Customer Rating: 
Summary: One of the best
Comment: I've read many books over the years about the Beatles. It was fascinating to learn from the inside how all that wonderful music was created. The true Beatle fan will enjoy this book. Songs that have literally been a part of my life for over 30 years were explained with precision. I never knew about Paul's expletive in Hey Jude!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing for ANY Beatles fan
Comment: I read a tremendous amount and haven't read a book through twice since I was 13. I cannot recommend this book any higher for a Beatles fan. This is an incredible read with so many gems. My favorite quote from a good friend who read the book: "So what were you doing at 19? This guy was engineering REVOLVER."
There are so many gems in this book that you'll find yourself going back many times just to reread how a recording was done. I'm a musician, but this will be a great read for any fan of the Beatles. To hear how they recorded things back then with such limited equipment and with some pretty insane politics at the recording company EMI gave me a much greater appreciation of just how the Beatles broke the mold. Geoff was the unsung hero of these albums and is humble in his recounting of the recording sessions.
I couldn't recommend this book any higher. If you're bothering to read this you are definitely a Beatles fan, and you need to buy this book!
Customer Rating:
Summary: What was it like to work with The Beatles?
Comment: This was a thoroughly fascinating look at the working life of The Beatles
at the Abbey Road recording studio. It gives an interesting and detailed
first-hand account of their ideas and execution in the studio, as well
as their personalities, and how they interacted. The book also provides
a great background on the tremendous social and economic changes in
Britain in the 1960s. What was it like for a mere teenager to get a job
working as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road? What was it like to
rise through the ranks of recording professionals and work with The
Beatles as they took the world by storm? This book answers those questions,
and many others, in a charming and engaging manner.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It is what it says it is
Comment: Few voices ring more true than someone who has been there and seen it first hand. That is why Emerick's book is so important. To hear the words of someone who helped record some of the greatest Beatles masterpieces...wow. His style is autobiographical without skimping on details. The writing is entertaining, honest, and carries authority.
I was very excited to get my hands on this book. So many volumes about the Beatles have been written about the Beatles by people who were far removed from the phenomenon. Many more are just general histories that seem to repeat the same worn out chestnuts. This book, though, is neither.
Geoff Emerick was right there in the studio helping to record the music from the ground up. He saw the group in its beginning stage, creative middle, and cantankerous end. His love of the Beatles pours through without ever becoming sappy or revisionist. He tells stories that are both flattering and warty for the fab four...Emerick does not hold back.
One interesting aspect to this book is that while 80% of it is about the Beatles themselves, the other 20% is about Emerick's life, his relation to EMI, George Martin, and Apple. While this might seem like a detriment, at first (who buys a Beatles book to read about someone else's life?) in Emerick's case it strengthens what he has to say. His aside story gives perspective on what it was like to work at the monolithic EMI studios, and how different it was to work at the carnival that was Apple Studios. These pieces of information round out the story and present Emerick as a character worth of appreciation in his own right.
Emerick describes some of the new techniques that were developed to get the kind of sound the Beatles were after, and some of the major obstacles that came from trying to do so in a studio as stuffy and antiquated as EMI. This was still a world where everything wasn't digital...it was possible to actually rip things apart, monkey with the wiring, and get a new sound. Emerick was a master of this.
Reading this book gave me perspective on how many people were there to help the Beatles develop their musical vision. It is easy to see "the boys" as the creative geniuses pouring talent in to EMI and to forget the support system that helped that to happen. Emerick's book reminds the reader, through eye-witness accounts and expert descriptions, that the Beatles phenomenon was the coming together of more than just four young men...a total pool of talent all came together at the right place at the right time to work the magic.
This book has great stories, details, and humor. Emerick's voice is apparent and this book never reads like a manual. I recommend it to anyone who wants to hear stories about the Beatles from someone who was actually there and shared in the creative creation of Beatles music.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Best BEATLES Book Available!!
Comment: I have read many Beatles books (from the massive BEATLES ANTHOLOGY to less ambitious works, to downright obscure titles), but in all honestly I must say that Geoff Emerick's HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE is by far the best Beatles book I have ever read.
Emerick's story is almost a dream come true for any Beatles fan. Imagine landing a job at the age of 15 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in 1962, just in time to witness the launching of the Beatles' recording career. To add to this unimagineably wonderful situation, imagine being hired to be the assistant engineer to Producer George Martin just as the Beatles are about to shoot straight to the statosphere! Without a doubt Emerick was blessed with talent, ingenuity, and a lot of luck to land (and maintain) such a marvelous job.
HERE, THERE & EVERWHERE is beautifully written with rich, vivid details of the Beatles as they recorded their exquisite, timeless music from 1962 until their break up in 1970, and beyond. Through Emerick's recollections and insights, not only do we get an insider's view as to how the music was produced and engineered, but we get to re-live the days and arduous nights that the Beatles spent at Abbey Road and other recording studios. We get to see the good times and the bad times, the endless takes and dubbings, the fun and the fights within the hallowed confines of EMI Sudios / Abbey Road.
Geoff Emerick was there, from the Beatles' early recordings, to SGT. PEPPER, to the WHITE ALBUM, to the mess at the Apple offices, to Paul McCartney's recording of BAND ON THE RUN in Africa, and much more. I heartily recommend this book, you'll learn so much from it!
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