Many of them were young girls whom the Beatles treated well and never took advantage of. One of the revelations of the book is of the band’s closeness to their fans. (There are actually Wikipedia pages called The Beatles in Hamburg and The Beatles at the Cavern Club). Of course he goes into the Cavern years (upwards of 300 appearances over three years) and relates stories about them and their fans. Lewisohn takes you down the mean streets of Hamburg where, over the course of five visits and two years, the Beatles honed their stage act, playing over 1,100 hours. There is a very strong you-are-there flavor to this book. It won’t be until “Please Please Me” hits the radio in early 1963 when all hell breaks loose first in the UK, then in America and the world. They’re known, they certainly have fans, but they’re not yet really stars.īut “Love Me Do” is heading up the charts and they’re starting to get fans outside of Liverpool. The thing you should know is that Volume 1 only goes up to the end of 1962, just as The Beatles are starting to break in the UK.
It is meticulously written and researched.
So if anybody knows their history, it’s him. But he is also a writer (and quite a good one) whom the book jacket lists as “the world’s only professional Beatle historian.” Although he’s written other stuff, most of his output is about the Fab Four.Īt one point he worked for Apple Corps and was invited by EMI to listen to all of the bands’ original session tapes, an honor conferred to literally no one else outside the band. (McCartney declined to be interviewed just because they’d already spoken so many times.)įor years, whenever Lewisohn’s name cropped up, I just assumed he was a crazed fanboy. What kind of tea did they drink? Probably knows that too. I have read several Beatle books and his name always crops up as the “guy with all the details.” How many takes to record “Penny Lane?” He knows. If you’ve ever read a biography of any sort about The Beatles, you’ve likely run into the name Mark Lewisohn, this book’s author.
But I’ve only just got around to reading it. For the record, Tune In is not a new book but was published in late 2013.
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