Spitz spends several hundred pages on the formative years as Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison evolved from schoolboy band to the Quarry Men to the Beatles. Before settling on permanent drummer Ringo Starr, they shed notables such as the frail, artistic Stu Sutcliffe (awful on bass, a pro at image) and key loser Pete Best, the Beatles' penultimate drummer.
The usual ranking is Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, but it's not that simple. Spitz makes it clear that Lennon's drive and cold ambition got the Beatles off the ground, but he also suggests that McCartney was at least as talented, was a better musician, and kept things together (albeit in his own condescending way) in the middle and toward the end.
As early as 1961, when the Beatles' young manager, Brian Epstein, began to prettify them, their dynamic, with its built-in fault lines, was apparent. An early associate calls Paul ''Mr. Show Business," adding that Lennon ''greeted each concession, each nod to conformity, with unmasked hostility."
''That was the intricate nature of the band," Spitz writes. ''It put Paul and John at cross-purposes, terrific cross-purposes, that would grow in intensity over the years. Passing was the perfect harmony that marked their songwriting relationship. In its place was a distinction so contrary, a conflict so profound, that the friction it produced built up an armor. Both men schemed aggressively to impose their vision on the Beatles. Always there was Paul's need to impose their vision on the Beatles. Always there was Paul's need to smooth the rough edges and John's need to rough them up. Somehow, it drove them to fertile middle ground. But the constant compromise was ultimately a debilitating position, and the balance on both sides could not be sustained forever."
Spitz also gives credit where it's due, to Epstein and, above all, to George Martin, far more the ''Fifth Beatle" than sycophantic New York DJ Murray Kaufman, a.k.a. Murray the K. The remarkably open-minded Martin not only encouraged the group, he held it together during such glorious efforts as Rubber Soul and Revolver and such bitter non-collaborations as The White Album, a double LP that was brilliant, though it's the sound of things falling apart.
Article comments
1 - GoHah
"they seemed to speak as one voice, creating music that transcended category and embodied community"--insightful review of an insightful book. Thanks.
2 - justin Kreutzmann
Sounds like a good read for the man who's read everything Beatles.
Nice job.