Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years

Beatles fan? Want to know the real start of this group? If you are patient and enjoy details, the book “Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years” by Mark Lewisohn is a great read. It is big though. I read the Kindle version which is just under 900 pages. Being a casual reader, it kept me busy for a couple months.
 
Bottom line, I found it fascinating. This book is planned as book 1 of 3 (unfortunately there is no word as yet on when the others will be released). This one took 10-years to write. Be forewarned, this book goes to the end of the year 1962 and stops there. 1962 was a big year of change for The Beatles. They had “love Me Do” on the charts; Ringo was now in the band; Brian Epstein was their manager; George Martin has started believing in them; and they had fan clubs and people noticing them beyond Liverpool. Their lives were about to change dramatically.
 
Mr. Lewisohn covers a lot on the songs that captured the early Beatles interests. Mainly American artists, and they liked the B-sides a lot. The reality is that they were a great cover band when playing the Hamburg clubs and the Cavern Club. And they had that special talent to take someone else’s song and make it their own.
 
John Lennon once stated that The Beatles were just a very good band that became very popular. No doubt that is very true. They were bigger than life to all of us young fans back in 1964 USA. To me this book very much humanized the Fab Four, and showed them as people who loved listening to music, playing music, performing, and subsequently dedicated their teenage years to doing so. They learned well and became masters at it. And they did it ‘their way’.  
 
Enough babbling. Just wanted to recognize a great read if this type of book interests you.

Rain
Does indeed sound like a potentially fascinating book. I've always dug reading about musician's formative years, and the Beatles were particularly interesting in that respect - bears witness the Live at the Star Club double LP and the very hectic material on it.

The StarClub album hopefully is my next purchase. I want to hear them as they were back then. Reviews state it is lo-fi audio but I can accept that for the chance to experience what they were like before the big time started.

They say the book 'Lennon' by Tim Riley is the most accurate and detailed account of any Beatles history. I have read it and it too was a big book. It explains in great detail the influences on John etc (Elvis) and the others and what they were listening to at the time before the Beatles even got off the ground.
 
But on saying that this book also sounds excellent and looks like it could be very interesting as well. I would love to have heard them at their peak in Hamburg at the time towards the end of their 3 year stint before they came back to England. They say around then the band was playing real well.

Very interesting, Rain. You are apparently well versed in the Beatles underground music (so to speak). I was not even aware of the Star Club recordings until reading this book.  I have been learning a lot about their early song choices since reading this book.
 
I put the "Lennon" book indicated by Jeff on my wishlist.
 
One bit of information that just tickled me in the "Tune In' book was that the Cavern Club use to have lunchtime sessions. Bands would play a 1-2 hour sets during the weekday lunch hour, and teenagers or 20-somethings could take a midday break from school or work and head over to the Cavern Clucb for some music. Can you imagine that? Seeing The Beatles or Gerry and the Pacemakers during a long lunchbreak. Then head back to school or work. Liverpool must have been a fun place. Nothing like that ever occurred in my neck of the woods. Evenings and weekends were it. 

Hi,
 
I'm not a great fan of a lot of these books.
 
But that is not to say that some of them are not good, or worth while reads.
 
In general, and I get it, since I was "there" for the whole time of their work, but when others have no idea and are not aware of what it took for folks to understand how they got to where they were.
 
Before you read this book, please check out the 10 WORST business decisions EVAH listed on the Internet before you go anywhere.
 
At that time, radio was not inventive and it was all pop music. Different musics and countries and styles kinda didn't exist, because no one ever heard any of them! American media is too controlled by large companies that still have it, 50 years later, and still publish a "Variety" and "Top Ten" so they can pat themselves in the back and convince you that you need to buy one of these top ten items!
 
And we, of course, still believe it!
 
It took many things, like Pirate Radio stations off the England coast and many others to bust the big bubble of control that was the BBC. Mind you, that the BBC alone, was the single most important innovator in comedy in the 1950's, so not seeing them expand the music was really weird, but by the time 1963 and 1964 came around, they were already on the  side of the Beatles and Rolling Stones and Kinks, but in a marginal way ... they can not be said to have ignored them.
 
Of all the things that tell me more than what people think, and write about the Beatles, the bootlegs were excellent, as was the movie "Let It Be" that a few morons are hiding and waiting for Paul and Ringo to die, so they do not have to pay them a billion! I guess they won't have to wait too much longer!
 
The 1st bootleg that I heard was "Let It Be" (there were about 20 of them all told with outtakes of every thing except the toilet flushing!), but then the original version of the film was longer, and 2 years later the release was missing 20 minutes that had taken out some parts that had John and Yoko, because in the earlier version you could see a stage hand mistreating her, and later an accidental blurb by another Beatle. These moments were visible in several bootlegs that had the dialogue parts and many of the pieces of music that were taken out of the film due to whatever restrictions, and many of these were fun things. If anything, these bit showed 4 men and their pressures and how they disagreed or agreed and how they did things. I vividly remember George getting pee'd off and saying ... I'll it if you want it, and if you don't I won't play it ... and it probably was about his own lead or rhythm part, and then they break into "Across the Universe".
 
Before all this, and 2 years prior, I saw, and got, "The Beatles Christmas Shows". I had no idea what these were, and come to find out that they are 7 Christmas Shows they did at the BBC for their fan club and these shows tell you a LOT about their relationship and in the last one it's just John having his fun and no one else showed up, which ought to tell you how much care and respect they all had for the rest, OR, how tired of it all they were already. But John, evern the more political and emotional of them, showed up and dedicated the show to kids and such, and he went on to do the same thing in his own albums.
 
I do not feel that there is a gorilla, or a zombie, or an arsenichole behind any of them 4 folks, and any more reads are now no different than a flash into the past and a romanticized version of it all. To me, the greater crime is that the stuff that was on those bootlegs, that tell you more about the PERSON will never be heard, found or seen, and this is the part that the "media" controls, to make sure you have your HEROES lined up properly so the money goes to the right people and places!
 
I'm just tired of that sheep dip!
 
In so many ways, these "biographies" are such a strong attempt for us to get back to the movie days of 60 and 70 years ago and the "star", that it has a tendency to distort things, and make you feel inferior, because they have something you don't. So you're an idiot? Bull!
 
If you want to read something interesting and much more up front about the 60's and it's time and place, go read the biography of Marianne Faithfull. It's way better, well written and magnificently told, and it does not have to talk about the sordid moments, because she does it herself and pulls no punches on herself or anyone else. It is that honest. But I'm tired of seeing these ashkissers that were around the Beatles trying to get another dollar off them again! 

KenB123
...
The StarClub album hopefully is my next purchase. I want to hear them as they were back then. Reviews state it is lo-fi audio but I can accept that for the chance to experience what they were like before the big time started.

I like the original bootlegs of these shows in with all their bits between songs! And it also shows and tells you really well where they came from and how much work they already had and ended up doing later. There's stuff in there that ended up in Let it Be!

I translated it as needing to hear Pink Floyd's Animals again. 

Revolution in the Head is a great Beatles book too.
 
Every song they ever recorded with details about the recording techniques, inspiration for songs, etc. And also how all the infighting, back stabbing and drug use in the group influenced the final product.
 
My new go to bathroom book.  
 
JR

auto_da_fe
Revolution in the Head is a great Beatles book too.
 
Every song they ever recorded with details about the recording techniques, inspiration for songs, etc. And also how all the infighting, back stabbing and drug use in the group influenced the final product.
 
My new go to bathroom book.  
 
JR

A friend read this and liked it. Another one to add to wish list. :-)

I've read them all.
 
Each author seems to have a bias toward a particular Beatle.
 
As they say "authors imitate life".
 

Each author seems to have a bias toward a particular Beatle.

 
Isn't that the truth!

Karyn
Pigs on the wing?  Keep your hand over your glass...

And roger will be screaming at you in the Anaheim Stadium shows! Drinks were available and then some!

Moshkiae

bapu
I've read them all.
 
Each author seems to have a bias toward a particular Beatle.
 
As they say "authors imitate life".

Having been the son of a real "author" and "writer", I can tell you that they do NOT imitate life. That it is the professors and copycats that work real hard at making sure they can "imitate authors", so they can think of themselves as more important than the authors themselves with their "critical works" and "commentaries", that are fit for a college room, more than anything else.
 
In general, "real authors", as is the case with a lot of oddball musicians, do not imitate life. They find a different "life", that you and I have not considered because you and I are too busy with 40 hours per week, and 2.1 little critters running around!
 
I can safely say, WITH AUTHNTICITY AND HONESTY, that one "author", didn't have time for his children to give a heck of a lot of a damn about his children, other than pulling a belt or a 2x4 now and then thanks to an overzealous mom!
 
How can they "imitate" when they are not even a part of it all?
 
So, let's talk about "life"!

No need to over reach my sentiment.
 
I only meant that in life (i.e. non-authors), some like Paul, some like Ringo, some like John and some like George.
 
Ergo, authors (of Beatles lives) seem to be just like regular folk. Some like Paul, some like Ringo, some like John and some like George.