and authoritative job presenting how and why they became so. A must read for popular music fans and, it goes without saying, Beatle fans.
Lewisohn manages to deftly introduce Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr within the context of the city and neighborhoods they were born (during the war) into and grew up in during a post-war depression. Liverpool is a unifying character, so even before the four meet up you can see them passing back and forth on the same buses, attending neighboring schools or in some cases the same school. There is a commonality of spirit, Liverpudlian wit and Teddy Boy toughness, and love for music, particularly but never exclusively American rock and roll music. All were smart; none were good students, though Paul was until he met John. Ringo never had a chance at school, being sickly and twice spending the better part of two years in hospital as a youngster. Two had their moms die when they were teenagers. Two had absent fathers. All bridled at being told what to do. All were working poor.
In the beginning was John and his skiffle band the Quarrymen. John played guitar. Then came Paul. Paul played guitar (and a little trumpet, piano, drums and pretty much any instrument he picked up). Then George. George too played guitar. Some original Quarrymen departed or were 86ed. John’s friend Stu Sutcliffe, an art student with little interest and less talent, was cajoled into playing bass. They got a gig playing in Mona Best’s club, The Casbah. They became The Beatles and were a rock and roll band. They played Elvis, Cliff Richard, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Motown, Carl Perkins, Goffin and King songs, and much other music. Then a gig in Hamburg through their then manager Allan Williams came along but the band needed a drummer or no deal. They offered an audition to Pete Best, Mona’s son, he passed by showing up. Meanwhile Richey Starkey was drumming around Liverpool for various bands. When the lads first went to Hamburg the band Richey was in, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, was Liverpool’s best band. The Beatles weren’t good enough to be considered in the listing. But in Hamburg they played hours and hours and hours and got good, real good, real fast. Everyone but the drummer, who was never better than okay for a bar band drummer, plus, as good looking as he was, he was stone-faced and moody and, except when they were on stage, kept his distance from John, Paul, George and Stu.
In Hamburg they met Astrid and Klaus. Stu fell in love with Astrid. Astrid took some really great photos, helped give The Beatles a look and when the boys returned to Liverpool they were suddenly the best group in Liverpool and the beginnings of Beatlemania took root in luncheon and evening shows at the Cavern. Their manager quit. They returned to Hamburg for a second intensive stay, taking Prellies to keep their energy up, and got even better. Stu decided to stay in Hamburg and pursue his art. Paul took over on bass. Brian Epstein, a local store manager, took an interest when they returned to Liverpool and became their manager, sure that they would be bigger than Elvis if he didn’t mess things up for them. He presented them highlighting what he thought made them unique: they were both a vocal group and an instrumental group, they didn’t have one singer but four, and they wrote their own songs. Epstein brought them to the attention of EMI, which wasn’t all that interested — they flubbed their audition (as they had with Decca earlier) and for third or fourth time they heard that they needed to get a better drummer.
George pushed for Ringo and Paul and John agreed to have Epstein do the dirty work of firing Pete Best. (So John brought in Paul, Paul brought in George, and George brought in Ringo.) After some finagling the lads get a recording date with George Martin, who also wasn’t interested in them after the audition, but was forced to record them and to release their first single with their own composition, Love Me Do as the A-side. Ringo was an upgrade in musicianship (though he so overplays in his first recording date that Martin decides to replace him with a studio musician for a follow-up date) and in personality over poor Pete Best. Martin moved on to more promising artists, ignoring, like most of EMI, the single’s release, except that Love Me Do became a hit, first because of the band’s Liverpool following but soon nation-wide, not a top ten hit but a top twenty hit — ironically it’s the version of Love Me Do that Ringo played drums on that got released. And the boys had more songs. They recorded Please Please Me for release in January 1963 and by now George Martin was as big a fan of “the boys” as Brian Epstein (and Dick James who wanted to create a publishing company just for Lennon-McCartney songs). Martin thought Please Please Me would be a number one. He wanted to record an album with the Beatles. Things look promising, but that is as far as it gets in Volume 1. John and Ringo are 22. Paul 20. George 19.
Lewisohn is a fan but an incredibly knowledgeable and well-researched one. He doesn’t shy away from the warts (John is a bit of a bully; Paul a little priggish and jealous of Stu and Brian for their closeness to John; Epstein is a very troubled gay man who took risks in pursuit of sex that left him blackmailed, beaten, and sometimes arrested; the boys are cocky and not very generous in their treatment of those who helped them). There is real tragedy. John loses a beloved uncle (his only father figure), his mother, and his best mate in less than ten years. (Lewisohn doesn’t credit rumors that either an alleged stomping by John or a definite beating by Teddy Boys contributed to Stu’s tragic death at 21.) But everyone--from young blue and white collar Liverpudlians to German gangsters and strippers and Little Richard--finds the lads charming and charismatic. They were special and Lewisohn does a remarkable and authoritative job presenting how and why they became so. A must read for popular music fans and, it goes without saying, Beatle fans.
January 28, 2016
Context is everything. By the time I was born, four years after the Beatles had split, they were already on their way to becoming a pop cultural monolith. They were an integral part of my parents’ record collection, an indelible part of the culture I was born into. Like all the children of Beatles fans I knew to love them before I even considered my taste in music; in my case I fell in love with the existential hell of loneliness at the heart of Eleanor Rigby. Yeah, I was a strange kid… When I grew up and devoured albums and music writing everything I read about them told me how remarkable they were; how remarkable Revolver, Sgt Pepper and The White Album were in pushing what you could do with music whilst remaining the biggest band in the world. We celebrated the band at their peak, but much of that output failed to make it clear how equally remarkable they were to begin with. Their early work was overshadowed by records tamed by time and imitators and by the images of screaming girls.
The first volume of Mark Lewisohn’s insanely ambitious three part biography is an instant corrective to that. Lewisohn’s approach is a panoramic one; in seeking to tell the story of how ‘four lads shook the world’ he doesn’t concentrate merely on the four individuals but also on their family histories and the city that produced them. The result is that a book of over eight hundred pages of relatively small text contains only the details of their rise; by page 840 they’ve merely released Love Me Do and recorded the Please Please Me single. Effectively the book uses their story being so well known to its advantage. We know what comes next; this is all foreplay with the second book being an extended world-conquering climax (and the last volume probably being equivalent of a postcoital ciggie).
That’s not to say that this isn’t gratifying in its own right; it might well end up the most fascinating of the first three volumes as it’s the most mythologised portion of the band’s history. Lewisohn takes a historian’s approach to the period; if it a fact can’t be corroborated it’s clearly marked. But where he scores over a straight historical recounting of events and dates is in his clear effort to bring post-war Liverpool and early 60s Hamburg to vivid life. There’s plenty of well-chosen eyewitness testimony and an eye for telling detail – sights, sounds and smells which give the memories plenty of flavour. In doing so he brings to life the Liverpool I’m familiar with, a community of a city tinged with violence and poverty. The surface may have changed but the essence of the place hasn’t. The two cities in which the bulk of the narrative take place are characters as vivid as any human; to a certain extent this is a work of psychogeography and psychotemporality as much as biography. Lewisohn takes the trouble to paint a picture of the world and times the Beatles were kicking against. It’s a refreshing approach which makes the achievement of getting to write and record Love Me Do, these days the most straightforward of pop records, a fresh triumph. The band is trapped in a cultural backwater, trying something going completely against the prevailing orthodoxy of the recording industry of the day. It means that the book chooses to pause at a moment of victory; the first mountain scaled before the nonchalant stroll to the summit of Everest to come.
But while the arc of the story is familiar Lewisohn is unsparing of the details, which aren’t always to the credit of the protagonists. What’s abundantly clear is the naked ambition from John, Paul and George; the ‘X’ factor which drives them to dodge the standard life of working drudgery and gets them past abundant hurdles. Family objections, friends, promoters, managers, band members… all are ridden over with little concern for the feelings of hurt parties. And if the flame of ambition burns low in one or more of the three central band members then it’s revitalised by others. There’s clearly an alchemy of the three personalities at the heart of the volume (Ringo doesn’t join until nearly 700 pages in) that Lewisohn allows to be explained through events rather than imposing an unsatisfactory explanation. It helps account as to why Pete Best never feels like part of the band and why Stu Sutcliffe upsets the balance of personalities. Lewisohn, by stripping the mythology away and presenting the Beatles ‘warts and all’ makes the story all the more remarkable. It’s clear that the Beatles aren’t superstars in waiting but three insanely ambitious lads with a gift for music. Brian Epstein and Ringo, when their stories intersect, fit perfectly into the narrative.
If anything, the reputation most burnished by the book is Brian Epstein. His fondness for rough trade is compassionately detailed, but his dedication to the band and ability to actually get them a hearing by the record industry shines through. The book stops at comparing him to contemporaries such as Larry Parnes and Don Arden but even now his pathological extension of a fair deal to his charges makes him stand out against standard industry conduct. Some might think of it as naivety but his determination and dedication is touching, particularly given it often seems a case of beating at brick walls with bare fists. While it’s clear chance played a large role in the rise of the Beatles (both in terms of how Liverpool bands began Hamburg residencies and internal EMI politics) Epstein’s relentless pushing of the band well beyond the point most managers would simply have given up in frustration is touching and admirable.
This then is the story of the world the Beatles changed. Of provincial poverty and violence; of the politics of the local music scene; of how the band sucked up influences like particularly voracious sponges; of how three residencies on the Reeperbahn forged them into the most experienced live band in the world; of how the Londoncentric recording industry could be persuaded to take note of a local phenomenon. It’s the Beatles on the toilet circuit, in Hamburg and the Cavern, paying their dues. The naissance of a new generation that the older ones didn’t expect and can’t quite understand. Divining the future is a hazardous business at the best of times; divining it when there’s a rogue element as powerful as the Beatles present makes it nearly impossible. Lewisohn restores that sense of their complete unexpectedness whilst making their triumph in taking advantage of their good fortune almost entirely logical. On this evidence the full biography will do for the band themselves what ‘Revolution in the Head’ did for their songs.
The first volume of Mark Lewisohn’s insanely ambitious three part biography is an instant corrective to that. Lewisohn’s approach is a panoramic one; in seeking to tell the story of how ‘four lads shook the world’ he doesn’t concentrate merely on the four individuals but also on their family histories and the city that produced them. The result is that a book of over eight hundred pages of relatively small text contains only the details of their rise; by page 840 they’ve merely released Love Me Do and recorded the Please Please Me single. Effectively the book uses their story being so well known to its advantage. We know what comes next; this is all foreplay with the second book being an extended world-conquering climax (and the last volume probably being equivalent of a postcoital ciggie).
That’s not to say that this isn’t gratifying in its own right; it might well end up the most fascinating of the first three volumes as it’s the most mythologised portion of the band’s history. Lewisohn takes a historian’s approach to the period; if it a fact can’t be corroborated it’s clearly marked. But where he scores over a straight historical recounting of events and dates is in his clear effort to bring post-war Liverpool and early 60s Hamburg to vivid life. There’s plenty of well-chosen eyewitness testimony and an eye for telling detail – sights, sounds and smells which give the memories plenty of flavour. In doing so he brings to life the Liverpool I’m familiar with, a community of a city tinged with violence and poverty. The surface may have changed but the essence of the place hasn’t. The two cities in which the bulk of the narrative take place are characters as vivid as any human; to a certain extent this is a work of psychogeography and psychotemporality as much as biography. Lewisohn takes the trouble to paint a picture of the world and times the Beatles were kicking against. It’s a refreshing approach which makes the achievement of getting to write and record Love Me Do, these days the most straightforward of pop records, a fresh triumph. The band is trapped in a cultural backwater, trying something going completely against the prevailing orthodoxy of the recording industry of the day. It means that the book chooses to pause at a moment of victory; the first mountain scaled before the nonchalant stroll to the summit of Everest to come.
But while the arc of the story is familiar Lewisohn is unsparing of the details, which aren’t always to the credit of the protagonists. What’s abundantly clear is the naked ambition from John, Paul and George; the ‘X’ factor which drives them to dodge the standard life of working drudgery and gets them past abundant hurdles. Family objections, friends, promoters, managers, band members… all are ridden over with little concern for the feelings of hurt parties. And if the flame of ambition burns low in one or more of the three central band members then it’s revitalised by others. There’s clearly an alchemy of the three personalities at the heart of the volume (Ringo doesn’t join until nearly 700 pages in) that Lewisohn allows to be explained through events rather than imposing an unsatisfactory explanation. It helps account as to why Pete Best never feels like part of the band and why Stu Sutcliffe upsets the balance of personalities. Lewisohn, by stripping the mythology away and presenting the Beatles ‘warts and all’ makes the story all the more remarkable. It’s clear that the Beatles aren’t superstars in waiting but three insanely ambitious lads with a gift for music. Brian Epstein and Ringo, when their stories intersect, fit perfectly into the narrative.
If anything, the reputation most burnished by the book is Brian Epstein. His fondness for rough trade is compassionately detailed, but his dedication to the band and ability to actually get them a hearing by the record industry shines through. The book stops at comparing him to contemporaries such as Larry Parnes and Don Arden but even now his pathological extension of a fair deal to his charges makes him stand out against standard industry conduct. Some might think of it as naivety but his determination and dedication is touching, particularly given it often seems a case of beating at brick walls with bare fists. While it’s clear chance played a large role in the rise of the Beatles (both in terms of how Liverpool bands began Hamburg residencies and internal EMI politics) Epstein’s relentless pushing of the band well beyond the point most managers would simply have given up in frustration is touching and admirable.
This then is the story of the world the Beatles changed. Of provincial poverty and violence; of the politics of the local music scene; of how the band sucked up influences like particularly voracious sponges; of how three residencies on the Reeperbahn forged them into the most experienced live band in the world; of how the Londoncentric recording industry could be persuaded to take note of a local phenomenon. It’s the Beatles on the toilet circuit, in Hamburg and the Cavern, paying their dues. The naissance of a new generation that the older ones didn’t expect and can’t quite understand. Divining the future is a hazardous business at the best of times; divining it when there’s a rogue element as powerful as the Beatles present makes it nearly impossible. Lewisohn restores that sense of their complete unexpectedness whilst making their triumph in taking advantage of their good fortune almost entirely logical. On this evidence the full biography will do for the band themselves what ‘Revolution in the Head’ did for their songs.
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