Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #384199 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Synopsis
This is a fascinating memoir featuring never-before-told stories from the Beatles' recording engineer. The first biography from industry legend Geoff Emerick tells the story of his life as the Beatles' recording engineer. As a man who helped make history by working on the group's groundbreaking sound, including such albums as Sgt Pepper, Revolver and Abbey Road, this a story that all music fans have been waiting for. Joining forces with the Beatles for the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, hailed by Rolling Stone as the greatest album ever made, Geoff Emerick has been at the creation of music history for much of his career. In conjunction with the Beatles' constant quest for experimentation and new sounds, Emerick developed a slew of innovative recording techniques, many of which are still in use today. In "Here, There and Everywhere", Emerick tells his story for the first time, taking the reader through the hallowed corridors of Abbey Road Studios to give rare insights into the Beatles' unique creative processes and personalities and provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the greatest band of all time made their greatest records.

Emerick provides a startling picture of the Fab Four. Fascinating and moving, "Here, There and Everywhere" also illuminates the creative tensions within the band that fuelled their early success, but would ultimately lead them to record in separate studios while the partnership was disintegrating.

Customer Reviews

A warm, enjoyable read
This is book is a enjoyable read. Geoff (with Howard Massey) tell the much-told Beatle tale with few surprises but much incidental detail. A good deal is made of how the inter-departmental structures within EMI affected the initial recording sessions but were then subverted by the Fabs . Witty depictions of some of more colourful management types are succeeded later in the text by passing references to them as the sessions progress , thus saving us from copious bio notes to break the flow of the story.

A recent Blog reference tells of Elvis Costello spinning this book as an account of how little Geoff was credited during his time with the Beatles. In the book this is less emotively treated. We are told of how this was more or less the industry standard at the time. We are repeatedly told of George Martin passing on Geoff's opinons, from the control box, to the musicians without attribution. This , surely, could be explained by the producer merely exercising his role of incorporating all elements of his work and condensing for clarity.

We do get oodles of details about technical effects. Geoff is rarely shy about telling us how blinking marvellous he was in doing all kinds of ground-breaking technical things . It helps , I suppose , that the comments are entirely justified. Later in the book we hear about how Geoff and George went through the entire EMI/Beatle archive for the Anthologies project , a exercise which , perhaps , refreshed his memory. I did cross-reference some of the depictions with the Lewisohn/McDonald accounts , finding , in most cases , agreement. The account of the recording of The End ( from Abbey Road) is most interesting. McDonald queries aspects of the finish of the track - Geoff explains it as if responding to that account. Of course , it could be that there was no other way to tell it .

We get opinions on all the Fabs. John is the spiky, acerbic one , George the cagey , distant one , Paul the diplomatic , interested one and Ringo is quiet and does what he's told. So , no surprises there. The accounts of the early sessions are chockful of detail, really making you feel you were there. The account of the later ones , where Geoff was an intermittant presence , are are just as interesting. Between 1966 and 1970 The Beatles were , as he puts it , isolated in the awful building that housed the EMI studios and it was understandable how the pressurised situation eventually helped tear them apart.

This book is , as the title tells, primarily about the Fabs. We get some of Geoff's life story . He tells of how - as a child in Crouch End, London - he saw a UFO from his bedroom window. He knows it's hard believe but he saw it and thats that. Years later , in a break in a late night studio session, he discussed it with John and Paul , getting derison and acceptance in turn. We later learn of the the sad death from cancer of his wife , a few years before Linda McCartney and how that re-inforced the bond beween them. The account of recording Band On The Run in Africa is amusing and had me listening to it again from a new perspective. Incidentally Tug Of War is referred to as being Macca's first 'post Wings' album; what about McCartney II?

A page is given over to Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom. Geoff had been a fan of Elvis and was delighted to be asked to work with him etc. Were told of Elvis being 'almost as impatient as Lennon' , 'there was no " We need ten minutes to get a sound together" '. Geoff wanted to make Elvis' vocal stand out more , because his lyrics were so great thet deserved to heard more clearly. An amusing note tells of Steve Nieve composing a orchestral arrangement that required eighteen viola players. Geoff steered him away from that because ' the tricky thing would be finding eighteen top-notch viola players in London !'.

Howard Massey's involvement in the book is evident from the Americanisms that figure throughout. Though Geoff lived ( lives?) in Los Angeles for a while I just cannot believe that a Londoner would use 'gotten' as much is used here. Similarly , he quotes Lennon as saying that EMI should, during the 1967 'Pepper recordings , 'spring' for the cost of the orchestral sessions.

That quibble aside , this is a book well worth reading.

Next best thing
The story behind this group remains fascinating. It will be retold again and again, each time from a different perspective. This book by Geoff Emerick is great because it offers a candid and detailed insider's perspective. Reading the book is the next best thing to watching a movie of the making of all those legendary albums. You can almost see and hear how they were recorded and you can sense the chemistry of the people involved in bad and good times.

Read with a big pinch of salt!!
It is difficult to take much of this book seriously. I say this because Ken Scott was an engineer at Abbey Road at the time and he believes much of this book is fabricated and has many (i.e. over 100 'errors'. He actually says "Since copies of his book leaked out, there has been a movement from fans and EMI employees past and present; all are shocked at what Geoff is purported to say in this book, as SO much of it is untrue. There are long lists of factual errors being compiled around the world to be released when this book is published. (The last list I saw was well over 100 errors, and climbing as more people read the book)."

He adds "I cannot bring this missive to an end without mentioning the book's relentless tirade against George Harrison. As a second engineer I was on more Beatles sessions than Geoff and saw none of the problems talked about constantly, and as an engineer, the same. Sadly, George is not in a position to defend himself today. I think I know what his reaction would have been anyway... Mine is utter disgust.
This book is NOT accurate, it is not "the truth" and does not deserve to be supported. It is very damaging to the good reputations of such people as George Harrison, George Martin, John Lennon, Chris Thomas, Ringo Starr, Phil McDonald and the list goes on. The only one who is rarely mentioned negatively is Paul McCartney, the only one to have employed Geoff after the Beatles."

So enjoy this book if you are a fan of the Beatles but remember it is seriously flawed!