09-10-2013 @ 22:59
"It all boils down to this. They were four war babies from Liverpool who really did change the world, and whose music and impact still lives on in so many ways, after all these years. I say, let’s scrub what we know, or think we know, and start over: Who really were these people, and how did it all happen?"
The Beatles: Tune In by Mark Lewisohn
So it's finally here. A full 10 years after the idea was conceived, and five after the initial deadline was left for dead, the first volume of Mark Lewisohn's epic, definitive Beatles biography has arrived.
Does the world need yet another Beatles biog? For those who feel adequately served by Philip Norman's Shout! or Hunter Davies' 1968 authorised biography, probably not. But just as The Beatles' legacy has grown with every passing year, no book so far has fully given justice to the band's social, cultural and musical importance.
The magisterial Tune In delivers on all counts, fulfilling all expectations and delivering what is shaping up to be the definitive telling of one of the 20th century's greatest stories. This is part one of a three-volume series, collectively known as All These Years (a phrase from Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band). The others volumes, presumably Turn On and Drop Out, will cover the group's imperial phase, from 1963 to their split in 1970, and will follow some time in the next decade.
Lewisohn, whose Complete Beatles Recording Sessions and Complete Beatles Chronicle set the bar for Beatles scholarship in the 1980s and 90s, originally wanted to write about just one year – 1963, The Beatles' breakout year – before deciding to tackle a full biography.
The book begins in the 19th century, with the origins of the four families that would become world famous. Lewisohn's diligent research comes to the fore immediately – the impression is of no electoral register, school record, employment contract or birth, death or marriage certificate being left unscrutinised. It's not all dry history either; the ragtag seafarers and settlers, workers, musicians and chancers that settled in Liverpool provided roots and characteristics that would echo through the ages.
In the 1950s the city was a place of post-war poverty, violence and decaying housing, which nonetheless retained a defiant, optimistic spirit. Liverpudlian teenagers ran with it: Elvis, Lonnie Donegan, Buddy Holly, Ray Charles and Gene Vincent fired the imaginations of countless youths, there and around the country, prompting a frenzy of guitar buying and amateur music making. The sense is of a newly-emboldened generation waking up from decades of sexual, religious, musical, academic, sartorial and tonsorial conservatism, willing to rip it all up and start again.
Academically gifted but lacking discipline, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were dedicated iconoclasts, revelling in every opportunity to defy their superiors and break rules. They wrote songs and dressed differently, spurned the expectation of getting a trade and regular wage – the "brummer strivers" Lennon swore he would never join, following a disastrous and short-lived spell as a labourer – and were single minded in their pursuit of music stardom. They were joined by the younger George Harrison, who simply gave up on his schooling in favour of rock 'n' roll.
read more: http://www.beatlesbible.com/books/beatles-tune-in-mark-lewisohn/
source: beatlesbible.com
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