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Annotation:

Ian Wright was a pop photographer in the 1960s and captured many stars, including the Beatles, on film when working in the northeast of England. Wright's work periodically appears in exhibitions, the latest being in London 2009. His early work is perhaps of most interest, for while it is not 'artistic' in the way one might describe (say) the 'Peter Kaye' shots, Wright's photographs are incredibly vibrant and atmospheric and seem to capture the excitement of those package tours through Britain in the 1963-1965 period extremely well.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

This work contains several different parental-children anecdotes, including material provided by Paul and Stella McCartney.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

This work contains several different parental-children anecdotes, including material provided by Paul and Stella McCartney.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation (Part 1 of 2):

Ilson was a television producer in the 1970s after getting his start with the Ed Sullivan Show in 1963. In the late 1990's, Ilson took a PhD from New York University and the cultural aspects of the Sullivan Show formed the basis for his dissertation: 'High Cultural Aspects of The Ed Sullivan Show (1948-1971) and how it affected Cultural Diffusion in the United States'. This combination of an insider's perspective and an understanding of cultural context puts Ilson in the position of being able to examine the cultural impact of the long-running show in a decidedly unique way.

Today, little is known about the often caricaturized Sullivan who undoubtedly contributed to his image by the delight he took in presenting comedians on the show who mimicked his stilted style, mannerisms and malapropisms. The premise of the show (something for everyone: a comic, a singer, a juggler, a pretty girl, and a dancing bear) was dismissed by some as 'vaudevision', merely the latest incarnation of old-time entertainment, but although Sullivan took pains to ensure there was 'something for the kiddies', the show provided much more. Sullivan had a sixth sense about what the public wanted and his radio
show, 'Cavalcade of Stars', was one of the first to make the transition to television in the early days when networks and programmers.

Right from the start, Sullivan insisted on scheduling opera stars like Leontyne Price (and later, Beverly Sills) as frequently as Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald, once devoting an 18-minute segment to Maria Callas's debut in Tosca. He presented dramatic excerpts from Broadway plays, such as Mr. Roberts and Anne of the Thousand Days; Alfred Lunt, Noel Coward, and Helen Hayes did dramatic readings. Louis Armstrong and Van Cliburn all found an audience on the Sunday night show. Viewers were exposed to rich ethnic and early feminist humor (Woody AlIen, Bill Cosby, and Carol Burnett were among countless other Jewish, black, and female comedians who had their earliest television exposure on his show). Leonard Bernstein and Burt Bacharach were valued equally to Sullivan, who had an early understanding that popular culture had worth and meaning.

He broadcast from outside the United States; from the Kremlin and Berlin in the depth of the Cold War, even during the McCarthy era, negotiating appearances by the Bolshoi Ballet, as well as other Russian theatre troupes. Yes, there was the night Sullivan, standing in the wings, grew so entranced by the performance of Rupert the Bear onstage that he nearly became part of the animal's act, and the host did routinely kiss Topo Gigio goodnight at the end of the rodent puppet's routine. But he also broadcast an interview he taped after flying a small crew to Cuba and driving three hours into the island's interior war zone to get the first post-revolution meeting with Fidel Castro in January 1959.

Sullivan also had a reputation for being 'color-blind' presenting Afro-American stars, sports figures, and personalities on stage and from within the audience, often to the consternation of his tobacco company sponsors in the South. Anyone who saw the Beatles perform from the Deauville Hotel in Miami in their second Sullivan Show appearance (February 16, 1964) would note that although the audience is solidly white, Sullivan goes out of his way to introduce African-American boxers Joe Louis and Sonny Liston from the audience. Television's first integrated chorus line danced on Sullivan's show in 1961 and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, widow of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. made an appeal for racial tolerance just weeks after the assassination. Sullivan's standard was talent and appeal: if someone had those two things, he was adamant: "Nobody tells me who to book on my stage." In the end, the southern sponsors couldn't argue with the ratings
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Ilson covers the three famous Beatle shows in February of 1964, although he presents the oft-told mixture of myth and memory that Sullivan favored, rather than the more plausible and verifiable reality presented by James Maguire in impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan (see within, Maguire, James). Still, there is no doubt that the Beatles could not have taken the next step in what now seems their inevitable progression from Liverpool to London to the world stage, had it not been for the Sullivan Show. Quite simply, there was no other venue in the world that could give them the exposure in as favorable light ("Four of the nicest youngsters we've ever had on our show" Sullivan told the audience), to as wide a demographic (the policy of presenting something for every member of the family paid off), or to sheer numbers (73.9 million viewers; over 40% of the American population).

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Annotation (Part 2 of 2):

After the Beatles three record-breaking appearances, Sullivan followed up by being the first to give other British Invasion acts exposure on American television: Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits, The Dave Clark Five, The Animals, and Petula Clark. He is often pilloried for asking the Rolling Stones to alter the lyric, 'Let's spend the night together' to 'Let's spend some time together', for their 1967 appearance, however when taken in context - the BBC would ban 'A Day in the Life' that same year finding objectionable the phrase 'I'd love to turn you on' - Sullivan does not seem entirely out of place with the times. What is lost is an understanding of the value of the Sullivan show as a venue in the first place, which was inestimable even to the 'bad boy' Rolling Stones.

Personal insight into Sullivan and anecdotes about the shows make this text an essential volume for background into why the Sullivan appearances were so significant to the Beatles and other British Invasion groups that followed. Recommended, especially when read alongside Maguire's excellent biography, which does, by the way, provide the 'real' story of how Sullivan first learned about the Beatles and booked them for that first appearance.

Melissa Davis

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

How is popular music culture connected with the life, image, and identity of a city? How, for example, did the Beatles emerge from within Liverpool, how did they come to be categorized as part of Liverpool culture and identity and used to develop and promote the city, and how have connections between the Beatles and Liverpool been forged and contested? This book explores the relationship between popular music and the city using Liverpool as a case study.

Firstly, it examines the impact of social and economic change within that city on its popular music culture, focusing on de-industrialization and economic restructuring during the 1980s and 1990s. Secondly, it considers the specificity of popular music culture and the many diverse ways in which it influences city life and informs the way the city is thought about, valued and experienced. Cohen highlights popular music's unique role and significance in the making of cities, and illustrates how de-industrialization encouraged efforts to connect popular music to the city, to categorize, claim and promote it as local culture, and harness and mobilize it as a local resource. In doing so, she adopts an approach that recognizes music as a social and symbolic practice encompassing a diversity of roles and characteristics: music as a culture or way of life distinguished by social and ideological conventions; music as sound; speech and discourse about music; and music as a commodity and industry.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

How is popular music culture connected with the life, image, and identity of a city? How, for example, did the Beatles emerge from within Liverpool, how did they come to be categorized as part of Liverpool culture and identity and used to develop and promote the city, and how have connections between the Beatles and Liverpool been forged and contested? This book explores the relationship between popular music and the city using Liverpool as a case study.

Firstly, it examines the impact of social and economic change within that city on its popular music culture, focusing on de-industrialization and economic restructuring during the 1980s and 1990s. Secondly, it considers the specificity of popular music culture and the many diverse ways in which it influences city life and informs the way the city is thought about, valued and experienced. Cohen highlights popular music's unique role and significance in the making of cities, and illustrates how de-industrialization encouraged efforts to connect popular music to the city, to categorize, claim and promote it as local culture, and harness and mobilize it as a local resource. In doing so, she adopts an approach that recognizes music as a social and symbolic practice encompassing a diversity of roles and characteristics: music as a culture or way of life distinguished by social and ideological conventions; music as sound; speech and discourse about music; and music as a commodity and industry.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Review by Ernie Sutton in Issue 80 of the British Beatles Fan Club Magazine (with acknowledgement):

This new book looks at the life of Paul McCartney. It is a book that I would not recommend. At £14.99 it is overpriced and is poorly written in parts. It says in the book that Paul's marriage to Heather Mills was divorced in London in 2008. This should read dissolved. There are also factual errors in the book. An example of this is that it states Ringo and Paul worked together on the Concert for New York City. Ringo never appeared at that show.

This is one of the worst books I have read. One to avoid.

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Annotation:

Peter Grant is a renowned arts and entertainments journalist based on Merseyside. This low-priced monograph with a soft cover was produced by the publishers of the Liverpool Daily Post and Liverpool Echo newspapers, for whom Grant worked for many years. It is essentially an adequate picture book with a modicum of narrative and is for Beatles book completists only.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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A fascinating insight into a great man's mind, whilst in the midst of great historical events.

This is an "autobiography" constructed from Martin Luther King's personal writings, articles, and letters, and assembled in chronological order, that very much feels like a pre-planned memoir or autobiography, and certainly offers a very open, honest, and candid testament of a great man of peace.

The abiding impression that you take from this, is that he was far from a superhuman icon of the ages, which most of us will only see as an historical figure, but rather, quite simply, a man...

...A man of course, of great conviction and faith, but weak and fragile too... having had a great path laid before him, he often has his moments of doubt, about how to walk that path, or even if he should, as well as struggling with the odd moments of ego, that comes from being lauded constantly as the great hero.

And so, his true heroism as he himself presents it here, is not that of being infallible, or not susceptible to fear, but finding the courage to endure, and overcome his own fears and doubts, even when those around him were wavering and seemingly were prepared to abandon a non-violent path to freedom, and also the very evident self-awareness of his own ego, which left unchecked, might have gotten the better of him, as it has many other great men of "destiny"...

...Indeed, this for me, is the most impressive thing about him that I took form this book, his constant self examination, recognition, and correction of his faults... a constant self-redeemer.

The steadfast support of family, friends, colleagues, his faith, and the teachings of Ghandi, which he frequently references, also deserve the credit he bestows upon them.

A great opportunity to look at such a figure from the inside out, rather than the more traditional presentation of a cardboard cut-out archetypal hero, or worse, a self-mythologizing piece of self promotion, as and when such megalomaniacs occasionally choose to confer a testament of their own perfect brilliance on us.

A great read too, about the events around him, as witnessed from his point of view.

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Annotation:

The subtitle reads: '500 questions and answers about the Beatles, their lives and times and contemporaries in the pop world and their home city of Liverpool' - not strictly' Beatles', then! This small quiz book is one of a series of three, all conceived, designed and researched by Pam and John Blanchfield of the Ellesmere Port-based Keyprints Press (Little Sutton being a district of that Cheshire town) and published during Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year 2008. It was mostly for sale in and around Merseyside shops and sold rather poorly. The text therefore, was not widely distributed, which is a pity for it is a well-researched and nicely designed volume of some 60 pages. There are one or two interesting errors, however! If you can pick up a copy, see if you can spot them. Not to be taken overly seriously, yet these Keyprints texts are actually a lot of fun (and better than most).

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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it's a balmy evening, and the ss splendide is taking her customers on a leisurely cruise through tropical seas; unfortunately, their chief cook is the former head chef of the hotel splendide the crew'd rescued from the sea as they were passing the place where the alien who'd abducted him had dumped him;

- and - once again - it is the night of the full moon. . .

a multi-plotted novel told in full-colour, double-page plates without words - and a second tour-de-force.

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Annotation:

Kevin Courrier has, since 1990, been a writer/broadcaster and film critic at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He is also the author of three best-selling books: Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion with Susan Green (1997); Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa (2002), which won the Finalist Prize for Best Biography at the 2003 Independent Publisher's Awards; as well as Randy Newman's American Dreams (2005). Courrier currently contributes movie reviews to Box Office magazine in Los Angeles, and has written about film and popular culture for both The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.

Courrier takes as his starting point February 11, 1963 when the Beatles recorded 'There's a Place'. Courrier argues that this song firmly laid a foundation on which a vast utopian dream of the 1960s would be built. However his thesis suggests that within that dream, there also lay the seeds of a darker, dystopian vision that would emerge from the very counter-culture that the Beatles and their music helped create. Courrier posits that the disillusionment with these unachievable goals of the 1960s and the rock myth directly associated with the Beatles, culminated in the attacks on John Lennon and George Harrison by deranged and obsessive fans.

In 'Artificial Paradise' Courrier examines how the Beatles helped not only to create the promise of an inclusive culture built on the principles of pleasure and fulfillment, but also develop the potential for arrested development among those adherents who were clinging to the wreckage of the ill-formed messages emanating from the 1960s counter-culture. By taking us through the Beatles catalogue, Courrier illustrates how the group's startling impact on popular culture built a bond with audiences that was so strong, many today continue to either nostalgically cling to it, or struggle (sometimes violently) to escape its influence.

This is an interesting exposition - well written and lucid, that demands the attention of those who might still see the Beatles as demi-gods, and the 1960s as a kind of second romantic era, without looking at the dystopian realities offered by such 'utopian dreams'. Its major problem is that it does not carry a proper historical perspective, concentrating rather too heavily on the Beatles' North American profile rather than their status in Britain.

Were one to consider matters more from a British perspective, one might discover two important areas that do not effectively support his thesis: firstly, that much of the British counter-culture of the late 1960s had all-but abandoned the Beatles as representatives of authentic youth culture, preferring instead the more Marxist-Leninist interpretation that mass produced youth culture was a passive false consciousness (the highly politicised British folk revival was at its most virulent at this time). Secondly, that the erosion of adulthood of which Courrier speaks did not manifest itself in Britain in the same way as it did across North America. British youth has always been less' loyal' to their popular music icons than their American counterparts - hence the 'arrivals' of new icons Slade, T. Rex, David Bowie et al in Britain as the new decade dawned. Notwithstanding the above, this is definitely worth a read.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

This is an interesting oddity, written by the author of The Marilyn Scandal. Shevey interviewed John and Yoko in the very early 1970s and recorded over four hours of material. She then proceeded to do nothing with the interview for the rest of the decade only to rediscover the source in the 1980s. Shevey used it as the basis for a text, and proceeded to track down other interviewees such as David Nutter, Eleanor Bron, Virginia Harry (one of her very rare interviews), John Junkin, and Sid Bemstein. All of this sounds extremely promising, but we are mysteriously disappointed by a flimsy, inaccurate piece of work that, in the first case, does not contextualise the interview material at all well (it transpired during Lennon's most bitter period, perhaps?) and secondly does not cross reference or check the ethnography. The result ('I do still like him but it's like saying you like Hitler') is a tired piece of work with innumerable factual errors – a lost opportunity, to be sure.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanied this McBean exhibition. The catalogue included an interview with Paul McCartney about the photographers of the 1960s - which makes it of interest to the researcher and somewhat collectible. It retailed in 2006 for £25, with a Gallery price of £20.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

What might appear at first glance to be a fairly lightweight, superficial coffee table book actually reveals upon closer examination to be rather more than that. The author was at pains to use authentic primary sources to depict the group's pre-fame years rather than relying on regurgitated, inaccurate information and shares his collection of original material, programmes, tickets, correspondence and private interviews with some of the key players. Of great interest is the record collection of one female fan who purchased the entire Beatles live set, prior to their recording deal, via the 45rpm releases by the original artists - thus making the originals, the 'covers' (as it were). This is a truly fascinating perspective on the semiotic power of the Beatles' live act in Liverpool. Written several years ago, it can now no longer be described as a 'definitive' text, with further sources having increasingly thrown new light onto certain topics. Nevertheless, Pawlowski's work is definitely worthy, despite the irritating absence of an index.

Angela Ballard, Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

This is a photograph compilation from the renowned Liverpool photographic studios trading under the name of 'Peter Kaye'. This moniker was the commercial name of photographer Bill Connell. The photos included here of the Beatles just prior to their major success in Britain are fascinating social documents, providing as they do a backdrop of dereliction, riverine and post-industrial wastelands, and burnt-out cars. These enduring images should be placed alongside concepts that many British people held of Liverpool in the post-WWII era, both wittingly and unwittingly fostered by the media, as a declining city and it continues to be of interest that few, if any pictures were taken in (say) leafy, suburban Woolton. Dereliction obviously had far more cache in that 'British kitchen sink movie' era of the late 1950s and early 1960s than the inter-war fringe development of Menlove Avenue. British TV and film directors often used the city as a signifier of decay and decline. For example, the TV work of Dennis Mitchell, alone ('Morning in the Streets', 1958) helped to provide a stereotype from which the Beatles could not, by 1962, escape. Connell's pictures therefore capture in a most dramatic way, the diachronic and synchronic historical strands that enabled the Beatles to both capitalise upon and be caught by such predisposed cultural moods. They are amongst the most significant British photographs of the entire post-WWII era and are, naturally, indispensable to the Beatles researcher.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

In this volume O'Brien mixes a short discussion of the original dwellings once occupied by a selection of Liverpool's most successful entertainment and media stars with equally short pen pictures of the personalities - including members of the Beatles. A good deal of the information within was collated from past editions of Kelly's (Gores) Directory which, beginning in the late-I8th century, annually listed households and businesses for every property in Liverpool. O'Brien is a good researcher and coupled with the photographic archives from the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo (the publisher of this volume being the papers' parent company Trinity Mirror), we have here an interesting volume. The entries are a little too short, however, and at times one is left rather wanting or in a state of confusion. For example, more information concerning black Liverpudlian vocalist Lita Roza (the first Liverpudlian to have a number one hit single in Britain) is required, while Rex Harrison's information is incomplete: the Harrison family were indeed from Huyton, but there was also a family home in Everton, on Walton Road (now occupied by a hairdressers and the intrepid Elvis expert Mick O'Toole!). Curiously, the artists are not listed alphabetically - which seems very odd - so the work is far from comprehensive as a research tool. Nevertheless it is a worthy addition, which brings together Liverpool's interesting cultural geography and its renowned production line of British entertainment personalities. It has not ostensibly been written for the Beatles marketplace and Beatles fans might find it a little 'parochial' for their tastes; Spencer Leigh provides a foreword.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

This text is only of monograph length and contains many photographs of old and, in many cases no longer existing, Merseyside and North Wales venues. However it works very well as a valuable resource, has enormous empathy of tone, and is extremely practical as a handbook for Beatles tourists and researchers as they move around the Merseyside region. For a Liverpudlian such as this writer, it also serves as a poignant reminder of a Liverpool that has now all-but vanished.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

Braun, a renowned journalist of the day, travelled with the Beatles on their British tours; as such he created an early piece of critical social anthropology and observational ethnography as a way to understand the phenomenon of the Beatles and their fan base. This book, therefore, is both historically and scholarly interesting via its consideration of Beatlemania in situ. The book was re-issued in 1995 (long overdue) and remains highly recommended as an engrossing and atmospheric (yet erudite) piece of work from the 1960s. It was Braun who was responsible for John Lennon obtaining the publishing deal that resulted in the publication of In His Own Write, according to Bill Harry.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Annotation:

Braun, a renowned journalist of the day, travelled with the Beatles on their British tours; as such he created an early piece of critical social anthropology and observational ethnography as a way to understand the phenomenon of the Beatles and their fan base. This book, therefore, is both historically and scholarly interesting via its consideration of Beatlemania in situ. The book was re-issued in 1995 (long overdue) and remains highly recommended as an engrossing and atmospheric (yet erudite) piece of work from the 1960s. It was Braun who was responsible for John Lennon obtaining the publishing deal that resulted in the publication of In His Own Write, according to Bill Harry.

Michael Brocken

Source: The Beatles Bibliography: A New Guide To The Literature - Michael Brocken and Melissa Davis (The Beatle Works Ltd., 2012), with acknowledgement, and used here with permission from the authors for educational and historical purposes only.

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Reviews taken from pages 3 and 4 of Jeff Walker’s 2014 book Sex and the Beatles: 400 Entries:

Well done. It’s much more than constructing/reconstructing albums. It’s a masterpiece.

- Richard Courtney, co-author of Come Together: The Business Wisdom of the Beatles

I have a full set of the suggested compilations and they are superb…[So] make your own… it's well worth it.

- David Bedford, author of Liddypool

It's a pleasure to welcome [a new Beatles book] that doesn't tread in the footsteps of what's gone before… What Walker is proposing works well… I have listened to the lot and the way he has put them together is really imaginative. I can't thank him enough…

- Spencer Leigh, BBC Radio Merseyside host and author of many Beatles books

The most oddly compelling music book I have read in years… You owe it to yourself to get it. If you are a fan, run, don't walk. It's that interesting…. Highly, highly recommended.

- Scott Atkinson, TV news director (New York)

Very interesting new concept based on… the treasure trove of music from the solo Beatles.

- Mark Lapidos of The Fest for Beatles Fans

The premise of the book to replace Alen Klein… will certainly get the book fans for that reason alone… a ‘what if’ scenario that creates, at the least, something to consider.

- Steve Marinucci: Beatles Examiner

So big and smart and well-written… a very great unadulterated pleasure.

- Toronto Today editor Eric McMillan

A piece of conceptual art… I found Walker's pruning superb… a worthwhile project accomplished with good humour and a lightness of touch despite the enormous effort involved… meticulous research… I would not be surprised if someone at a record company isn't listening and taking notes.

- Jamie Farrow for Beatlefan

There is a striving here for perfection and a certainty in his conclusions… His writing style is entertaining and humorous… I greatly liked the revision on the Get Back/Let It Be project… which stands almost alone in its reassessment… The wealth of material on the solo tracks is vast… will get you thinking, discussing (and debating)… well worth the price of admission.

- Cyber-beatles.com review

A worthwhile purchase for any Beatles fan… Fans who have not listened to much of Paul, John, George and Ringo's solo output will find this a very useful reference… I have no doubt that anyone who actually assembled Walker’s Beatles Releasing Collective sets would find them to be truly enjoyable albums on a par with most of what The Beatles released in the 1960s.

- Eric's Music World blog

Each Beatles Releasing Collective album set has been meticulously assembled, sequenced and refined… these are not crude collections of the mop-tops solo hits. Jeff writes with passion and all the half-crazy focus of a serious Beatles fan.

- Said the Gramophone music blog

I can unreservedly recommend this book. Putting together the virtual Beatles albums the author suggests is a lot of fun, but even without that, the historical material in this book explores territory not previously covered in the history of the Fab Four. I am positive that all Beatles fans will enjoy it immensely.

- Tracy Howe: singer/writer/keyboardist for 1980s synth band Rational Youth (on Capitol Records)

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non-fiction, espionage, politics: chapman pincher was a right-wing journalist and political commentator with excellent contacts in some parts of britain's intelligence, spy and counter-intelligence services. this allowed him privileged access to quite a few ''real-life'' espionage stories, particularly those revealing or emphasising the threat from the infiltration of the trades unions, the political party they supported, the newspapers that were generally sympathetic to them, and journals & journalists likewise - whether or not these stories were in fact true...

- he also helped break the stories of philby, burgess & maclean, three british communists working for the soviet union within the british counter-intelligence service, and eventually also anthony blunt, keeper of the queen's art collection.

- strangely, he completely missed the british secret service's plot to overthrow the democratically-elected, mildly left(''-wing'') labour government of harold wilson...
- which was eventually published by heinemann australia, despite the government's very heavy-handed threats and other attempts to suppress its breaking into general public knowledge.

- nevertheless, this is an absorbing - and largely true, if somewhat partial - overview and account of the world of espionage, especially through the nineteen forties, fifties, sixties and seventies, as seen from the eyes of a very well-connected right-wing british journalist and entertaining writer.

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From Amazon:

Sex and the Beatles “chronicles any and every sex-related event in the Beatles’ life…illustrated throughout with hilarious depictions of beetles in action…culled from a wide variety of books and interviews, and humorously summarized for an enjoyable read.” -- BeatleLinks website.

“Scanning Sex and the Beatles initially, I knew I was going to enjoy the experience…Sun Page 3 stuff…a grubby piece of work…heh, heh…I sat down and read it in one go…Very unusual, very interesting…[A Harrison incident] amused me most.” (The book reviewer spent almost the entire segment recounting salacious anecdotes from the book.) -- BBC Radio Review from Spencer Leigh’s On the Beat Programme.


Sex and the Beatles is exactly what the title suggests—a look at the sexy underbelly of the Fab Four in 400 ways you probably couldn’t imagine. Walker cites sexy anecdotes from 46 sources…[The book] digs into the Beatles’ past, both during the group and solo years, for both obscure and not-so-obscure tales about the sexier side of the Fab Four and leaves little unturned…The resulting book is everything you wanted to know about sex and the Beatles, but were afraid to ask. Now you don’t need to. You can just read it all here.” -- Steve Marinucci on Something Else!/examiner.com websites.


“Read it…If this book had been out 50 years ago, the Beatles would not have been allowed into the USA.” -- Peter Dicks, radio host of The Beatles and Beyond.

"A cool little book...about the sexual escapades of The Beatles." -- Beatles on Abbey Road website.

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From Amazon:

Don Diego Vega

5 out of 5 stars

I am glad that I read it
Reviewed in the United States on 30 July 2015
Verified Purchase

OK: much of it is true, some of the facts are not true, written with seemingly hatred toward the Beatles. Eye opening though. I am glad that I read it. Basically, they sometimes took other songs and rewrote them. Thay all had input...as the songs took shape, they were altered..more new lyrics were written.... but in some cases, it was a little too close!

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M. E. PINEDA

5 out of 5 stars

The Beatles Extraordinay Plagiarist
Reviewed in the United States on 14 October 2012
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A comprehensive look on the evolution of The Beatles as musicians. It also portrayed how their chatacters and personality transformed as they became more and more popular until they turned into this huge cultural icon.
Some readers may find this book contoversial due to the subject matter,but I for one disagree. Some Beatles die-hard fan might find it unpalatable to know that their idol (and mine as well) are mainly creating music thru derivation from various songwriters. But the author has supported his premise time and again in the book, by painstakingly illustrating how The Beatles did it song after song after song.

As Mr. Cruz quoted Paul in a 1982 Playboy interview, "0h yeah. We were the biggest nickers in town. Plagiarist extraordinaire"
In the end, in no way did it diminish my regard for the boys from Liverpool. I still am a fan, I guess I forever will be.
Just like John was influenced by Preley,Dylan and company, there are hundreds of artists today and from years past that have been influenceed by The Beatles.

I would also like to mention that the author also humanized the Fav Four in their fans eyes . It made me think hmm they're human like you and me,subject to failings and weaknesses such as petty jealousies and ego trips and insecurities.. That made me like them more. It made them real to me.

Hats off Mr. Cruz. Job well done indeed. Thank you sir!

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Galo

5 out of 5 stars

Myth Debunked?
Reviewed in the United States on 10 August 2012
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There's no doubt in my mind about the labor of love the author has put into the writing of this book. I am quiet sure that this work will unsettle many, especially the die-hard fans but for the rest (and that includes me), it will be another way of looking at the boys from Liverpool; an opportunity to weigh in on things and from there develop our own conclusions based on the information (extensively researched, and well reasoned I would say) that are presented in this work. Will this book debunk the myth or will it rally the unconditionals to defend the Beatles' "cherished legacy" by undoing the arguments the work bring forth in the book? That is probably too early to tell. But for ordinary folks like me who have enjoyed their songs over the years, it could be the push we need to form our "definitive" opinion about the Beatles for who they are and their contributions to rock music...

The title provokes and the essence of the book is anathema to any self-respecting Beatles fan. Yet, here it is from an admitted long time aficionado and an acknowledged Beatles guru. Edgar sets forth on a course of discussion one may consider blasphemous to the sacredness of the Beatles legacy. In dissecting the Beatles' work, actions and motives, his presentations are well researched and documented. They are indeed revelations that are very hard to digest and could somehow tarnish an otherwise brilliant achievement by the group. In short, read for yourself and draw your conclusion...

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Forest

5 out of 5 stars

Cell by Cell Dissection of the Beatles Work
Reviewed in the United States on 20 August 2012
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Growing up during the Beatles era in the 60's and 70's, I am certainly a big fan of all their work. I am thankful to Mr. Edgar O. Cruz for sharing this very intriguing book that took over 20 years in the making. Coming from a medical field, the book " the Beatles: Extraordinary Plagiarists" looks like a cell by cell dissection of the BEATLES work. There was so much information and analysis contained in this 172-page book. It gave me a different perspective on the popularity and creativity of this Fav Four British Group I grew up with.

Can't wait to also get an electronic IPAD version of this book that I can take along with me all the time.

Kudos to Mr. Edgar O. Cruz for a job well done.

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Zen

5 out of 5 stars

AN OUTSTANDING OVATION :WELL-RESEARCHED AND DARING BOOK
Reviewed in the United States on 14 August 2012
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THE BEATLES EXTRAORDINARY PLAGIARISTS, a book with a title that promises an awful lot to us, the readers, whether fans or not of the famous Beatles. Indeed the author, Mr. Edgar O. Cruz, an avid fan of the Beatles, made an extensive research about the Beatles, unrelentlessly, digging the truth behind our favorite rock band. Apparently, it inspired him to write this book with daring revelations about the Beatles.

This most intriguing book ever published about the Beatles has delivered page after page of information so extraordinary that literally changed what I knew then about the Beatles. The author, Mr. Edgar O. Cruz, has enough guts to write such a compelling book which covers all that may not have known before about the Beatles.

Such an intriguing book which I think the Beatles fans, like me or non-fan alike should have a copy to read and learn the facts or know the "naked" truth about our beloved Beatles. I give an outstanding ovation to the author for a well-researched and daring book!

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L. Miller
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating archive of Beatles comic material
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 July 2012
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I brushed past a copy of this book at an art gallery shop and found myself looking through it and finding it incredibly interesting. There's a decent foreword and write-up before one sees the meat of the book - illustrations of Beatles theme comics. Even those that are in their own language are so interesting and diverse. I hesitated to buy this because I've lost that affinity for comics but I'm glad I went for the book in the end. The Beatles will always be an incredibly interesting subject in whatever form!

The book also comes with a double-sided poster - on one side four cartoon drawings of the band themselves and the other side comprising a comic version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. A worthy purchase (£7.50 cheaper than the art gallery price) makes this an essential investment for a Beatles fan.

Cosmically Concsious
1.0 out of 5 stars NOT as enjoyable as I would have liked
Reviewed in the United States on 12 February 2013
Verified Purchase

I was expecting nice clear pictures on glassy paper, instead the comics that are reproduced here are blurry and on cheap looking paper. I sold mine after having it for less than a week. Much of the text and comics are in Italian and French and are incomplete. I would stay away and use your money to search Ebay for Beatles comics that are complete and in the language of your choosing.

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