Geoff Emerick (1945–2018)

I loved this book which really surprised me. I was a fan of the Beatles so I thought I'd enjoy the book, but what surprised me the parts I liked the most was when the author was explaining how he the engineer got the sounds that the band was looking for. So come read it for the music but stay to find out about sound engineers.

After his descriptions of Revolution and Sgt. Peppers I had to stop reading and go listen to the albums so I could hear for myself what Emerick is describing.

I have to add a disclaimer on here - I'm a huge Beatles nut, so I'm going to devour just about anything written about them. But I have to say that this book is by far one of the best I've read so far. Geoff Emerick worked on several of the Beatles' early albums, and in 1966, he became their main sound engineer, which meant he helped create Revolver, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road, and part of the White Album. This also means that he had a lot of insight into how the show more Beatles worked together, both creatively and personally.

The book is fairly straightforward: it chronicles Geoff's initial love of music, his first job at Abbey Road studios under producer George Martin, and his first encounters with the Beatles in 1962. While the narration deviates slightly to talk about other side projects Geoff was working on, it always comes back to his time with the Beatles in the studio, and watching their music evolve over the years.

The middle part of the book is where it really starts to get interesting, though, because these are the chapters when Geoff explains how Revolver & Sgt. Pepper were made, and how the tensions between the Beatles began to grow. The stories behind these innovative songs are fascinating, but the true heart of the book is Geoff's account of how the band came together to make music, and how outside pressures and creative differences ultimately drove them apart. There's a lot of emphasis on the Beatles' personalities, both individually and as a group, and it's this perspective that makes the book unique, as there weren't many people allowed inside the studio when the Beatles were recording.

There's a brief account of the work Geoff did on the Paul McCartney & Wings album, Band on the Run, but for me, this wasn't as interesting as his accounts of working with the entire band. The book is also very heavy on the technical details, which are likely to be foreign to anyone who doesn't have a background in music or in sound engineering, but I found it easy to skim over these parts. At any rate, the technical passages are a good representation of how much work went into these songs, particularly in the last half of the Beatles's career.

Despite the jargon-heavy nature of this book, there's a real sense of tragedy and loss when Geoff recalls the last few months before the Beatles dissolved for good. As a reader, I was present from the first energetic recording sessions at Abbey Road, so to see the Beatles grow, transform, and then fall apart before my eyes was heartbreaking. But Geoff's account also breathes new life into these songs; after all, who would have guessed that there was so much stress associated with the production of "All You Need is Love?"

This book is highly recommended for music fans & for Beatles fans, regardless of their familiarity with the technical aspects of music and recording. It breathes new life into the near-mythic story of the Beatles's rise and fall from power.

For an even more in-depth look at the Beatles's career, try Bob Spitz's biography, which tops out at one thousand pages - plenty of well-researched information to satisfy even the most die-hard Beatles fan. show less

I enjoyed this a lot and read it almost straight through. Emerick's recollections of events that happened 35-40 years before seem almost too detailed to believe, but given their importance and the personalities involved, I'm willing to give him he benefit of the doubt. He is definitely in Paul McCartney's camp, showing Paul as the leader and the stabilizing force who kept the Beatles together as long as he could. George Martin gets a lot of credit, but Emerick clearly considers his own show more contributions to be equal to achieving the best moments in the Beatles' recordings. (I didn't find Emerick to be the modest fellow Elvis Costello portrays him as in his introduction.) Throughout the book, George Harrison's guitar playing comes in for a LOT of criticism, as he fails take after take and, in a few cases, Paul McCartney has to step in to reel off an effortless solo after hours of Harrison's attempts. John Lennon emerges as the conflicted character we expect him to be. Certainly he's the most erratic and ultimately most interesting person here, but Emerick's depiction of Lennon's interactions with Yoko Ono are just plain weird. And I guess they were...

Definitely a book any Beatles fan will want to read. There are lots of details about the recordings that will have you pulling them out again, or streaming them, to see what Emerick is talking about. Most of us will agree with his observations on more modern music when there are unlimited recording tracks and unlimited digital tricks so that what emerges lacks the human element that made the Beatles such a lasting phenomenon. show less

Le meilleur livre qu'il m'ait été donné de lire sur les Beatles ! Que vous soyez musicien, producteur ingé-son ou tout simplement fan des Beatles, ce livre est une vrai leçon de musique !



Au delà des anecdotes incroyables sur l'enregistrements de leurs albums mythiques, Geoff Emerick ébauche le caractère de chacun des Beatles et, même s'il n'est pas tendre avec tous, il nous laisse entrevoir les raisons qui font qu'un groupe marche ou marche pas.



Bref un livre qui va bien au-delà show more des simples anecdotes d'un ingé-son particulièrement innovant et nous parle simplement de musique.



Personnellement, je l'ai dévoré en trois jours, tellement il est prenant ! show less