Fab Four FAQ: Everything Left to Know About the Beatles . and More!
526 PagesPublished by Hal LeonardSoftcover Product Description40 years after the release of the iconic °Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club BandÃ...
- 526 Pages
- Published by Hal Leonard
- Softcover
Product Description
40 years after the release of the iconic °Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band°, the Beatles continue to captivate music fans of all ages. There’s something always more to discuss about the Fab Four. What were their greatest live performances? Their worst moments? Stories still unknown by most music fans, trends still unseen, history still uninterpreted are all revealed in °Fab Four FAQ°. Pop culture authors Stuart Shea and Rob Rodriguez pro… More >>
Fab Four FAQ: Everything Left to Know About the Beatles . and More!
This is a great book to have. It is a long book, but it is really interesting read. This book is broken into parts, so you deal with the early Beatles and then move to the later Beatles. It has alot of information and details that seem fresh compared to other books. I especially like that it covers the people in the Beatles lives. It is easy to go back to certain chapters if you want to use it as a refernce guide, later. My only complaint is that there is no index, and for a book this size there should be. But, I was reading an article on something to do with the Beatles and went back to this book and found it easy to go back to for the information. I would say this book has a little of everything in it, from recordings, to people, to buisness, to instruments, and beyond.
Rating: 4 / 5
There’s always more to learn about the Fab Four and this book is one to read. Written concisely in an easy to read, fun format, even an ardent Beatles fan will discover new facts.
Rating: 4 / 5
I didn’t expect much when I picked up this book. Having read the Davies and Norman Beatles biographies, Lewisohn’s superb books on their recording sessions, all the Spizer books on their American records, Bill Harry’s encyclopedia, and numerous other tomes, I figured Shea and Rodriguez would just rehash the same old Beatles trivia. Happily, I was mistaken! This book is a genuine treasure! Between Chris Hillman’s foreword and Jackie Lomax’s afterword there is a wealth of info that even dyed-in-the-wool Beatlemaniacs can sink their canines into. Sure, some of it has seen the light of day before but a lot of it is surprisingly fresh — or at least freshly presented. You’d be hard-pressed to find a similar book organized in such an entertaining and highly readable fashion. I was actually sad when I came to the end! Another bonus, though: It’s a great reference text!
The chapters are cleverly titled with snippets of Beatles lyrics and the topics include such fun reads as Beatle children, Beatle wives and girlfriends (are you listening, Bill Harry? Your vaunted encyclopedia totally ignored Maureen Starkey!!), villains in the Beatle story, fellow actors and actresses in their movies, their favorite brands of instruments, musical role switches on certain songs, obscure people in the Beatles orbit, other acts that toured with them, songs they wrote for others, etc., etc., etc. “Fab Four Faqs” is really a misnomer; the book is actually a long series of lists but fleshed out with some revealing (to me, at least) details. The authors have a witty, often irreverent, style but their love for their subject spills from every page.
At various times throughout the book, Shea and Rodriguez say that “another book” is needed to cover many of the people, places, and events they only allude to because of space constraints. I can only hope they’re serious…..
Rating: 5 / 5
…at least in my collection of Beatles literature, which began with the original edition of Tony Carr’s The Beatles An Illustrated Record and was most recently augmented by five of Bruce Spizer’s excellent hardbacks on the group’s American record releases. This volume, while hardly exhaustive in terms of the detail that could have been gone into on the subjects it covers, did a good job of reminding this long-time fan that there are still many nooks and crannies in the lives and careers of the Beatles worth looking into. Even material on matters I would not normally have found interesting as such drew me in, and before I knew it I’d practically read the darn thing from cover to cover!
Rating: 4 / 5
Even the most ardent Beatle fan just might find something new in this well written, fact filled book. Easy to browse through and unfailingly interesting.
Rating: 5 / 5