Mostly for those interested in the records themselves

books:

	• Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey Gotham, 2007 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 164 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Awesome reading!!!

After reading this you will look at Beatles songs very differently. It is an easy read but very infomrative!!

If u r a musician into the beatles, this is your book

Well written and a delightful read about being THERE at the beatles sessions... and being a part of the team that made the amazing sound on those records!

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Mostly for those interested in the records themselves

Beatles books are a dime a dozen these days. It seems like anyone who has had any kind of personal experience with one or more of the Fab Four has written an "insider's look" on the group. Many of these books aren't worth the paper they are printed on. That statement does not apply to Geoff Emerick's book, which is both fun and informative. Though George Martin, among a very few others, has similar insights into the Beatles' recordings, no one but Emerick could have written in so much first-person detail about how the band actually recorded the majority of their great records. Admittedly, a lot of Emerick's recording details are for moderate to rabid Beatles fans. I enjoyed learning, for example, that Paul--not George--plays the guitar solo on "Taxman," that John badly wanted to sing "Oh, Darling!" (though Paul, who wrote the song, ended up singing it), or that it is Mal Evans who bangs the giant anvil on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." A lot of Beatles fans, I'm sure, couldn't care less about these things, but for those who love the Beatles most of all for their great songs and records, this is your book!

Those looking for sex, drugs and rock and roll may be disappointed here. A tabloid type book this is not. But Emerick does tell a lot of great stories. His story of how George Martin naively told an LSD-tripping John to go to the roof of the recording studio (where one might easily feel inclined to try out flight) to chill out for a while made me laugh out loud, but it also made me shudder a bit. Emerick toots his own horn about his engineering feats, but he is certainly deserving of a little limelight. Some of us may prefer the stripped down Beatles of RUBBER SOUL and REVOLVER to the heavily orchestrated SGT. PEPPER'S or MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, but Emerick clearly prefers the latter. He has some especially harsh words for RUBBER SOUL, which (no surprise) he had nothing to do with, even if it is generally considered one of the Beatles' very best LPs. Similarly, Emerick is also a big Paul fan, at the expense of the others; he tends to downgrade John's leadership, and he outright dismisses George and Ringo at various points. John has always been my favorite, but I might not feel that way if I had had to put up with some of his apparently outlandish demands in the studio.

Off the top of my head, I'd have to say that this is the best Beatles book I have read (though I have only read three or four others). To recap: if you are chiefly interested in the gossipy stuff, go elsewhere; if you are more interested in the records themselves and the Beatles' evolving sound over roughly seven years, this is the book for you.

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For Lovers of Technique

I recently completed Here, There and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey. If you're a Beatles fan (not the kind that collects Lennon's used kerchiefs or anything), it's definitely worth the read.

To start with, I should say I really dig the Beatles. Why is this important? Because their music wasn't my gateway drug. It was a book entitled The Love You Make by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines. That led to my purchase of Revolver, and then I got ahold of Sgt. Pepper.

One day my good friend's pops asked me about my Beatles awakening. I told him what book did it. It was, in fact, from his very shelf.

He gave me a slight wizened frown and said, "I have the best book on the Beatles ever written. It came out recently. I'll lend it to you, and I never lend my books, so you have to promise you'll return it." With that, he oh-so-delicately entrusted me with Here, There and Everywhere. It still had that new-book smell.

I read it. Slowly. Then, as promised, I returned it.

I do think it was the best book on the Beatles ever written. And even if it weren't, I'm sufficiently satisfied with the perspective presented that I'm not off mongering for other ones.

The Emerick narrative, attentively shaped by Massey, betrays an intimacy with the Beatles that stems from both a technical viewpoint and a time investment that was not always pleasant. He doesn't lend the sense that he's writing about them because he was star-stuck, and he wasn't unduly officious about his position in their world.

Emerick describes each of their records with precision and a sharp eye, alongside painstaking accounts of recording equipment that was appearing at the time. (He also broke ground for many different sound elements that are studio stock today.)

What's more, there's no parsing of public rumours or sordid details, no pop interpretation of what must have inspired their songs. Emerick's craft, and Massey's construction of the tale that shaped it, are the true gems.

The Beatles, their hectic world and their playful experiments with people and music are examined with the same technical lens as was used for their albums. But there's feeling, too. Geoff's life and craft were impacted significantly by the Beatles' travails, and the gravity of his experience rises out of the sum of those parts.

The book is clearly not just about them. It's about him, too - possibly most of all.

After I read the book I picked up Abbey Road. It's the album I like best, and it probably wouldn't mean so much if not for Here, There and Everywhere.

Hats off to Massey and Emerick.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

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