The Beatles: In Their Own Words - A Book Review

 

I was looking for an inexpensive and quick-to-read Beatles book on Amazon last week to read on my flight home from Houston and The Beatles:  In Their Own Words by Barry Miles filled that bill perfectly.    The fact that it was compiled by Beatle friend and author, Miles really sealed the deal for me.  

However, this book was just a typical run-of-the-mill Beatles interview book.   I would think that I was familiar with 80% of the interviews in the book and I can't say that anything in the book was a surprise.   

The interviews are transcribed word for word and do not go in chronological order, but instead are by theme.  The themes were  The Beatles story, Press conferences, songwriting, the songs, the films, drugs & politics.   The time frames of the quotes seem to skip all over the place, but I wasn't sure what year each quote was from. 

I particular quotes that really hit home for me since I read this book shortly after heard "Now and Then" for the first time were these quotes by John:

"Beatlemusic is when we all get together..."  "So when the combination works you come out with what we call 'Beatlemusic.' Of course we don't write songs together anymore.  We haven't written together for two years.  Not really, anyway.  When The Beatles perform that makes it into Beatlemusic.  I mean it's a long time since we've sat down and written for many reasons. We used to write mainly on tours.  We got bored, so we wrote.  Today, the Beatles just go into the studio.  And IT happens!"

The Beatles:  In Their Own Words was interesting enough to read on the plane, but if you are looking for a book of transcripts of great Beatles interviews, this isn't the book.    There is a great book called Speaking Words of Wisdom that was self-published and has many more interviews than this Miles book does.   However, Miles' book was fine, even if you might be able to quote along with the words in the book at times. 

https://amzn.to/3Igzzl5

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The Indica Gallery

 

Happy birthday to Peter Asher!

 

A Homage to Dante

 Paul and Miles listen to composer Luciano Berio discuss his work on February 23, 1966 

Miles and Paul

 

Barry Miles getting down to work interview Paul during the writing of his amazing book, Many Years From Now

Happy birthday to Peter Asher!

Peter and Jane Asher buying books from Miles 

Country Raga?

Country Raga?
Dylan & Harrison  -  A Loose Session

By Miles

George Harrison sat in with Dylan at Columbia Studio B recently (early May) and during twelve hours of recording they laid down some oldies, some Beatles number and a number of new Dylan compositions, some of which were described as very beautiful love songs.  Bob Johnson's production was said to consist of him shouting "go!" every time it looked like Dylan was going to play something.  The engineer would then turn on the tape.

It was a loose session:  Russ Kunkel, who had flown in from L.A. to play drums, had never met Dylan or George before and wasn't familiar with the new numbers.  On one track he just blocked in behind Dylan, thinking it was a run through.  When they finished he was surprised when Dylan accepted the take as a master.  Another instance came when George thought aht one of Dylan's new numbers deserved a production job done on it and that they should work on it some.   After the first take Dylan asked, "Was it that rough?"  On being told that it wasn't that bed he decided to leave it at the first take.   If George can't persuade Dylan to work on his material then nobody can...So most of the tracks are first take only for that down-home, just-us-guys-hangin'-out-together sound.

The fate of these fabled tracks is unclear.  Presumably masterminds Al Grossman and Alan Klein will have to meet at last and work something out -- another historic meeting.  George fits in well with other groups:  his work with Delaney and Bonnie when they toured England, his track on Goodbye Cream, his productions and bass playing with the Apple artists, particularly Jackie Lomax, suggest that maybe he was being held back by the Beatles as well as john (who graduated to heavy rock), Ringo (who moved on to hollywood showbiz), Paul (stay at home musical genius).

 so far we haven't heard a solo album by George, his Electronic Music being his early experiments with a newly acquired Moog, and Wonderwalls being written for the movie.  A George solo album will be well worth waiting for, as well as completing the gap left by the other three Beatles solo albums.

George's direction, that of soul/gospel oriented, Indian sounding rock is unique and, if he has contributed musically to Dylan rather than jammed with him will provide us with a strange new combination;   country raga.  Far out eh?