Abbey Road/Let It Be : The Beatles (Classic Rock Albums Series) - Softcover

Doggett, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0028647726 ISBN 13: 9780028647722

Publisher: Schirmer Trade Books, 1998

Synopsis

Presents the inside story of the recording sessions for "Abbey Road" and "Let It Be," and including interviews and reviews

About this title

From Library Journal:

These two titles fall in a new series on some of rock's most important albums. Doggett (Lou Reed: Growing Up in Public, Omnibus, 1992) bypasses the more obvious "Sgt. Pepper" and instead chronicles the agonizing death rattle that was the Beatles' 1969 "Get Back" project. The idea was to record and film the Beatles, stripped of any studio trickery, rehearsing for their first live performance in three years. Instead, apathy, dreadful working conditions, and inter-Beatle bickering turned the sessions into a public viewing of the group's self-destruction. Miraculously, a few months later the four Beatles became fab again, creating what may be their crowning achievement, "Abbey Road." Sixteen months after the original sessions Phil "Wall of Sound" Spector salvaged (some say ruined) the "Get Back" tapes in the form of the rechristened Let It Be album. Unfortunately, Doggett's unflinching examination is made somewhat redundant by Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt's more detailed Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of the Beatles "Let It Be" Disaster (LJ 7/97). The story of the Sex Pistols' one and only album is the story of the band itself. For all their rejection of 1970s rock excesses, it is to their chagrin that the enormously influential Never Mind the Bollocks took nearly the entire life span of the group to complete. Refreshingly, Heylin (Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry, LJ 5/1/95) and Antonia waste little print on the Pistols' notorious exploits and focus instead on the band's recording history. The authors leave the reader with a surprising appreciation for the Sex Pistols' musical ability and pop craftsmanship, distancing the band from the breakneck style of contemporaries like the Ramones. Both books are bolstered by annotated track listings and reprints of selected period reviews. Other albums treated in this series are Cream's Disraeli Gears and David Bowie's The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars. Recommended for most pop music collections.?Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., Stockton, CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Schirmer Trade Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0028647726
• ISBN 13: 9780028647722
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 172