Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Music historian McNab (And in the End) delivers a granular chronicle of the Fab Four's breakout year, which began with the group in relative obscurity and concluded with "four number one singles, two number one albums" and three national tours." Moving month by month, McNab details the recording and release of the Beatles' debut album (Please Please Me) as well as a game-changing single ("She Loves You"), and the fervor that had fans fainting at concerts. Though McNab sheds some light on developments in the band members' personal lives--including John Lennon's marriage to Cynthia Lennon and Paul McCartney's burgeoning romance with Jane Asher, both of which the group's management sought to downplay in the media--he devotes most of the account to TV and radio appearances; contract deliberations; concert set lists; and sketches of the drivers, photographers, and managers in the band's orbit. The profusion of granular detail is both a strength and a weakness: it provides a revealing behind-the-scenes look into the Fab Four's day-to-day, but bogs down the narrative and distances readers from the buzz surrounding the group. Still, Beatles superfans eager for new trivia will want to pick this up. (May)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Scottish Daily Mail journalist McNab (You Started It: Rock 'n' Roll's Most Notorious and Bitter Feuds) takes readers on an exuberant roller-coaster ride through 1963, during the Beatles' journey into stratospheric musical success. Starting in January, when the band was still playing to small audiences in obscure venues, the book shows how Beatlemania momentum built steadily each week. The release of two albums and classic singles, such as "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand," set fire to the UK charts and invigorated a youth culture eager for change. McNab gives the band's astute manager, Brian Epstein, plenty of credit for spreading the gospel of John, Paul, George, and Ringo through relentless touring and a publicity strategy that kept the band accessible to international music journalists and local press. By following the Beatles on their grueling monthly schedule of live shows, studio sessions, and radio and television appearances, McNab leaves readers in no doubt that it was the raw talent, creativity, and stamina of the Fab Four that assured their transformation from Liverpool club rockers to arguably the greatest band in music history. VERDICT An absolute must-read for music and Beatles fans.--Sara Shreve
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A chronicle of perhaps the most important year in the life of the Fab Four. The year 1963, by Scottish Daily Mail journalist McNab's account, opened with the Beatles playing gigs in tiny halls in the Scottish Highlands in a sleety, frozen January. It closed with hit songs and ambitious plans to bring the band to the U.S. In between was an endless flow of music and adolescent screams, punctuated by high-toned and sometimes avaricious business dealings. First, for instance, came the backdoor negotiations over the order of credits for Lennon-McCartney compositions, which left Paul to admit grudgingly, "John had the stronger personality and I think he fixed things with Brian [Epstein] before I got there." Later, both Lennon and McCartney suffered from a deal cut with a music publisher, Dick James, which delivered fat paychecks to James and Epstein and rather thinner ones to John and Paul. And everybody got worked over when it came to the merchandising wizards. Notes McNab, "During their career, and especially the lucrative touring years, it's widely estimated that The Beatles lost out on a figure north of $100 million in merchandising fees--the first real rock'n'roll swindle." For all those dark moments, though, the year 1963 prepared the Beatles for their massive breakthrough the following year, a breakthrough that, though Ringo was pondering opening a beauty salon and George Harrison some sort of business in the event that it all came crashing down, never really slowed down. The Ed Sullivan Show, with its 73 million viewers on that February night in 1964, was the storied start, but, as the author makes clear in this sometimes labored but detail-packed account, it really began bar by bar, town by town, mile by mile, a success won by endless work. Though covering well-worn ground, a trove for Beatles completists. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
