Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #724909 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1196 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
There are, by now, approximately a thousand books on The Beatles in print, though few merit much serious attention. However, read in conjunction with Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Chronicle, Bill Harry's newly revised Beatles Encyclopaedia provides the perfect companion to the music.

As a teenage friend of John Lennon in Liverpool and the founder of Mersey Beat magazine--which gave The Beatles some of their first mentions in print--Harry has called upon a lifetime of Beatles' knowledge to furnish this 1,198 page book, making it one of the few indispensable books on that most influential of all rock'n'roll bands. The Beatles Encyclopaedia lists every song, gig and person connected with the Fab Four during their career together; and although not intended as a book to sit down and read from cover to cover, once you start dipping in, you'll just keep on going. Here are all the contenders for "fifth Beatle", the chart positions for those unforgettable singles, together with details of all their seismic albums; and the entries are peppered throughout with priceless nuggets of Beatle trivia: from the first time John, Paul, George and Ringo played together on disc (15 October 1960), to the last words uttered by the Beatles to a paying audience (28 August 1966).

From the start they truly were unique--and Harry quotes Mersey Beat columnist Bob Wooler, who recognised the fact as far back as 1961: "... the fantastic Beatles. I don't think anything like them will happen again." --Patrick Humphries

Synopsis
This encyclopedia provides a comprehensive guide to the band, containing details of the Beatles' history, records released, songs written and gigs played.

From the Publisher
The most comprehensive guide to the Beatles ever published
Mike Read says that "Bill Harry knows more about The Beatles than The Beatles know about themselves" and The Beatles Encylopedia, first published in 1992 and now fully revised and updated, contains every possible detail of the Beatles' career; every record released, every song written and every gig played. Yet this is far more than just a reference book. The Beatles Encyclopedia also includes biographies of 500 people associated with the group and reveals stories of love affairs, drugs, court cases and internal disputes - and provides the definitive last word on the deaths of Brian Epstein and Stuart Sutcliffe. The Beatles Encyclopedia remains the ultimate guide to the greatest band in the world.

Bill Harry is the world's leading authority on the Beatles - bar none. He attended Liverpool College of Art with John Lennon, and founded the seminal music paper Mersey Beat which helped launch the band in the early Sixties. He is the author of a number of books on The Beatles, including Beatlemania, The McCartney File, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Book of Lennon, and The Lennon Encyclopedia, the sister volume to The Beatles Encyclopedia, which will be published by Virgin in autumn 2000.

Customer Reviews

Please Ignore the Other Review
Of course this book is full of reference to other work; It's an encyclopedia of over a thousand pages. You cannot seriously suggest that this book is worthless - Bill Harry can't be expected to just write a book like that without consulting sources, can he?

Anyway, this is a very useful, handy guide that collates everything you need to know about the Beatles and puts it all in one place. The entries are clear, lucid and informative. Highly recommended.

This book is simply cobbled together from every other book!
Bill Harry calls himself an expert but all he does is open up every available book and magazine about the band and plunder them. What's more, he introduces errors while he's doing so. He undoubtedly has an impeccable pedigree -- such a pity, then, that he resorts to such tactics instead of doing original research.