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Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles |  | Authors: Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey
Publisher: Gotham
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Seller: feathersbooks
Rating:  201 reviews
Sales Rank: 3863
Media: Paperback
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1592402690
Dewey Decimal Number: 780
EAN: 9781592402694
ASIN: 1592402690
Publication Date: February 15, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9781592402694 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
Geoff Emerick became an assistant engineer at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in 1962 at age fifteen, and was present as a new band called the Beatles recorded their first songs. He later worked with the Beatles as they recorded their singles "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand," the songs that would propel them to international superstardom. In 1964 he would witness the transformation of this young and playful group from Liverpool into professional, polished musicians as they put to tape classic songs such as "Eight Days A Week" and "I Feel Fine." Then, in 1966, at age nineteen, Geoff Emerick became the Beatles chief engineer, the man responsible for their distinctive sound as they recorded the classic album Revolver, in which they pioneered innovative recording techniques that changed the course of rock history. Emerick would also engineer the monumental Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road albums, considered by many the greatest rock recordings of all time. In Here, There and Everywhere he reveals the creative process of the band in the studio, and describes how he achieved the sounds on their most famous songs. Emerick also brings to light the personal dynamics of the band, from the relentless (and increasingly mean-spirited) competition between Lennon and McCartney to the infighting and frustration that eventually brought a bitter end to the greatest rock band the world has ever known.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 201
 Really Two Brilliant Books in One: The Musical and Psychological Complexities of the Beatles January 31, 2010
DrMark
Emerick's perspective from the studio control booth is amazing. His competence as a musical engineer allows him to describe both the creative thinking and the technical challenges behind the Beatle's songs that wonderfully expands the reader's/listener's appreciation of their music. This book invites the reader to undertake a close listening and a thrilling, almost academic, study of various Beatle tracks and albums to clarify subtleties in their music that were not at all obvious before. This book is a tour de force for that reason alone but amazingly standing side-by-side to the musical discourse is Emerick's perspicuous insight into the Beatles individual personalities and the collective personality of the band. The impact of the four members on each other and those around them and vice-versa is brilliantly fleshed out, which made the complex normal and not-so-normal tensions that finally did the band in all the more sadly inevitable. Knowing full well the outcome, I still found myself rooting for a strong-willed individual somewhere in the Post-Sgt. Pepper madness to grab the band collectively by the collar and demand that they behave. Unfortunately no one asserted this authority and so we'll never know how much great music was lost because of the band's disintegration. Emerick captures the tragedy of the Beatles demise with stunning and gripping psychological depth, which makes this an absolutely brilliant book told in an pleasantly informal, unpretentious manner.
Best Beatle Book Read So Far January 30, 2010
B. Hill (VA)
I've read a lot of books about the Beatles through the years, The Beatles by Bob Spitz, Ticket to Ride by Larry Kane, Miss O'Dell, by Chris O'Dell (most disappointing book ever), Wonderful Tonight by Pattie Boyd, Many Years from Now by Barry Miles and John by Cynthia Lennon, to name a few. Never have I read a book that told what the Beatles are really are all about ...the MUSIC! How the songs came together, the ideas came about, who wrote, who played, who sang what, how the sounds were devised, etc.
And on top of all that how they, John, Paul, George and Ringo interacted with each other and the studio people during the making of these sounds from the eyes of someone not so close personally to any of them, at least in the beginning. While Geoff becomes friendly through the years with Paul, he never sugar coats their strengths or short comings nor does he bash anyone of them personally, he just tells it like, in his eyes & mind he saw it. He's obviously a people watcher who forms opinions as to why a person acts, reacts or interacts in a particular way and I liked hearing that side of the Beatle story. He did not socialize outside the studio with them so it's strickly from a working stand point and I found it fascinating!
As a bonus I learned so much about how a record is made, not a simple task of getting a group together in a recording studio, everyone singing the song together a couple of times & picking the recording that sounds the best... oh no, much, much, MUCH more is involved! Now I listen to the songs again & again trying to pick up the special effects and sounds he mentions in the book. I only wished he had more songs to tell us about! It was like being a fly on the wall! I LOVED this one!
 From the Control Booth January 30, 2010
Dr. Thomas E. Parker (Chico, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Initially I was very taken by Geoff Emerick's story of his role as recording engineer for some of The Beatles' later albums. There is a lot to like about this book with its bird's eye view of the recording process, sitting elbow to elbow with George Martin, and explaining some of the innovations forced by the creativity of The Beatles and their restless demands for new sounds, especially in view of the stodgy conservatism of EMI. So hats off to Emerick for facilitating some of this great music by breaking rules left and right and experimenting intuitively to get the sounds they were groping for. Clearly he was a very creative sound engineer, just the ticket for this very creative group of musicians. I also enjoyed the story of his coming of age as a recording engineer. However his tone sours as the book goes on, to the extent that I found myself having to push through about the last third. I suppose this is fair enough given the souring of relations among The Beatles, but it doesn't make for very good reading. Apparently Emerick was a sensitive plant who couldn't bear the fall from grace of his heroes into pettiness and quarrelling.
But I was very surprised by how harsh Emerick is on George Harrison. Of course he was there, I wasn't. But if George Harrison's musicianship was really as limited and plodding as Emerick describes, it's hard to see how he would have come this far with this quick thinking, quick witted, musically restless and somewhat impatient bunch of musicians. Emerick describes Harrison as taking hours trying to work out a "Taxman" solo, only to have Paul say let me give it a go, and then rip off that smashing solo in two takes or so. Well, like I said, Emerick was there, but this view of Harrison permeates the book, it's not just about Paul grabbing the spirit of one song more quickly. I find this view of Harrison ungenerous and have to wonder about its accuracy. Sure, I sometimes ask the question "when did George stop being Carl Perkins and become himself?" And I find the tone of superiority that characterizes more than a few of his songs a bit tedious at times. But is it really true that he was so far behind his band mates as a musician that they had to cover for him? He certainly holds his own in the middle spot of that wonderful, single take, 3 guitar stand off in "The End" on Abbey Road.
It seems like every book I read on The Beatles as a group or as individuals, has this same kind of myopia. Is this a requirement of the genre - to establish for posterity which one was the lesser musician, or the odd man out, or the one to blame for whatever you want to blame them for. Geesh - like Lennon said later, "we were just a rock band that made it very, very big." One of the great understatements of all time, but right to the point in insisting that they were just four people making music together. The important words here are people and together. All this talk about which one's the genius (was it Lennon, was it McCartney, was it Martin), is useless and beside the point. What is the point? The point is the alchemy of four people making music together. And in that there will always be an element of mystery.
 Geoff Emerick drops a safe on George Harrison January 12, 2010
Tom L. Huffman (Rockville, MD United States)
First, let me say that I must have read a dozen books about the Beatles through the years and this is perhaps the best. It does something other books haven't managed: it gives a vivid sense of the individual Beatles as persons and how they interacted with one another. However, this real strength of the book is also, I think, its biggest weakness. I can almost imagine Mr. Emerick's editor telling him: "Geoff, you've got to spice this story up, give it some color and controversy." Acting on this marketing advice, GE provides very colorful and candid assessments of the four people who were The Beatles.
Geoff Emerick was a junior sound engineer for EMI present during the early Beatles recordings. Unfortunately, he was not present during the recording of Help! and Rubber Soul. But in 1966 he was promoted and became the primary engineer for Revolver and then Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour sessions. Unable to deal with the constant bickering, he resigned part way through the White Cover sessions, though he returned for Abbey Road. Because he was an eyewitness to these events, he was in a unique position to offer an inside look at the chemistry and artistry of The Beatles in the studio.
The problem is that he let his personal feelings color his descriptions of the four, or at least that's how it seemed to this reader. For example, he clearly had (and has) the warmest personal feelings for Paul. He even reports that he thought that the other Beatles saw him as "Paul's guy". At the same time, he clearly thought very little of both George Harrison and Ringo Starr, both personally and musically. Thus, his descriptions of them are often phrased in a gratuitously negative tone, especially in the case of Harrison.
Interestingly, I think that his most objective description is of Lennon. Unlike his take on the others, Emerick didn't seem to have strong personal feelings one way or the other about Lennon. The passages that discuss Lennon are often presented in the tone of an interested observer viewing a fascinating phenomenon with and almost scientific detachment. GE found Lennon fabulously talented and complicated who could be extremely moody, gyrating between kindness and rage, but difficult to interact with in a warm, genuine way.
When discussing Paul, he is almost always complimentary. He perceived Paul as the leader of the group, at least in the studio, and he also thought Paul was the most musically talented of the group, a claim that has been made by many others. However, even through the constant praise he heaps on McCartney, a few insightful criticisms barely emerge. For example, despite the fact that he describes McCartney as the most friendly of the four, he also lets it slip that--unlike Lennon who was receptive to constructive criticism--McCartney reacted poorly to any criticism from the others. So, too, when George needed help on a song, Paul was unavailable. John, on the other hand, though he often treated George as barely more than a little brother, would give a hand when asked. McCartney was also apparently quite assertive in asking his bandmates to play in a very particular way. One can easily see why this combination of qualities--bossy, unhelpful, and overly sensitive to criticism--might make for a not too pleasant combination.
However, the most pointed personal comments are reserved for his almost constant carping about George Harrison. I have collected a series of examples of Emerick's nearly unbounded hostility towards Harrison, and, to a lesser degree, Ringo Starr. I quote him exactly.
"The song being rehearsed was soulful and was sung with great feeling by John, but it had a very slow tempo and was marred by a clumsy phrase that George Harrison played over and over again on guitar, repetitive to the point of annoyance."
On Please Please Me, p. 52-53.
"Once the vocals were recorded, however, there was another snag: Harrison's over-dubbed guitar solo, which was particularly uninspired."
On That Boy, p. 75.
"The weak link that particular day was George Harrison, who seemed even more ham-fisted than usual as he gamely plowed his way through one mediocre guitar solo after another."
On A Hard Day's Night P. 83
Here's an example of how a positive observation about Harrison gets turned into a back-hand criticism.
"I loved the added dimension George Harrison's twelve-string playing brought to their sound, and I was impressed with many of his guitar solos. Given the experience we'd had doing the title track, I wondered how long it took to record them. Probably the only reason George Martin allowed a less-than-sparkling solo to make it to record was that it was taking Harrison too long to get it right, and they must have just given up, settling for what they had.
On A Hard Day's Night album p. 86
"The stumbling block again was Harrison's guitar solo--not the notes he was playing, but the odd, sped-up tremolo sound he was using, in faithful imitation of the Dr. Feelgood version that had been a minor hit a couple of years previously. Lennon thought the unconventional sound was terrific-- and, personally, so did I--but George Martin insisted that it was simply too weird. After some discussion, it was decided to overdub a cheesy organ solo instead. Even though I loathed the sound, I was most impressed to see Paul playing it--up until that point, I'd had no idea that he could even play keyboards."
On Mr. Moonlight p. 93
"But I found Harrison's simpleminded eight-note solo--not even a solo, really just the melody line--downright embarrassing. He wasn't even supposed to play that solo: for the first few takes, John did it, on acoustic guitar. Despite the overall good vibe of the day, George Harrison seemed annoyed, perhaps because he hadn't been given much to do. At one point he marched into the control room and complained loudly, "You know, I'd like to do the solo on this one. I am supposed to be the lead guitarist in this band, after all."
I thought it was a pompous thing to say, but George Martin reluctantly gave his assent, pretty much just to get the pouting guitarist out of his hair. Paul and John went along with it good-naturedly, even though nobody was satisfied with the result--you can almost hear Harrison thinking about what note to play next. He wasn't happy either, and he wanted to make another attempt at it, but a weary and slightly annoyed George Martin finally put his foot down, saying, "No, we have to move on."
Even as a seventeen-year-old sitting in the machine room who couldn't play a lick of guitar myself, I felt that George Harrison could have come up with something better than that."
On I'll Follow the Sun p. 96
"He struck me as a dour, humorless man who complained a lot, and he always seemed suspicious of everyone outside of the Beatles' inner circle. He didn't interact or converse with me very much, even when we were working on one of his songs."
On George's personality, p. 101
"George was more of a loner; he was the outsider in a way. As the "bottom tier" Beatles, he and Ringo seemed to have developed a strong friendship, and I often saw him huddled with Lennon, working out guitar parts, but I rarely noticed much positive interaction between George and Paul. Paul sometimes actually seemed a bit embarrassed by Harrison's musical limitations; certainly there were many instances of eye-rolling when poor George was wrestling unsuccessfully with a solo or lead part. I imagine in those circumstances that Paul was frustrated, probably thinking that he could have mastered the part faster and played it better."
On George's musical limitations, p. 102
"Even from the earliest days, I always felt that the artist was John Lennon and Paul McCartney, not the Beatles. That seemed obvious in the recording studio, especially with the way that George Harrison would have difficulty with trying his guitar solos and Ringo would trip over drum fills."
On George and Ringo's musical limitations p. 104
"I thought that George's strongest song on Revolver was "Taxman," and George Martin must have agreed, since he decided to put it first on the album--the all-important spot generally reserved for the best song, since the idea is to try to capture the listener immediately. . . . There was a bit of tension on that session, though, because George had a great deal of trouble playing the solo-- in fact, he couldn't even do a proper job of it when we slowed the tape down to half speed.
After a couple of hours of watching him struggle, both Paul and George Martin started becoming quite frustrated--this was, after all, a Harrison song and therefore not something anyone was prepared to spend a whole lot of time on. So George Martin went into the studio and, as diplomatically as possible, announced that he wanted Paul to have a go at the solo instead. I could see from the look on Harrison's face that he didn't like the idea one bit, but he reluctantly agreed and then proceeded to disappear for a couple of hours. . . . Paul's solo was stunning in its ferocity--his guitar playing had a fire and energy that his younger bandmate's rarely matched--and was accomplished in just a take or two."
On the Taxman guitar solo, p. 126
"The Sgt. Pepper theme song was completed in a remarkably short space of time--just two days, including all vocals--despite the fact that George Harrison spent hours try to nail down the guitar solo. In the end, Paul peremptorily replaced George's work with a stunning solo of his own, which Harrison was clearly not very happy about."
On the Sgt Pepper theme song p. 151-152.
"None of us never really appreciated how difficult the sitar was to play. Despite the fact that George was quite accomplished, it did always seem to take a lot of time to get his parts recorded whenever he picked the instrument up."
On Within You, Without You, p. 186
His complete lack of regard for Harrison is emphasized by the way he describes even those guitar solos he thought were good, such as Harrison's work on the live broadcast of "All You Need is Love". Even successful efforts are described in an extremely negative fashion.
"In an act of further defiance, John and Paul even talked George Harrison into doing his guitar solo live, which we all knew was a tricky proposition. To my surprise, Harrison gave in without a whole lot of argument; my sense was that he was afraid of being embarrassed in front of his bandmates."
All you need is Love, p 205
"At one point during the camera rehearsals, I noticed George Harrison engaged in conversation with the television director for quite a long time. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I did notice during the broadcast that the camera was not trained on George during his guitar solo. Perhaps he requested that specifically, either because he didn't have confidence in his playing, or because he felt it was likely that he would replace the part later."
All you need is love p., 207
"Paul's playing, as always, was solid, with no gaffes, and even George Harrison's solo was reasonably good, though he did hit a clunker at the end."
All you need is love p. 209
"Ringo was just uptight all the time, or perhaps it was just an act to keep me at a distance. The problem was that I never knew if I was talking to the actual person underneath the veneer or not. He always seemed uncomfortable carrying on a conversation. He'd take it only so far and then he would inevitably back off, breaking things off in some abrupt or even nasty way. Ringo may have come across as lighthearted and jolly in his public appearances--or whenever there was a film camera rolling--but I never found him to be very genuine, or much fun to be around."
On Ringo's personality p. 311
My bottom line? For Beatles aficionados this book is a must-read. However, be prepared to take the nearly constant swipes at Harrison with a rather large grain of salt.
Positively loved the book January 9, 2010
BeatleMan (Jenison, MI)
Geoff Emerick has provided the most insight of what is was like to be in the studio with a Beatles. By far the best I have ever read. It was the first book I purchased for our new Kindle and I read it voraciously in just a week's time.
Emerick lets his readers know the graciousness of McCartney, the untechnical, moody but talented Lennon and the struggles of Harrison and Starr to live up to expections of their more talented bandmates.
A great read!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 201
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