JOHN, PAUL, GEORGE, RINGO & ME; THE REAL BEATLES STORY

Liverpool-born author Tony Barrow worked beside The Beatles as the world-famous group's own public relations man through each exciting phase of their dazzling career in the sixties. His up-close-and-personal profiles of John, Paul, George, and Ringo probe their true personalities and reveal their amazing lifestyles as no other book has done Barrow gives a devastatingly honest, powerfully authoritative, and absolutely credible eyewitness account of how his history-making clients acted in and out of the spotlight. Also published here for the first time is his astonishing collection of photographs, including candid snapshots taken in the sanctuary of dressing rooms and hotel suites from where press and paparazzi were excluded. Barrow watched the Beatles' "greatest gig of all" at New York's Shea Stadium and, at Paul's request, he made a personal souvenir recording of The Beatles' final concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. The author lets his quirky Liverpudlian sense of humor run all through the text because "rock 'n' roll was never invented to be taken too seriously."

A career-long professional writer and PR consultant, Tony Barrow was The Beatles' publicist between 1962 when they issued their first single "Love Me Do", and 1968, when they set up their own management company.

Barrow coined The Beatles' nickname the "Fab Four", wrote the sleeve notes for a number of the group's album covers, set up their huge international press conferences, selected their media interviews and fixed up their photo shoots at home and abroad during the touring years, and finally collaborated with Paul McCartney in 1967 to compile the cartoon-strip story booklet that came with The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour recordings. He is one of a tiny handful of surviving eyewitnesses able to write a first-hand account of life within The Beatles' close-knit entourage and the only remaining professional writer from that circle.

Few were closer to The Beatles than Tony Barrow, and this is not merely a biography of the Fab Four, but a unique and vividly personal memoir by an author who knew John, Paul, George and Ringo as friends throughout the height of their fame.