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44th out of 380 books
—
562 voters
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970
This is EMI Records' official diary-format history of every Beatles recording session. Over 350 color black & white photographs and illustrations, including rare photos by Linda McCartney and the first facsimile reproductions of Abbey Road recording sheets, tape boxes, album sleeve roughs, memos, contracts, press releases and much more.
Paperback, 204 pages
Published
August 30th 2006
by EMI Records
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Based on the picture of the cover listed here, I think I have a slightly newer or slightly older edition of this book. It doesn't really matter, though. This is an invaluable book for Beatlemaniacs like myself who are also interested in things like which band members sang or played instruments on a certain song; what recording techniques were used (The Beatles practically invented some of the more modern recording techniques and studio practices); or what other musicians they had play with them...more
Still my favorite Beatles book. If you want the Beatles as a story, then Shout! will do very well. I tend to like the oral history approach--Anthology is great but unwieldy, so I prefer Beatles Off the Record, however unreliable. For pictures and side issues, Mojo magazine did a great Beatles book published by DK. And then there's Yesterday: The Beatles Once Upon a Time, featuring fantastic and fun early pictures of the Beatles and Liverpool by Astrid Kirchherr and Max Scheler.
This book, howeve...more
This book, howeve...more
For Beatles fans I highly recommend this book. While it gets exhaustively tedious (as Lewisohn meticulously documents every Abbey Road recording record he can find), the anecdotes and background information are fascinating. To this day I still get chills reading about the entry of the single day the Beatles recorded the "Please Please Me" album and how they did "Twist and Shout" literally at the end of a long day of recording; the famous version you always hear is a first take, their attempt to...more
An amazing achievement, and a must for serious Beatles fans with a bent toward learning just how each album was made. This is not an easy read; it is arranged, quite logically, in journal fashion, with each day in the studio receiving its own unique entry. A good decision, but it felt like a bit of a slog at times, depending on what was going on. Also, the length of 200+ pages is deceptive; it feels like a much longer.
But I digress - this is an invaluable resource for music historians, which, ha...more
But I digress - this is an invaluable resource for music historians, which, ha...more
Jan 19, 2013
John M.
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
musicians, Beatles fans, recording engineers and producers
Shelves:
aesthetics-music,
2013-reading-challenge
This book is a must read for die-hard Beatles fans and musicians. To get the best experience, I recommend the following while reading this book:
1. When reading about a particular song, it’s interesting to go back and listen. A lot of the time I found little things that I hadn’t heard before, such as different instruments, the mono/stereo contrasts, and the result of different recording techniques.
2. The Beatles Anthology CD set includes a lot of the early takes and mixes that the author refers t...more
1. When reading about a particular song, it’s interesting to go back and listen. A lot of the time I found little things that I hadn’t heard before, such as different instruments, the mono/stereo contrasts, and the result of different recording techniques.
2. The Beatles Anthology CD set includes a lot of the early takes and mixes that the author refers t...more
More of a reference shelf item than a book to read per se, unless you're an unreconstructed Beatles nut, like me and quite a few other people I know. Twenty-four years on it's easy to overlook what an incredible eye-opener this was, crushing old myths (and rumored outtakes), shedding detailed light on where the Beatles did their best work, and how they went about it. It's still the essential reference for their recording career.
Paul McCartney has referred to this as "The Bible", and that about sums it up. Lewisohn was given every Beatle-maniacs dream job: going through the vast Abbey Road tape library and cataloging every studio recording done by the band.
Taking a day by day approach, Lewisohn details what was record when, who mixed what, how many takes of each song occurred, etc. It's fascinating and indespensible as a reference tool.
Taking a day by day approach, Lewisohn details what was record when, who mixed what, how many takes of each song occurred, etc. It's fascinating and indespensible as a reference tool.
Feb 09, 2009
Bill
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
die hard Beatle fans
Shelves:
nonfiction
Wonderful book for Beatles obsessives. Notes on every single recording session. I read this before the Anthology series came out, but after I'd heard some bootlegs of tracks that ultimately wound up on the Anthology. Only for die-hard Bealte fans - others will likely be bored stiff.
This book presents the definitive daily recording sessions logbook of the entire Beatles' recorded canon, with minor annotations to round out context. It includes numbers of takes, alternate track names, logs what was layered when, and who was present for each session. This makes for a stale cover-to-cover experience, but then, that's not really the point of a reference book, of which this is an impeccable example. (Don't believe me? Try reading every entry in Grove's Music Dictionary and see wh...more
Perhaps it's only musicians such as me who are interested in who played what instrument, how many takes were involved etc. The information was compiled by the studio technicians. There is some repetition, but I liked it; made me feel like a Beatles roadie......mgc
A great book for Beatles fans. Detailed information on each recording session, plus plenty of photographs, facsimile copies of recording studio records and paperwork, doodles for album cover concepts, etc.
Being a retired musician and current garage band practicioner, the book answered a lot of questions I had about how the Beatles shaped each song. The book explained how tedious each recording session was, and how the varied sounds were achieved. Its a great book. If you can find it buy it!
A detailed account of how The Beatles created their songs and albums. The reader will be amazed at the amount of work that went into their albums, and how they perfected them.
I don't have it with the same cover, but I'm sure it is the same book. Really interesting, but not enough awesome pictures. 73254/77954
One of my favorite books of all time. This is for Beatle's geeks that are interested in the recording of these legendary songs.
For Beatlemaniacs only. Details every take of every song in every recording session in the Beatles career.
This is the next best thing to being in the studio with them...it is comprehensive and detailed.
All I can say is, I wish this came with a complete set of out-take studio recordings.
This book is the Bible of the Beatles recordings at Abbey Road. It's due for another printing.
view 2 comments
Feb 26, 2009
C. Yarbrough
added it
um... this was a magical book because i love the Beatles
Excellent all the way through!
Great for the recordist and Uber Fan.
Jan 12, 2010
Lynn
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
rock-music,
the-beatles
An absolute must for any serious Beatles fan. Also a must for anyone interested in the creation of recorded music, and how one band changed the methodology for recording within the course of fewer than eight years. Lewisohn takes you behind the scenes and meticulously describes each step of the multitrack recording sessions that created some of the most enduring rock music of the twentieth century. He also tells some wonderful anecdotes along the way.
The primary sources are informative and enter...more
The primary sources are informative and enter...more
Feb 15, 2008
Frederick
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Musicians
This is, essentially, a document of who played what on which track and which parts of which songs were recorded when. It is this aspect which makes it the single most informative book ever put out about the Beatles as musicians.
While it is not incredibly easy to follow the fate of any particular song here, reading this from front to back will give you a sense of how the Beatles, their producer George Martin and the engineers at EMI went about their work.
While it is not incredibly easy to follow the fate of any particular song here, reading this from front to back will give you a sense of how the Beatles, their producer George Martin and the engineers at EMI went about their work.
Love this book so much. Had thought I lost it at one point, and was really bummed out till a friend of mine actually gave me his copy. Then later I was digging through my junk and found mine again. Turns out there's a new edition that's much cooler. Now I'm bummed again. On second thought this book has caused me nothing but grief. Fuck this book.
Well documented - comprehensive - exhaustive tome that covers everything printed by The Beatles from days alpha to omega. Was pretty much the bible and is now the companion piece (old testament) to Recording The Beatles (I'm shouting out here - please... someone... remember my birthday!)
This book follows me around the house - or vice versa.
This book follows me around the house - or vice versa.
Jul 14, 2007
Mark
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Obsessed with the Beatles?
Shelves:
non-fiction,
music
One of the best Beatles books ever. It goes over every single session that any of them went to in the years they were together. I'm probably one of the few people who actually read the whole thing cover to cover. (Hey, I was young and didn't have much to do...and I was a dork.)
Amazing stuff, but you better be obsessed.
Amazing stuff, but you better be obsessed.
pure inspiration, cover to cover... 65 takes just to record the basic guitar track for "across the universe"... no drums, vocals, bass... the very first layer of the song.... and they settled on take #53... they spent 24 hours straight in the studio once playing catch-up, moments before an album was due!
Apr 10, 2010
Rob Hermanowski
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
music-related,
non-fiction
Encyclopedic in scope, this detailed accounting of all the Beatles recording sessions is amazing! A must-have for the Beatles fanatic. As an amateur musician who also records, I found this book to be inspiring in the creative process of track recording and mixing as well.
This is definitely one of my "desert island" books. It analyzes — not too technically — every recording session the Beatles ever did at Abbey Road Studios, which accounted for about 99.9% of the band's output. Every read reveals another nuance or another story. Awesome.
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