The Beatles: An Oral History

Last year's Beatles Anthology television specials that told the tale of the Fab Four's world-conquering career were elegantly executed but lacked objectivity. This is not the case with Canadian radio producers Pritchard's and Lysaght's The Beatles: An Oral History. Compiled from decades of interviews (many of which have provided the basis for a series of radio programs) with a cast of more than a hundred friends, family members, colleagues and the band members themselves, this collection should provide even the most obsessive of Beatles fans with new angles and anecdotes: who knew, for example, that Paul McCartney hated his vocal performance on ""Eleanor Rigby,"" or that on the exquisite ""For No One"" the Moptops were not even in tune? The Fab Four's struggle to reconcile astronomical ambitions with earth-bound relationships provides the narrative's main thrust; the most intriguing relationship of all can be found in the writing credit for the vast majority of Beatles' songs: ""Lennon-McCartney."" The two emerge as complicated personalities, neither as cuddly and compassionate as their public relations staff would have us believe, nor as egomaniacal as their detractors have claimed. Because of the multiplicity of voices, and Pritchard's and Lysaght's unbiased approach in weaving them together, this may be the first book ever on the Beatles that manages to avoid falling into one obvious and reductive perspective. This seems fitting for a band that changed the world. (Nov.)