Beatles Biography by Mark Lewisohn (fourth edition)

It's bigger

 

Got my email from Amazon.co.uk that my copy has shipped - normally only a few days for shipments to arrive in NY: will be curious to see how long it takes for this big boy to get here.

Just curious, BB, how much did/does that box weigh? And any immediate visceral responses to the books (i.e., paper stock/finish, binding, the ribbon bookmarks, etc)?

Basically, is it as gorgeous as it looks/sounds? (Or not so much?)

 

Well I hope that means there is more in the extended text about Paul and George. My one main criticism of the "short" version is there is endless detail about John and Ringo's early years and only cursory information about Paul and George. Lewisohn goes on and on about Julia's death, but Mary McCartney's death gets a page and a half. People who grieve privately are just as affected by a mother's death as people who are more demonstrative and grieve publicly. The short version of the book details the John-Cynthia relationship at length, but Paul and Dot get a paragraph here and there and we learn next to nothing about George's early relationships (and, if he didn't have any girlfriends, why). In short, there's way too much information about John (including a lot we already knew) and a lot of great info about Ringo (including much that we never knew) but not nearly enough about Paul and George. It's made the early years Lewisohn describes seem lopsided to me.

 

It's far, far more beautiful than you could possibly have anticipated. Everything about it is sumptuous and perfect. (The book, not the carpet. Though that carpet is really lovely)

 

I thought I might get these sorts of comments! I haven't got my standard edition to hand (I'm at work, hence the dodgy blue carpet), so can't compare the two right now. I'm going to take my time reading the deluxe edition anyway, so I'm not about to do a load of A/B comparisons. I've had a quick look at the photos and there don't seem to be loads more, just a handful of extra ones.

There are three photo sections in book one, and two in book two. The first section in vol1 contains all the childhood pics. Then there's a gap of about 400 pages until the next photo section (Quarrymen, Casbah, Hurricanes, July-December 1960 in the text), and the third (Hamburg pics) follows about 150 pages later (August 1960). I'm saying this because, unlike in the standard edition, the sections aren't evenly spread throughout the book - they tie in more closely with the text.

In book two, section one (which appears in April 62) contains more live Cavern/Hamburg/Liverpool pics, plus some of Ringo, Klaus, Astrid and Jurgen. Section two (which is at the October 62 section in the text) mops up a lot of the remainders, and covers various stages (eg Astrid's pics of John and George in Stuart's attic, the shot of the Beatles about to fly to EMI for the first time, the Preludin pic).

The box is smaller than I'd expected. I thought it'd be something grander, a bit like Recording The Beatles (though a different shape), but it's actually quite compact. Each book is probably the same size as one of the standard editions, though maybe a bit thinner, and there's no extra space in the box.

Book one: pages 1-825, text ends p747, notes till end.
Book two: 829-1698, text ends at 1530, notes 1533-1616, then an index for both volumes.

No idea on weight. I presume that's in the product listing on Amazon. The book covers are matt and textured. The ribbon bookmarks are as you'd expect (unless you have *really* high hopes). Paper quality is good, but it's not like you'd leaf through it and be astounded. They're just books. The outer box lifts off the base unit, rather than pulling the contents out horizontally.

Final thought (as I'm supposed to be working, and actually have quite a busy day!), the bottom of the box contains credits for design/art direction, type design, and then "Hand drawn type: Mark Lewisohn". I don't think that means we can blame him for the awful lettering on the cover, but I'm not yet sure what it refers to. The standard version might have said the same.

 

I believe that refers to the All These Years writing...I noticed in the earlier thread someone had a pic of their book they just had signed by ML, and he wrote something like "all the best" and his "all" was exactly like the "all" on the box and spine of the UK book.

Edited to add pic...from Mazzy, http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...ohn-third-edition.330093/page-31#post-9591661

 

I got the "shipped" email today also, but they are predicting a 2 December arrival date...nearly two weeks later than the BBC LPs which shipped from the UK on Monday from Amazon. Must be the weight?

 

Well I guess ML needen't have written the Pete Best sections for you then! (You're preaching to the choir here )

No matter what people thought it is still good to have all these accounts and build up of incidents neatly catalogued and laid out once and for all though. As there has always been some question marks with the Pete Best story (as indicated by that 100 something page thread here a while ago). This book delivers exactly what it promised, facts, all referenced, nothing hodge podged and more then a few myths busted on the way.

 

Good spot. I think you're right.

 

FWIW, I thought the standard edition spent a bit too long explaining why Pete Best were sacked. Having mentioned various times before the EMI sessions that PB was a sub-standard drummer, ML could have wrapped up the sacking fairly swiftly and concisely. But no, we got pages of eyewitness accounts to back up his assertions, in a way he didn't do for any other event. And they all said essentially the same thing. That's one of the rare instances where he needed a good editor to step in.

 

I find it interesting that George was the most keen of the Fabs on attending as many rock shows in Liverpool as possible: He saw Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, The Everlys, Bill Haley, Frankie Lyman, and Duane Eddy, among others, during their tours in the late 1950s/1960. Paul saw only a handful, while John only went to Gene Vincent. Mark describes John as a "record man". (And they all missed Buddy Holly, but no one can remember why). Arnie

 

This was discussed a million posts ago. The ALL is on the spine of Vol. One, THESE will be on Vol Two, and YEARS, on V. Three. On the USA version, the "ALL" is done with with a lovely spot varnish on the spine. Very classy.

 

I'm coming towards the end of the book, but I've actually found there to be some quite enlightening parts about Paul that certainly I haven't read before in numerous other McCartney bios (and I've read quite a few). Both good and bad. It does make me wonder if he had read an advanced copy which may have prompted the last verse of 'Eary Days' from his new album. Paul was out in the cold for a while during their first trip to Hamburg. Disliked by Astrid, Klaus and Jurgen and was left by John and George with Pete Best in the room share. His seething jealousy that Stu got the attention of the cool artists, Georges letter at the time "we thought it was Stu, but it looks like Paul is now the black sheep of the family". How mad he got when John and George had those very cool photos taken by Astrid after Stu's passing (he couldn't go as he had bullied Stu so bad). His unprofesionalism with Brian at the start etc. I found these tougher times for Paul fascinating, and is certainly a world away from the image many have of him as happy go lucky, cheeky chappy, ultra-popular, cool kid. I like things like this, it gives a more rounded human account of Paul. He certainly turned it around in the end which says a lot. ML also makes clear that Paul was FAR outweighing John in terms of earlier songwriting, and mentioned a couple of song titles I haven't heard of before.

I do agree with you about Ringo though. My one criticism of the book, although slight, is that there's an awful lot of back story with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. I guess it had to be done as that WAS Ringos development - I get it, but I have to admit reading about numerous accounts of their gigs and what records their rhythm section were listening to at the time did have me switching off in parts.

 

I have found amazon.uk's shipping arrival estimates to be very conservative- I am always pleasantly surprised to get the package earlier than expected.
Of course, we're approaching the gala holiday season, so....

 

I didn't mind any of that tbh, though I can see what you mean with regards to a casual reader. I think of it as ML making a case and backing it up with all the evidence he had. Just as he had with the Decca/EMI situation and his laying out of the faxes sent back and forth and the various meeting dates.

I have to say I feel extremely satisfied about the Standard version. I've found the whole narrative rich and compelling and it doesn't feel like anything major is missing... so it'll be interesting to see what exactly the extra parts of the Deluxe add.

 

I welcome the detail. I always thought it was from Mona Best's second-guessing Brian's management decisions.
Looks like I'm about to be proven wrong.

 

What do you mean by "He certainly turned it around in the end which says a lot." I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Also, that letter you quote. That wasn't a letter from George, was it? I thought that was a letter from Stuart calling Paul the "black sheep," which shows you that Stuart was putting himself in the best light.

And I know what you mean by Lewisohn revealing Paul's more difficult character traits. The problem I'm having with the book is that Lewisohn doesn't really convey Paul's positive traits very well. If Paul was so difficult, why did John hang around him so much? How did he and John get so close (as Lewisohn describes, especially after Stuart is out of the picture). I feel like Lewisohn doesn't do a very good job of painting a full portrait of Paul. We read about all of John's bad, boorish, awful behaviour but Lewisohn does a good job of helping us understand why his friends still loved John despite all that. But the book doesn't do the same balanced portrait of Paul. It's either very superficial information about Paul, very limited, or it's negative about what a contrarian he could be. That was a surprise to me: His life-long resistance to being told what to do. In the "short" version of the book, Lewisohn doesn't do a good job at all of helping me understand where that contrarian trait came from in Paul or why John and George still liked Paul despite that trait. Paul's charm is missing at times from Lewisohn's depiction of him.

 

I think it was necessary for Lewisohn to go on at length about Pete's firing -- precisely because there has been SO much misinformation about it. I think it was great that Lewisohn established, once and for all, that Pete was sacked because of his own "crap drumming" as Tony Sheridan so bluntly put it. It's now inarguable and puts a lot of silly theories to rest. Case closed.

 

Been enjoying this on the Kindle. I never knew how great it would be to read on that kind of devise - I can read for hours without fatigue!

The book is amazing. I'm having trouble putting it down.

 

"By turning it around in the end" I mean lesser characters might have flaked, or Paul could easily have become Pete Best like and sulked around on his own as he wasn't liked by everyone. But he stuck out that difficult time and still played a critical part in their success of that period. My impression from reading that was he had huge character. This difficult period of Paul in the early Beatles is something I've never heard about before and I found the whole Hamburg narrative very illuminating.

What ML does lavish huge praise on with regards to Paul is his musical talent. I liked his observations on 'My Bonnie', as for some reason I'd never fully appreciated that was one of Pauls first proper performances on bass, I re-listened and agree with everything he said. His playing is pretty damn brilliant for a newcomer to bass, and you can indeed hear the genesis of his fast melodic runs that would later become his trademark.

The spotlight on Volume 1 may veer towards John slightly, at the expense of both Paul and George, but not by much. But then I do think in the early story John IS the initial driving force, he started the band, he was the 'leader' on paper (in the 'bios' they wrote in Hamburg) and most definitly in the other Beatles eyes "where we going Johnny". I suspect this focus will change in Volume 2 as that is when the magic really starts to happen with the Lennon-McCartney partnership, and I think from this point there is no argument that Paul is Johns equal hereonin.

 

Yes, I think that's fairly well known, but my post was referring to it being Mark Lewisohn's own handwriting. If that was previously discussed "a million posts ago" then I didn't see it. Although given the number of people on these threads asking whether the audio book is the extended edition, and when the various editions are to be published, it seems that details get buried easily.

I don't have a problem with ML proving something to be true, but a page of Cavernite voxpops where they repeat a lot of rumours ("He didn't get on with Paul"; "He was too good looking" etc) is irrelevant. He could have summarised all that far more succinctly. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, I just thought it was overkill. It's not like the fans' thoughts had any bearing on Pete's future in the band. There were only a handful of people whose opinions really counted at that time - those in the group, their manager, and the record label staff.

 

I see what you're saying. But I think Lewisohn had to repeat those rumors in order to debunk them. These false stories have taken on a life of their own (especially in Liverpool, I would imagine) and a writer has to set them out plainly in order to knock them down.

 

Good points. You can look at Paul's predicament with both criticism and sympathy. It's hard to be the odd man out and he certainly let them all know he was pissed off. On the other hand, he was a complete pro in focusing on the music and contributing to their success. He didn't stop caring about the band or quit. He was away from home for the first time, and feeling isolated even from his friends. Not a good place to be for an 18-year-old boy.

One other criticism I have of Lewisohn's book, though is that he's a bit too fanboy-ish about Stuart and Lewisohn lets Astrid and the other Exis off the hook too easily for their judgments about the Beatles that were, in fact, very superficial. Their opinions of the Beatles were all very much based on image/looks -- Stuart and his James Dean posing, John and his tough-guy attitude, George and his skinny, silent boy. And Paul, they decided, looked too soft. They barely knew the Beatles as people and didn't speak English well.

 

I have to take issue with this. If you read the first hand accounts of the Liverpool friends and girlfriends, it's clear that Paul's influence was all that kept John at all engaged musically after he went off the rails when Julia died.

I think Paul was always at least as ambitious as John and sometimes more so. That may be why he wasn't initially popular with their new Hamburg friends. From everything I've read, he was a real 'pusher' from the start. Had his 'eyes on the prize' and if socializing interfered in any way, it was the 'prize' that would win out. People around in those days talked about often coming upon Paul rehearsing or writing by himself at the piano, working when the others were goofing off. Think of the story above about Paul yelling at Pete. We know he gave Stu a hard time. We know he later rode George and Ringo hard in the studio. George Martin commented a few years later that John would be content to play his new songs for Cynthia while Paul always wanted an audience.

I have no doubt that Paul and George acquiesced to John in some ways in the early years, but I think that's because he was a significantly older guy that they both looked up to, and, according to many accounts, that was really the only way to get along with John's prickly personality. But there are also the stories (mainly from Peter Brown?) about how Paul 'played' John, found some way to get around or even use John's prickly personality. For example, when they wanted something Brian wouldn't agree to, Paul had a habit of getting John all worked up and sending him in to rant to Brian. When Brian still wouldn't relent, Paul would go in, turn on the charm offensive, and bring Brian around. Apparently it was Paul that Brian feared, not John, and it was Paul's phone calls that he dreaded.

But it's interesting. Maybe this period of Paul feeling somewhat on the outs is behind the line in Early Days - "so many times I had to turn the pain to laughter just to keep from getting crazed."

 

the Kindle is great, I hope to never have to deal with an actual book again...an object I have always been addicted too. The thought of moving these 1000's of books already in my possession, oye...in my 6 ounce Kindle, hundreds of books...

do you have the Paperwhite version? that's the best device so far IMO...for e-readers