Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles

Great read

予定より早く到着しました。

Sehr interessantes Buch für Beatles fans und Audio Liebhaber.

It is evident to me that Geoff Emerick formed his opinion of the four Beatles' personalities very early on, particularly regarding Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Throughout most of the book it seems Paul can do no wrong and George is lucky even to have his place in the Beatles. Whilst it's ok for Paul to spend hours perfecting and over-dubbing his bass parts, often through the night, George is described as a fumbling guitarist who can rarely get his often uninspired solos down in the first take. I realise Geoff worked with the Beatles for many years so I can only surmise that his writing is coloured by how well he got to know and got on with each individual Beatle. Paul comes way up at the top of the list, bordering on sycophancy sometimes, where George often comes in for unfair criticism. Everyone knows he was not an improvisational guitarist and meticulously worked out his solos, so that in early takes they could be pretty awful but by the finished product they were nothing less than inspired (Can't Buy Me Love is a good example). Credit where its due, Emerick somewhat begrudgingly acknowledges that by Abbey Road George had become an excellent guitarist and songwriter. I mention these criticisms because they did become somewhat irritating, especially in parts of the first half of the book. But overall, I found it unputdownable - it was fascinating reading accounts of how the songs were recorded, with very welcome first hand technical information. It was also very interesting to read the first hand accounts of how dreadful it became to work with the Fabs from The White Album onwards. Despite my little gripes, I would say this book is indespensable for anyone interested in The Beatles, and is far more insightful than most that I have read, both about the personalities of the individuals, and of the methods employed to record their amazing repertoire. I would also add that Geoff does state in the epilogue to this book that he had a great respect for George Harrison's musicianship and that he '...brought a new dimension to Beatles records and his contribution was inestimable.' Sadly Geoff died in October 2018, and I don't think you'll ever get a better account of the ups AND downs of working with the Beatles, so it now gets 5 stars from me. I know how deathly and claustrophic studios can be, but whoever thought it would be possible to dread getting out of bed to go and work with the Beatles?!!

Excellent. Perhaps too much technical jargon ( recording studio arcane info) but the author's observations of the Beatles atwork and the work of George Martin and the Abby Road studios and staff in interesting, informative and personable. Very engaging and hard to put down. Highly recommended for an intimate and different look at the Beatles.