The Beatles: The Biography
by Bob Spitz
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bob SpitzNarrator: Alfred Molina
Edition: Music CD
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Published: 2005-11-01
ISBN: 0743551419
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Book Reviews of The Beatles: The Biography
Book Review: Fascinating Despite the Factual Errors
Summary: 4 Stars
Let's face it: Beatles fans know their trivia after forty-five years of discussion about a group that was one of the major catalysts for societal and cultural changes in the sixties and beyond. This book, while highly interesting and well written, just gets under the skin with so many factual errors splattered across the pages. It is amazing that the text was not vetted by whatever editors were assigned to birth this book on rock and roll legends. As another reviewer has noted, the biography appears to have been rushed to market.
All that having been said, it does offer fantastic stories about the Beatles that fall into various categories: stories we've all heard before but are here viewed from a slightly different narrative and psychological viewpoint; stories we've heard that have new information; and, thankfully, many stories that are brought to light for the first time.
More time is spent on the band's formation than it's break-up, which seems an inexcusable error since any comprehensive biography needs to cover the entire life of its subject(s). The break-up has always been a source of great discussion, with numerous accounts as to how, when, and why the band fell apart. Even THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY proved that there are different perspectives on many aspects of the group's history from the surviving members themselves. So was it Paul's overbearing nature? Yoko's constant presence?; George's feeling that he could live quite happily without the melodrama?; or was it just that it was time for four creative geniuses to go their own ways? Was it John or Paul who pulled the plug ... or pulled the plug harder? This book doesn't delve deeply enough on a crucial era in Beatles' history. Spitz seems to favor Paul's personality over Johns's, but regardless, the end of the book skimps on too many important details.
Despite its problems, this book is an important addition to the history of four very talented men who were in the right place at the right time. For a true Beatles' fan, there's no such thing as too much information about a band that still serves as inspiration for contemporary artists. It's a good book. Period.
Summary of The Beatles: The Biography
Even before the Beatles hit the big time, a myth was created. This version of the Beatles legend smoothed the rough edges and filled in the fault lines, and for more than forty years this manicured version of the Beatles story has sustained as truth -- until now.The product of almost a decade of research, hundreds of unprecedented interviews, and the discovery of scores of never-before-revealed documents, Bob Spitz's The Beatles is the biography fans have been waiting for.
Never before has a biography of musicians been so immersive and textured. We are there in the McCartney living room when Paul and John learn to write songs together; backstage the night Ringo takes over on drums; in seedy German strip clubs where George lies about his age so the band can perform; and at the Ed Sullivan Show as America discovers the joy and the madness. From Shea to San Francisco, through the London night, on to India, through marmalade skies, across the universe-all the way to a rooftop concert and one last moment of laughter and music.
It is all here, the highs and the lows, the love and the rivalry, the drugs, the tears, the thrill, the magic never again to be repeated. Bob Spitz's masterpiece is, at long last, the biography the Beatles deserve.
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