Love Me Do!: "Beatles" Progress by Michael Braun

"That was a true book," Lennon told Wenner in his 1970 Lennon Remembers interview. "He wrote about how we were, which was bastards … You have to be a bastard to make it, man. That's a fact, and the Beatles were the biggest bastards on earth." 

The year is 1963 and "Love Me Do" is the Beatles' first number one hit, closely followed by "Please Please Me". John, Paul, George and Ringo celebrate their new found success with a hectic six-week tour, briefly interrupted by an historic live appearance at the "Royal Variety Performance" at the London Palladium. This is the beginning of "Beatlemania" and American writer, Mike Braun, is there to chronicle events and watch as the drama unfolds. A year later, The Beatles are the world's biggest pop group. This book details what really happened in those first magic weeks.

Braun was a former assistant to Stanley Kubrick, and a writer whose work appeared in the Observer and the Sunday Times (he died in 1997; one of his obituaries described him as "a penniless flâneur", drawn to people whose "personal mythology was not limited by prosaic biographical fact"). Contrary to Lennon's picture, his book – a tour diary, essentially, which follows them around provincial England, on to Paris and New York – largely offers a close-up of the Beatles as you might expect it: witty, blunt, quickly breaking out of the drab conventions of British showbiz. 

He evokes ordinary places witnessing quite extraordinary scenes, in incisively simple terms: in the north-east of England, for example, he keeps the Beatles company in yet another hotel, watching them do a phone interview with a DJ in far-away Melbourne, while a gaggle of fans looks up at the window. "When the call was finished," Braun wrote, "they turned the lights out and spent a few minutes looking at the girls through a slit in the curtains before going to bed. The next morning as the Beatles left Sunderland several girls were still gathered in front of the hotel, huddling against the winds blowing from the North Sea." This is what is so compelling about those early treks around provincial theatres and ballrooms: moments of quiet, when the band seemed to marvel at what was happening to them; and the sense of an extended goodbye (by the autumn of 1966, they had stopped touring altogether).

This book was also published in 1964 in the U.S under another title: "The Real True Beatles - Number One"

The 1995 edition has a 1970 Lennon quote on the cover: "A true book. He wrote about how we were, which was bastards"

The original 1964 edition has "4/6" price on the cover and no Lennon quote which distinguishes it from the 1995 re-issue

1964 edition Back cover

A Cellarful of Noise by Brian Epstein

From his first encounter with the sturggling group in 1961, through their meteoric rise, to his tragic, untimely death in 1967, Brian Epstein was in many ways the heart and soul of the Beatles. Much more than simply their manager, confidant, and group guru, Epstein helped create a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. "A Cellarful of Noise," Epstein's long out-of-print autobiography, gives readers the inside story of his discovery and management of the world's most famous rock 'n' roll band. 

From their initial struggles to their wild rocket ride to the pinnacle of success, this true story includes: How a request for a record led to the discovery of the Beatles; Why Ringo Starr replaced the original Beatle drummer; How Paul McCartney was nearly blinded by a fan; and hundreds of other fascinating little-known facts of Epstein's life with the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and other top stars.This new edition of "A Cellarful of Noise" features an introduction by world-renowned Beatles expert Martin Lewis, which, along with Epstein's own words, creates a compelling insightful exploration of the life and times of a gifted man who had an ear for genius.

                                               1965                                             1964

1998

1988

The Beatles: The Playboy Interview

In the fall of 1964, The Beatles gave an interview with Jean Shepherd (who would be forever known as the "Christmas Story" guy) for Playboy magazine. The interview ran in the February 1965 issue of the magazine and I would guess that most female Beatle fans were only able to read the interview if they were sneaky in looking at their father or big brother's Playboy and if they got caught---well that would have been pretty awkward. On January 19, 1969, Pete Best settled for an undisclosed amount in a defamation lawsuit against the band because of some comments made which were erased from this version.

The Beatles: The Authorised Biography by Hunter Davies

During 1967 and 1968 Hunter Davies spent eighteen months with the Beatles at the peak of their powers as they defined a generation and rewrote popular music. As their only ever authorised biographer he had unparalleled access - not just to John, Paul, George and Ringo but to friends, family and colleagues. There when it mattered, he collected a wealth of intimate and revealing material that still makes this the classic Beatles book - the one all other biographers look to. 

Hunter Davies remained close with the band and as such has had access to more information over the years. This 40th anniversary edition contains new material which has never been revealed before, from the author's archives and from the Beatles themselves, that will bring new insights to their legend.


              1986                                           1986                                    1996

   
              1985                                          2010                                            1996

1968

The Penguin John Lennon

First published in 1966, combining In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works which are a brilliantly inventive and offbeat collection of John Lennon's stories, drawings and poems. An updated version can be found here  In His Own Write & A Spaniard in the Works

The Beatles by Norman Parkinson (With The Beatles Sessions - Abbey Rd September 12, 1963)

On September 12, 1963, Norman Parkinson was invited to Abbey Road Studios to Photograph the With The Beatles Sessions.