The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

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zaval80
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

Post by zaval80 »

Lord Reith wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 10:12 pm It's funny but recently I've been revisiting Hunter Davies book. Although he records The Beatles own disatisfaction with never being asked any questions about their music during Beatlemania, he then proceeds to document their career as a series of public events concentrating entirely on their fame, without a single mention of their musical development along the way. He also has an extraordinary attitude twoards facts, saying at one point that all the details of their tours are still in the newspaper archives "if anyone is mad enough to want to read it". It really is an incredibly shoddy and insubstantial book. The only redeeming thing about it is the interviews with the Beatles and the eyewitness accounts of their recording sessions, but in those instances all he had to do was transcribe what they were saying. As an actual biography, it is only slightly more detailed than something you'd expect to read in Beatles Monthly.
Most of the earliest books about rock bands are of the "rock-n-roll for dummies" or maybe "how a rock band works" kind, as if the authors earnestly tried to describe the phenomenon to somebody who never witnessed such an act, live or on TV. So I think anything like a detailed biography just wasn't in the plans of authors, and Hunter's words about newspaper archives confirm this - seems that literary workers saw no value in chronicling the phenomenon, if only because the pop musicians themselves had not much of an idea of the lasting value of their legacy, as pop was considered a sequence of disposable fads succeeding each other.

Among my acquisitions from the 60s are biographies of the Blues Project and Jefferson Airplane, the latter covering also the wider topic of "San Francisco Sound". Both are useless as biographies, pretty much in the same vein as Hunter's book. It seems the idea of proper chronicling entered the mind of writers around 1970, probably catalyzed by Lillian Roxon's rock encyclopedia from 1969, and I'd name Anthony Scaduto's "Dylan" and Jerry Hopkins' "Elvis" as the best examples of the changing trend.

I have to re-read Michael Braun's "Love Me Do and the Beatles' Progress" and a book written by somebody else on the Stones from the same early year, 1964, to evaluate the authors' angles on their subjects, but of course these early books (there's also one by the Hollies, in their own words, from 1965) happened too soon in the time frame.
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

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Thank you :mrgreen:
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

Post by Lord Reith »

Actually I've always loved Allan Williams' biography. Factually a train wreck, but a great read.
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

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That's more like a memoir, while Brian Epstein's memoir written by Derek Taylor is more like a biography :lol: yes many great memoirs are not too factual, but the way they present a shot of the spirit of the times is priceless.
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

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Lord Reith wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:53 pm Actually I've always loved Allan Williams' biography. Factually a train wreck, but a great read.
Agreed!
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

Post by beatlesnyttigt »

Saw this item first today, so I had missed Lord Reith's linked radio interview with Mark Lewisohn - can anyone please re-up it?
returntopepperland's link is still working so I'm recording that Australian radio show now (thanks)
Many thanks in advance :) Robert
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

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beatlesnyttigt
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

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Many thanks for the second re-up bobzilla :D Robert
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Re: The Beatles The Early Years with Mark Lewisohn

Post by Kwai Chang »

Anybody that wants to write The Beatles biography is an obsessive crackpot who has escaped from his keeper!
Or...is named Mark Lewisohn!
(CORRECT on both counts)
Hunter Davies was very likely the first to know that the group is everything that they profess to be. They also seem to be everything that others think that they are. And, finally, they are all the things that they really are. As genuine as anything ever has been, they are all that those generalities allude to. All so fresh...so, genuine. All so tangible! And almost everything they do looks fun and easy! I don't know about you, but that is more than anyone in my neighborhood can claim to be! But, why include the humdrum when no two moments are ever alike. Nor are they even remotely normal. If you think ANYBODY has more to cope with than one of the lads, you are mistaken. Just the sacrifice required to step where they have stepped would be certain doom for 99% of their beneficiaries(fans). The physical requisites are beyond the abilities of homo sapiens. The mental and emotional diagrams of Beatles situations are not found in Nature! Mandelbrot Sets??? Too predictable. Humble origins and hometown sincerity are only the starting point. They only commenced the proceedings in the best of good faith and never expected anything to add up to more than the sum of their resources. Well if they were controlling any of it, they surely would have been graced with a small amount of gratuity. Instead, theirs is a fantastic odyssey that is happening through them and to them but it is a magical thing and it is for ALL who have the same faith that they had. They are the conduit and we are to make sense of the most fantastic current of human good will that has ever been available. Nothing fake...only connected and inclusive to all who would marvel at it and allow natural motion do the rest. Are we all Beatles? In some sense we must be. But, don't go totally romantic on this point. Being a Beatle is more challenging than being God. Anybody, can emulate their movements. But, if you succeed, you will likely be as lonely as they have been. But, they aren't inclined to explain it so harshly. They can't stop what they have created. They also can't remunerate themselves for all that they have caused. We are the only ones to have that blessing. There are only four of them. That is a massive sacrifice they have made. In a blur that lasted a flash of seven years...we are still taking from them. It won't ever end. They changed everything and ALL things lead back to them.
Does anyone not understand what they have given? And they did it, knowing that they would never get to enjoy the world WITH The Beatles!
Sacrifice?
Yes, they do!
So, if that made any sense at all, Hunter Davies was probably aware of the task at hand. The AUTHORIZED version of something fantastic cannot be fantastic. It must be humdrum by its very nature. To pretend that there is some kind of magic at hand...is to mock those things that do come from ordinary things. Magic doesn't come from sorcery or a wand or a recited incantation. Magic happens when there is no hope left but the will is strong enough to believe in the self regardless of the plight. And beyond that, they met their own magic but they always renounced any such notion. They liked being regular Northern men. They liked new guitar chords. They didn't like suits but they knew that they should wear them.
It's not complicated. It is magic!
When I was in 2nd grade, I told my class that I wanted to be a Beatle when I grew up.
However, I'm not willing to sacrifice like they did. And it cannot be predicted.
The world needs what it needs.
The Beatles are evidence that everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be.
Take heart! Proof is ours...if we need it!
Good luck to all Beatles authors. Words aren't enough!
KC
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