The Beatles: An Oral History - Hardcover

Pritchard, David; Lysaght, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786864362 ISBN 13: 9780786864362

Publisher: Hyperion, 1998

Synopsis

This is the real history of The Beatles, told by the people who really knew them - their childhood playmates, family, friends, rivals, lovers, teachers, fellow musicians - and by John, Paul, George and Ringo themselves.

Together these voices cast new light on the band's history, with revealing accounts of the early days in Liverpool and Hamburg, the touring triumphs and burnouts, and the secrets behind the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. A chorus of distinctive voices tells us how The Beatles helped get The Rolling Stones rolling, why The Beatles stopped touring in 1966 at the height of their fame, and what really led to their breakup in 1970. This book is based on an award winning radio documentary. The first volume of 3 audiobooks compiled from the documentary will be available for download in May 2008.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Lysaght is an award winning documentary director and producer, and co-author of the International Best-sellers The ABCs Of Making Money & The ABCs Of Making Money 4 Teens.

David Pritchard was a legendary DJ in the 1960s in Toronto. He was an accomplished composer and painter. He died in 2006.

From Publishers Weekly

Last year's Beatles Anthology television specials that told the tale of the Fab Four's world-conquering career were elegantly executed but lacked objectivity. This is not the case with Canadian radio producers Pritchard's and Lysaght's The Beatles: An Oral History. Compiled from decades of interviews (many of which have provided the basis for a series of radio programs) with a cast of more than a hundred friends, family members, colleagues and the band members themselves, this collection should provide even the most obsessive of Beatles fans with new angles and anecdotes: who knew, for example, that Paul McCartney hated his vocal performance on "Eleanor Rigby," or that on the exquisite "For No One" the Moptops were not even in tune? The Fab Four's struggle to reconcile astronomical ambitions with earth-bound relationships provides the narrative's main thrust; the most intriguing relationship of all can be found in the writing credit for the vast majority of Beatles' songs: "Lennon-McCartney." The two emerge as complicated personalities, neither as cuddly and compassionate as their public relations staff would have us believe, nor as egomaniacal as their detractors have claimed. Because of the multiplicity of voices, and Pritchard's and Lysaght's unbiased approach in weaving them together, this may be the first book ever on the Beatles that manages to avoid falling into one obvious and reductive perspective. This seems fitting for a band that changed the world.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0786864362
• ISBN 13: 9780786864362
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352