The Essential Beatles Literature

[Ukiah Bass]

Friends know me as a recovering Beatlemaniac, so there are occasional requests for help in choosing particular books about the Fab Four. Here is my survey of essential Beatles literature. The mania phase focused on lives of the Beatles, but their music is the enduring legacy. Books below are mostly about how the music was created, played, recorded, engineered, and evolved as the group and its producers adapted, and even created new technologies for music. Some discussion is technical, but there are many pictures and illustrations that help tell the story for non-musicians and music enthusiasts.

The music. Enough said. However, merely listening is just the start. Check out The Beatles: Complete Scores - Every Song Written & Recorded by The Beatles, by The Beatles. That's correct: every song, down to the last lyric, last note, last drum beat is written in full standard notation. Small, standard notation. There's a lot of musical information crammed onto each page. Learn the keys and structure of each song. Put to rest your wonder of what John was really saying under heroin-induced stupor. In George Harrison's song, Something, you can learn how to play that cool bass line Paul made up to show George that even a magnificant song like Something could not escape the brilliance of Paul's musical genius. Use this book as courseware for 10,000 hours of fun as you learn to recreate the music of the masters. http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Comple...0813511&sr=1-1

The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz. The best one-volume history of the Beatles. This book gives its money’s worth. Eight years of research and writing. Originally, 2,700 pages but edited to this final folio of 984 pages. A very good read for adults. Some information may be inappropriate for minors, but they’ll find out anyway. As they have with Tiger Woods. http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Biogra...0&sr=8-1-fkmr1

The Beatles: The True Beginnings by Roag Best with Pete and Rory Best. The Beatles first break was getting experience as performers. The venue was a music club for teens in the basement of their drummer’s house. That would be Pete Best, and the club was orchestrated by his mom, Mona. The Beatles became the house band of the Casbah Coffee Club in Liverpool. The hot place to be seen and heard. Fantastic photographs. Also provides essential information on why Pete Best was so pissed off when the Beatles fired him and adopted Ringo. http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-True-B...0805420&sr=1-1

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles by Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey. Everyone talks about George Martin but he was not the guy who actually did the work of recording, mixing, and mastering. He was the producer. The key Abbey Road engineer who made the recordings work was Geoff Emerick. He was the technical genius behind their innovations in recording and has the inside story on how it happened. http://www.amazon.com/Here-There-Eve...0808180&sr=1-1

The Complete Beatles Chronicle: The only definitive guide to the Beatles entire career on stage, in the studio, on radio, TV, film and video by Mark Lewisohn. This one is to slap on a table as evidence that you are in command of important minutia. Want to know where the Beatles played on 4 Sept 1963 and how much they earned? (Glaumont Cinema, Worchester; 250 pounds.) Or on 5 Dec. 1965, they played at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool. There were 40,000 ticket applications for a venue accommodating 2,550. See what I mean? You could invent a board game with information in this book. http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Beatl...7&sr=1-1-fkmr0

Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four’s Instruments, from Stage to Studio by Andy Babiuk. Musicians love this book. Color photos of every instrument owned and played by The Beatles. Close-ups of instrument control knobs and detailed discussion of how each instrument was used. Photos of sales receipts documenting the purchase of particular instruments. Photos of the artists using particular instruments being described in the text. Some musicians who play Beatles music use this book as a Bible for specifying their instruments, amplifiers, and speaker cabinets. For some reason or another, they think playing the same old-fashioned, nostalgic (and expensive) gear will make them sound like The Beatles. Such heresy. http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Gear-F...0808244&sr=1-1

Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums by Kevin Ryan & Brian Kehew. I save the best for last. The most amazing book ever written about The Beatles. How they were recorded, album-by-album, song-by-song. What the studio looked like. Where instruments were placed. What microphones were used. What effects were applied during recording and in post production. It describes how new technologies were created by Abbey Road to achieve the sound specified by The Beatles, and particularly by Paul McCartney. Also provides a detailed primer on each technology, such as how the Neumann U67 microphone came to be an integral part of the Beatles recording setup after late 1966. Or how a recording console works, and how the engineer uses it to sculpt sound – and why the REDD.37 “stereosconic” four-track mixer desk came to be known as “The Beatles Console.” You cannot leave this earth having missed a magnificent book like this one. Strictly for gearheads. http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Beat...0808748&sr=1-2

The Beatles Anthology by The Beatles. Oops, forgot about this one. Paul and Yoko would appreciate it if you’d buy at least one more thing in their portfolio. It’s all for a good cause! http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Anthol...0808884&sr=1-1

[JimK]

Originally Posted by Ukiah Bass

Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums by Kevin Ryan & Brian Kehew. I save the best for last. The most amazing book ever written about The Beatles. How they were recorded, album-by-album, song-by-song. What the studio looked like. Where instruments were placed. What microphones were used. What effects were applied during recording and in post production. It describes how new technologies were created by Abbey Road to achieve the sound specified by The Beatles, and particularly by Paul McCartney. Also provides a detailed primer on each technology, such as how the Neumann U67 microphone came to be an integral part of the Beatles recording setup after late 1966. Or how a recording console works, and how the engineer uses it to sculpt sound – and why the REDD.37 “stereosconic” four-track mixer desk came to be known as “The Beatles Console.” You cannot leave this earth having missed a magnificent book like this one. Strictly for gearheads.

Thanks
I have most of what you listed...except this one which sounds great...and it is "Currently Unavailable"!

I also like Barry Miles' McCartney bio &, IIRC, George Martin's All You Need Is Ears.

BTW, there are some very cool books available at Amazon's UK site.

[koobie]

Thanks for the informative post, Ukiah. Crazy how interesting Beatles-related info still is to me, after so many years.

Related to the Beatles, we just got a copy of 'Wingspan' so I got to hear some Macca tunes I had overlooked. Crazy how many catchy tunes Paul has written.

Others may want to know that 'Recording the Beatles' is and has been back-ordered since at least September. I paid in full in September ($110) when the site was showing October delivery. No response to my email requesting an updated delivery date. Site now shows delivery of January, 2010. If they don't deliver by then, I'll get my money back, not a good way to treat customers.

[budman]

I read "The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles ad " by Peter Brown (The Ballad of John & Yoko) many years ago and thought it was pretty good.

[JimK]

Originally Posted by koobie

Others may want to know that 'Recording the Beatles' is and has been back-ordered since at least September. I paid in full in September ($110) when the site was showing October delivery. No response to my email requesting an updated delivery date. Site now shows delivery of January, 2010. If they don't deliver by then, I'll get my money back, not a good way to treat customers.

Where?
...& $110?

[electracoyote]

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles by Geoff Emerick

I loved this book, an extremely interesting tale of a guy in the right place at the right time becoming an intregal part of music history. A lot of people poo-poo'd this book because Emerick seems to have a favorite Beatle, like the rest of us (his is Paul, the only one who was civil to him). Oh well, he's human, but that really doesn't unbalance the book or its intent, which is to shed light on the knob twiddlers and how the demands of the Fab Four turned engineers at Abbey Road Studios into innovators in recording techniques and sound reinforcement, blazing trails still in common use today.

Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four’s Instruments, from Stage to Studio by Andy Babiuk.

Astounding really in its research and scope. How the author came up with some of this information, pictures, and documentation is nothing short of miraculous. To call it engrossing would be an understatement.

Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums by Kevin Ryan & Brian Kehew.

I gotta get my hands on a copy of this one. Checking all libraries within a 75 mile radius.

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by budman

I read "The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles ad " by Peter Brown (The Ballad of John & Yoko) many years ago and thought it was pretty good.

I also liked this one, probably the best of the "tell-all" biographical offerings written by past insiders. Unfortunately, Brown was dismissed from the organization, and that could cause a skewed perspective of a disgruntled ex-employee, but I think he was very even-handed, and the detail was fascinating.

[Thornton Davis]

I've got dozens of books on the Beatles that i've bought over the past 40 yrs. Two of my favourites are;

Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions ISBN # 0-385-25196-3. This is a day by day account of their sessions from June 1962 through to May 1970. Lots of photos and 204 pages.

Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head. ISBN # 0-7126-6697-4. This is a detailed description of every song recorded, who played what and what were the influences behind each song.
I've found a couple of player listed errors in this book so it's not 100% accurate, but all in all it's a pretty good reference book. No photos, 473 pages.

TD

[SelenaBassGirl]

I am a HUGE Beatle fan too. I am kicking myself in the rear for not packing in my hope chest my two '70s books I had on them. they were my step father's, in which I "borrowed" them, and they were part one and part two books with the lyrics and pics in them. Hard cover with dust jackets. I need to find out the name of them books so they can be replaced. They got left at my ex husband's and his mother ended up with most of my belongings when I moved and sold a lot of my things in her shop she had. The meanness of her!!!

[Thornton Davis]

I took a look through some of my Beatle books earlier and found a mint copy of Paul McCartney's 1989 Flowers In The Dirt concert show handout. I had also saved the ticket stub from that concert inside it dated Dec 7, 1989. The price of the ticket $37.50 Cdn. I had forgotten that I had save it. That was 20 years ago just past.

This was the first concert tour that McCartney had under taken in 13 years after the madness of the 70's Wings tours.

TD

[emor]

I haven't read it in years, but I remember enjoying A Day In The Life, by Mark Hertsgaard.

[Ukiah Bass]

At a cerrtain point, one can OD on Beatles information. I've sworn off buying new books about Beatles. And I don't read TB 'for sale' posts either.

[crispygoat]

although it may not be a Beatles book, How I Met the Walrus was great.