Beatles Biography by Mark Lewisohn

I'm looking forward to the pre-1963 stuff far, far, far more than anything after.

 

Pages or words? I think you mean the latter.

JcS

 

Agree on the Spitz book, once he got to when they meet Brian it was a page turner all they till the end.

 

I'm in.

 

It was John's band even AFTER Paul McCartney signed on. Who says so? Why Paul himself, in an October 1962 interview included on flexi-disc with Lewisohn's "The Beatles Live" book. Paul says, "John Lennon is the leader of the group." I'd say that's pretty definitive.

Derek

 

I've always thought this "leadership" thing as very childish. Who cares? I never.

 

Well, the Beatles cared, and questions of leadership played an important part in the personal dynamics of the group. I agree, it's childish, but, after all, they were in their teens and twenties when they were together.

 

Regarding the "dynamics of the group"..I'd like to know more about that, seriously. Since they had a smart manager and businessman, it seemed that Brian Epstein was the only and one leader of the group: 1962-1967. Eg: Why on Earth they travelled to the Phillipines in the summer of 66 (they'd already conquered the world)? If John was really this leader and "owner" of the band, he'd said no.

I guess speaking louder do not make you a leader in the practical way, in my opinion, of course. I'd rather seeing John as the founder of the group, which was bloody marvellous. His leadership was unpractical and less important. The Beatles were a powerful unit and when the glass broke up it was done.

 

While John certainly was the genesis of the group, I think the "leader" thing was something drummed up to satisfy the press who only asked the most basic questions in the early days. By 1964 I think being "group leader" was not top of mind for John Lennon.

 

All this leadership bullshaite was something that's been always brought up by the media and the average fans have eaten the baite. That's part one in the rivalry John x Paul and all that. Insignificant things.
Oh yes, and augmented and fulled by these so-called biographers, namely Chet Flippo, Philip Norman and more recently (and tragically), Peter Ames Carlin. I haven't read Souness' one as yet. I was adviced not to.

 

Good point Claudio.

 

I think if the Fabs took a vote and 3 out of four didn't want to do something, they didn't do it. Famously, only Paul wanted to continue touring after August '66. I don't doubt that the disastrous Philippines concert was part of the reasons why.

And I think one of the reasons why Epstein died a year later was his depression at realizing that the Beatles were taking more and more control of their own careers, and Epstein feared he was going to get pushed out (which the group says they would never have done).

Brian was not always a good businessman, and this point is hammered home extensively by the recent book Northern Songs: The True Story of the Beatles Song Publishing Empire. Brian's missteps were fairly awful, though most of the group members didn't realize the ramifications until a decade later.

 

My understanding is that the other three wanted to stop touring well before August 1966, but it took that long for Paul to agree that it was time to stop.

Granted, Paul seemed to favor the idea of doing some live performing later on...as he appeared to spearhead the idea of a live concert for the Get Back project.

 

Supposedly if ONE of the group didn't want to do something it didn't happen. Paul's always going on about this 'reverse democracy'

That's one of the reasons why Paul was so upset when he made it clear he didn't want to go with Allen Klein, because the other three said 'we're doing it anyway' and supposedly broke this 'golden' rule.

In reality can't imagine this rule being adhered to. ie Ringo 'vetoing' the orchestra on A Day In The Life because it wasn't 'working' for him

 

I think, if you have a right of veto you're likely to only use it when you really feel passionately that someone is making a genuinely bad decision. "Not working for you" doesn't fall into that category so you'd probably let it go. Signing a management contract, well... frankly, I'm with Paul on this. If he had reservations, the others should have either tried to persuade him to change his mind or agreed to look for someone they were all happy with.

It WAS a golden rule they broke but, more than that, simply the way you'd hope your friends would treat you regarding something so important.

 

I'm looking to buy a Beatles book that gives a broad view of their career and early days. I've looked up Shout but it seems to have quite a few bad reviews. Are there any other books you guys can recommend or is Shout as good as it gets?

 

I'd start with the Anthology book. The first volume of Mark's biography might be out by the time you finish it.

 

Shout is ok for a beginner. Anthology is excellent for 'in their own words' especailly the very early days (pre Beatles) but it's a bit of a white wash. For the dirt, I recommend 'The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away' by Allan Williams. Full of lies but entertaining (typical Allan), and both George and John liked it.
Steer clear of anything written by Geoffrey Guiliano or Peter Brown.

 

The George Martin one was a good one to read too! bit pricey though!

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm going to steer clear of the Anthology book for now as I imagine it'll be a bit of a white wash as nikh put it. I've just bought The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away, I now want a book that covers the latter years. If anyone has any suggestions I'd be grateful, otherwise I'll just pick up Shout.

 

I would disagree, I think The Love You Make is a decent biography all things considered. What do you dislike about it?

 

I'd stay away from Shout because it's super biased and I can't trust a biographer who actually claims that Paul McCartney is RIGHT handed but only plays the guitar left handed. If he hadn't said anything at all that would be one thing, but he actually went out of his way to claim that Paul was really right handed. LOL Jesus, there are only years and years of photos and films of Paul signing autographs left handed, heck in Help he even threw the softball against the wall left handed. Kind of a big deal has been made about Paul's left handedness in terms of "famous Left handers", it was how I got into the Beatles. When I was about 6 there was a Scholastic Newsletter that had a little article about famous Left handers and they used a picture of Beatle Paul holding his bass to illustrate it. Being a little left hander myself I thought that was awesome and so an obsession was born. And this was before Shout came out. LOL

 

Sorry, but Peter Brown's "The Love You Make" is one of my favorite Beatles books. And Giuliano's "Blackbird" isn't that bad.

 

I like both of those books as entertainment, but that's it. I think the Brown book also makes the crazy claim that Paul would sneak back into the studio and overdub Ringo's drumming often.
And Shout is very interesting about the early days, but it's biased against Paul.

 

An enjoyable Beatles Book is The Beatles Forever by the late Nicholas Schaffner.

The hard thing about the book, Beatles Anthology is it's nothing but quotes. Reminded me of the book The Beatles: In Their Own Words, but much larger.