Long Lennon Interviews (Double Book Review)

Time to take a look at two book length interviews with John Lennon: 1970's Lennon Remembers (Jan Wenner) and 1980's All We Are Saying (David Sheff).

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Book Review - John Lennon: The Definitive Biography

One of the most highly regarded biographies of John Lennon. Does it deserve it's reputation?

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Book Review: Beatles Gear - Andy Babuik

A short video review of Beatles Gear by Andy Babuik. There's more on the fabs equipment in Blessed Are The Mundane

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Book Review: Revolver. How The Beatles Reimagined Rock 'N' Roll

Here's my first video book review of 2015. More to come!

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Guest Mini Book Review: While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Here's a guest review by BSA forum member Andy Getch. Enjoy.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Music of George Harrison by Simon Leng (first published in the UK in 2003), review based on the Hal Leonard U.S. edition 2006.

Written after George's passing, this book chronologically follows George's musical story, but this is NOT a biography. I recommend it for a musician/fan of George Harrison, interested in his role in The Beatles and the evolution of his solo career.

The Good

There is something here about nearly (do I dare say every?) recorded published track here, even obscure B-sides and side projects. Musicians and instruments are listed for each song and summarized with a fair bit of information, with comments on the story, arrangements, etc. typically included. This is a musician's book about a musician. It generally keeps that focus, providing quotes from other musicians and detail in musical terms.

The Not So Good

The "unappreciated Beatle" refrain gets old after awhile. Only the first 40 or so pages of the 330 pages in the book are devoted specifically to George in the Beatles years. The same amount of ink is devoted to the late 60's solo project Wonderwall Music and All Things Must Pass. References and comparisons to Beatle days are sprinkled through the rest of the book. There is a fair bit of ink devoted to George's spiritual journey and how it influenced his music. That may put some people off.

Andy Getch is 6th year hobbyist guitarist songwriter and lifelong Beatles fan.

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Triple Book Review: The Beatles In The Studio

Buy The Books 

All You Need Is Ears   Amazon UK     Amazon US
Summer Of Love   Amazon UK     Amazon US
Here, There And Everywhere Amazon UK     Amazon US

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Paul McCartney Biography Roundup

Hi folks – finally got around to posting this video review of three Paul McCartney biographies.

Join me for a authorial grudge match as McCartney (Christopher Sandford), Fab: An Intimate Life Of Paul McCartney (Howard Sounes) and Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (Barry Miles) duke it out for supremacy.

Who has the most inside info on Paul's love life?
Who crunches the numbers in Paul's bank balance?
And do any of them have anything useful to say about SONGWRITING?!

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Book Review: Love Me Do (Braun) and The Beatles (Davies)

Here's my review of two very important early Beatles biographies, both with unique insights into Lennon and McCartney's songwriting process.

UPDATE - Rob Stevens (From Amersfoort) has left a comment below describing the 'missing pictures' from Love Me Do)

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Love Me Do: The Beatles' Progress
The Beatles: The Authorised Biography

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Love Me Do: The Beatles' Progress
The Beatles: The Authorised Biography

Book Review: Wonderful Today - Pattie Boyd

Hope you all enjoy my latest video review. There'll be more about Something on Thurs (hopefully).

Check out the Beatles Complete Chord Songbook video review

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Beatles Complete Chord Songbook Review

Here's my review of one of the key resources I'm using to work through the Beatles songs here at BSA.

One thing I didn't mention is the order of the songs can be a little frustrating as it's 'nearly' alphabetical. A lot of songbooks suffer from this. It's a page saving device - whenever a three page song appears they slot it in next to a one page song to save on paper. I'm not sure how much bigger it would make the book if they just put a blank page in, but at least now you know why!

Oh and if you're planning to get it (or anything else) from Amazon you could really help me out by clicking on the link below - it means Amazon will pay me a minuscule fraction of whatever you spend there - which means more Beatles books for me and more reviews for you.

Win/win people - that's how I roll!

Buy The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook from Amazon UK
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Book Review: John by Cynthia Lennon

There are few 20th artists that have been the subject of such concerted revisionism as John Lennon in the 30 years since his death. Both his character and the quality of his post-Beatles work have been so airbrushed that if there was such a thing as secular sainthood Lennon would certainly have been canonised by now.

Which makes this book both disturbing and refreshing. I am tempted to say that if you revere Lennon's memory don't read this book. But then if you do buy into the Gospel of St John then you probably need to read this more than anyone.

There is a sub genre of character assassination biography out there which is unedifying and despicable, but Cynthia Lennon's book does not fall into that category. It is written by someone who loved Lennon and continued to love him but isn't afraid to show us the warts.Any there are lots of warts.

A blogger recently suggested commemorating Lennon's death by doing "something that he might’ve done, if he were still here with us like...spending some extra time with a kid." Sadly this is something Lennon didn't do.  

"After the age of five...I saw him only a handful of times" say Julian Lennon in the foreword. He goes on "Dad was a great talent, a remarkable man who stood for peace and love in the world. But at the same time he found it very hard to show any peace and love to his first family...my mother and me".

The book chronicles the early years when Cynthia was the 'secret wife' hidden from the fans, alone in a £5 a week bedsit, to her post-divorce life as a single mother working hard to support the son of one of the richest musicians in the world.

The apple doen't fall far...

The book gives heartbreaking insight into why John was so messed up, both parents seeming highly dysfunctional in totally different ways (to say nothing of the domineering Aunt Mimi & the early deaths of his mother and his beloved Uncle George). It was sad too to see the transformation from fearlessly humorous iconoclastic mickey-taker to the po-faced moralist who took himself way too seriously. Arguably the more seriously he took himself and his art, the worse his art became.

You won't learn anything new about his songwriting but you will be reminded that great art is made by ordinary people with feet of clay, and that children as well as songs often outlast the people who gave them birth.

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Book Review: Revolution In The Head

I can’t recommend Revolution In The Head highly enough. For quite a while I was put off by the subtitle. ‘The Beatles Records and the Sixties’ sounds like a ponderous sociological essay on the culture the music was created in.

But the book is actually a brilliant song by song analysis of the music. Every track is presented chronologically looking at when, where and by whom, it was created followed by a page or more of insightful and benignly opinionated analysis.

The third, and final, edition* (Macdonald died in 2003) covers not only the original EMI releases but the ‘Threetles’ songs and a number of tracks from Anthology and Live at the BBC as well.

This is an outstanding book. That Macdonald manages to seamlessly weave in the story of the Beatles as he goes along is a testament to his skill as a writer. The revealing information he gathers is a witness to his diligence as a researcher. And the fact that he has such real insight into the music itself is a mark of his erudition as a music critic who has really, really listened to the music he’s writing about.

It would be a shame for all this skill to be misused in the cause of academic butt-kissery, but happily this is not the case. MacDonald is refreshingly, sometimes hilariously, his own man, cheerfully slaying a few sacred cows in the Beatles oeuvre while at other times lavishing the highest praise on a relatively overlooked early album track. But it’s a mark of his deep knowledge of the music that no matter how many times you may disagree with his conclusions, you never lose respect for them, or him.

As well as 338 pages on the music, there is a 42 page introduction putting the music into the cultural context. Macdonald again proves his worth by making such a potentially dull subject absolutely fascinating. (That said, if you’re a songwriter like me you’ll want to get straight into the songs and leave the intro for desert).

What else?

• A 78 page chronological time line - setting the Beatles music alongside, other music, films, political events etc. (annoyingly laid out sideways in the paperback edition).
• Glossary of musical terms
• Compact Discography
• Index of Songs and Keys (very helpful)
• General index, further reading and a bibliography.

If I had to pick one book as required reading at Beatles Songwriting Academy it would be this one (assuming of course you can already play the songs!)

Author and music buff Nick Hornby is quoted as saying

“After finishing it, I went out and bought a pile of Beatles CDs and listened to them properly for the first time in my life” 

This book may have the same effect on you.

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*The same edition is confusingly labelled as the Third revised edition & the Second revised edition. Get the one published in 2005 (or later).


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Book Review: Summer of Love: The Making of Sgt. Pepper – George Martin

It’s tempting to think that the best accounts of the Beatles career are always going to be by those who were actually there. George Martin potentially stands out above all others because he was as close as it was possible to be, without being a Beatles, he WASN’T on drugs during the crucial period, he was and remains a fan and writes as a musician. But though this book is an enjoyable amble through 1967 it yields no great insight or revelation. Perhaps it’s the plethora of interviews Martin’s already given, perhaps because much of what he witnessed still exists on the Abbey Rd masters.

E.M.I. = English Misers Inc.

If you can filter out Martin’s purple prose the best parts are the pictures he paints of everyday life at Abbey Road where “legendary meanness was company policy” from the eternally padlocked fridge to the hard shiny toilet paper that was more suitable for making kazoos than wiping your bottom on. His descriptions of wrestling with archaic gear like the Mellotron (“a horizontal wardrobe”) and the home made frequency changer (“a Diplodocus-sized washing machine lookalike”) make you all the more appreciative of what he had to go through.

Life with Lennon

Speaking of trials, the book is revealing about his working relationship with John Lennon. Bringing Strawberry Fields et al to life were some of Martin’s greatest achievements but it was a thankless task. Lennon vision was massive but he had neither the skill, nor ultimately the discipline to bring any of them about. “I want to smell the sawdust”, “I want to sound like a Buddhist monk singing from the top of a mountain” and when presented with the technical impossibility of his demands, “Well George, I’m sure you can fix it”. How soul destroying then to be told by Lennon years later that “most of what the Beatles did was rubbish” and he wanted to rerecord it all. Though Martin is unfailingly gracious and forgiving that seems to speak volumes about Lennon’s high appraisal of his own gift and his lack of appreciation of Martin’s.

Nicely illustrated with some decent photos, this is a good book. Not worth going out of your way to hunt down, but pick up Summer of Love: The Making of Sgt. Pepper if you see it going cheap.

Book Review: Shout! The True Story of The Beatles – Phillip Norman

This is a fairly interesting and comprehensive book on the Beatles. Other than a single chapter on childhood and a chapter on each ‘ex-Beatles’ the focus is firmly on the rise and fall of the fab four. It’s a passable overview for the general fan, but if you’re looking for insight into the music you need to look elsewhere.

Norman rarely touches on the music, and when he does he often gets it wrong. In fact he not only reveals little insight into the Beatles songs, but little grasp of music generally.

So we have Stu Sutcliffe struggling to play chords shapes on his bass (57) and a Les Paul guitar is apparently a “state of the art” guitar (458).

Mistakes about the Beatles songs are even worse, leaving you wondering how closely he’s listened to the songs. The 8 second guitar coda on A Hard Day’s Night is described as being “gloriously long and irrelevant” (239) (it was added to underscore the fade into the opening scene). The lyrics to Polythene Pam are wrong (397). And this is in a ‘Completely revised and updated edition’.

Musical history doesn’t fare much better. Norman claims Only a Northern Song was written for Yellow Submarine (334) – it was a Sgt Pepper outtake, and that the Ballad of John & Yoko was recorded single-handedly by John with later drum overdubs by Paul (389) – they recorded it together, famously calling each other ‘Ringo and George’ on the master tape.

Paul comes in for a good kicking whenever the chance arises for secretly coveting the position of bass player in Hamburg days! for having a ghosted autobiography (even though this ‘autobiography’ was written solely by Barry Miles) or merely for being ‘desperately anxious to be liked”.

The book has some good insights into how the publishing deals were struck and how the Beatles finally broke though in the states. But in a world swamped with books on the Beatles I can’t help feeling that there are better ones out there.

I’d suggest the Rough Guide to the Beatles as one possible (and more accurate) alternative.

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Book Review: All Together Now – The Beatles Complete (For All Musicians)

ON the surface this looks like a fantastic book and a long overdue replacement for Ray Connelly's execrable “THE BEATLES COMPLETE.” However digging a little deeper you find a number of bizarre failings.

On the plus side 

The layout is a very clear, well laid out single melody lead sheet (plus chord boxes). The transcription is obviously the work of someone who actually plays guitar, which is a pleasant contrast with some Beatles books. The large plastic spiral binding means it’s easy to lay the book out flat (though I have my doubts about how hard wearing the binding will be). A fantastic instructional DVD by David Harrison with Justin Morris & David Weston covers two songs (Here There & Everywhere & I Saw Her Standing There) beautifully though it seems to be there just to advertise “The Beatles Play-Along Chords Songbook.”

The book includes many hard to find Lennon & McCartney compositions, which is nice.

On the other hand...

It’s not complete. ‘Complete’ can mean many different things when it comes to the Beatles catalogue. It could mean every song released by the Beatles during their career. It can also mean every song written by the fab four during life of the band. This is neither, and there is no rhyme or reason to the songs selected.

First there are no covers (except Maggie Mae). You get Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance & Power To The People but not Instant Karma & Cold Turkey. You get McCartney’s Oo You but not Teddy Boy, Every Night, Junk, or Love in the Open Air. The tracks recorded by Peter & Gordon tracks don’t include Woman. Cilla, Billy J Kramer and all the other Epstein stable hits are here minus One and One is Two by The Strangers. The most glaring omission is the track that’s considered by many to be the best Beatles song they never recorded - Come and Get It by Badfinger.

It’s also NOT ‘For All Musicians’. If you’re expecting Bb parts, bass lines & drum part you’ll be disappointed. For that you’ll need The Complete Scores (and a magnifying glass).

The ordering of the songs is bizarre. I can only describe it as chronological as far as albums go with each album’s song being arranged in alphabetical order. With a few exceptions. Confused? You will be. I guarantee it.

The single line melody format works well but on some songs it’s notoriously difficult to decide which is the melody and which the harmony. Nevertheless I’m sure on some songs they’ve transcribed the wrong line.

Last, and most unforgivably, a lot of songs are in the wrong key. Help, Nowhere Man, You’re Going to Lose That Girl, Norwegian Wood, the list goes on and on. Day Tripper is in Eb for goodness sake! The keys seem to be chosen at random rather than for any reasons of playability or vocal range. Shoddy.

Buy this book if...

you’re desperate for the songs that the Beatles DIDN’T record.

Otherwise get The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook, if you want to strum and sing (it’s chords and lyrics only, no melody notation) or The Beatles Complete Scores if you want a more complete and accurate book. Though neither book is perfect they are streets ahead of this one.

In Conclusion

– another in a long line of bungled efforts at presenting the Beatles back catalogue.