Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 5 Beatles from Liverpool April 21, 2009
Nissen
If you are a Beatle fan buy it if you can find it.
This is the story about how 5 Liverpool Lads gets a job in
Hamburg, and goes to big fame.
The story is told by their first manager, with a nice sense of humor.
A single fact isn't correct, is wasn't Paul and George who went to jail
in Hamburg but Paul and Pete.
This book is also mentioned at The Beatles Story in Liverpool, and it is
told that John has read it and had a good laugh.
It also tells how the world got to know the Live Star Club Recordings from
Hamburg just before the Fab Four became very big.
Buy it.
 One of the best Beatle book February 22, 2009
J. Keeton (Douglasville, GA USA)
This is a very enjoyable book and one of the Best Beatle books. "The Longest Cocktail Party" and "Many Years From Now" are also my favorites.
Lost Treasure May 22, 2005
Paperbag Rider (Cincinnati)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I don't think this obscure title ever made it into hardcover. Its circulation life must have been very short before having gone out of print. What a shame. I consider it one of the best books about the Beatles I've ever read, maybe the best (and I've read quite a few).
This title weighs the creative influences that went into the Fab Four pre-fame, a story not told anywhere else. For example, what did John & Paul learn in art school that they applied to their music? Would anyone guess Picasso had anything to do with it? That story is told here. With this book you can play fly on the wall during the Hamburg days. I found it completely absorbing. In short, I cannot recommend this gem enough.
Five Stars?? But Yes!! April 9, 2003
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
How could I give 5 stars to a boozy little clod of memoirs like this? Easy. Since there are probably thousands of books written about the Beatles, it stands to reason that there must be a few good ones in the bunch: and I've looked for them. THIS is one of those few: it actually tells stories we haven't heard before, with the impressive authority of Allan Williams, a clubowner and crucial promoter of Merseyside Beat music. His barstool companion chat about the old days fills a long volume of stories that are Fun, Fun, Fun! in a grimy, speedy sort of way. I recommend this book to just about everyone, because it's just plain fun, with enough bittersweet musings to make the whole thing edifying to read. But I especially recommend it to people who HATE the Beatles, because you will see them in appealingly different ways from the Legend: awkward, goofy, drunk, mean, broke, cheap, powerless, and vulnerable. All too human. As is Williams himself, who proves to be utterly empathetic as well as entertaining, and who hopefully made a bit of money off this book. Every modern rocker who reads this should end up enthralled by the unexpectedly punk rock early years of these stone gods. Even a disinterested nonrocker would find the hardscrabble life of Williams to be intriguing and a little bit heart-wrenching. This book surpasses in scope all the typical "chronicle of (x) times with the Beatles" and proves to be an intriguing illumination of success, failure, aspiration and hope. It's a tragedy that it's out of print while so many tiresome retellings of the band's halcyon days go on and on in endless repetition. Buy this one; it's well worth it.
1 of a few books on this fascinating period October 21, 2001
Puao Teo (san lorenzo, california United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I first heard of this book back in 1976, John Lenon said in an interview how the Hamburg days were his funnest as a Beatle, & if anyone wanted to know about them they should get this book. Since then 2 other books have come out about the period,"Beatle", by Pete Best, & "The Beatles Live", by Mark Lewisohn. Taken all together, the 3 books paint a vivid picture of one of the greatest stories in rock n roll history,(a side of the Beatles that Brian Epstein did his best to hide from the public when he took over from Williams as their manager)by the way, in the film "Hard days night", the character of the Beatles manager was based on Alan Williams, not on epstien.Alun Owen, the screenwriter for the film is also a godparent to alan williams kids. Epstein brought the Beatles to America, but 4 years earlier it was Williams who had brought them to Hamburg,where they played 6+ hours a night & forged the sound that would take over the world. But to his credit, it was Epestein who saw their potential as the greatest act in all of rock music, not Williams.
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