The Beatles: Ten Years That Shook the World [Hardcover]

"The Beatles: Ten Years That Shook the World" is a reprint and expanded version of three special issues of Mojo magazine published in the United Kingdom. The exact themed title of each of these magazines were:

"The Beatles: 1,000 Days That Shook the World, the Psychedelic Beatles, April 1, 1965 to December 26, 1967", published in 2002,

"The Beatles: 1,000 Days of Beatlemania, the Early Years, April 1, 1962 to December 31, 1964", published in 2003, and

"The Beatles: 1,000 Days of Revolution, the Beatles Final Years, January 1, 1968 to September 27, 1969" published in 2003.

This book is an exact reprint of each of these magazines with the minor changes of some type and background colors and a very few substituted photographs. The original magazines covered specific 1,000 days periods in the history of the Beatles. This book includes additional articles in the same format from before, in-between, and after the period dates covered in the magazines to flesh-out a full ten year period from the beginning to end of the 1960s, with some coverage of the band's earliest origins in the 1950s.

Rather than offer a running text with photographs of the history of the Beatles, as is the format of most books on the Beatles, this book offers dozens of individually written articles, many by the finest known authors on the subjects of rock music history and the Beatles in peticular, each covering some specific aspect of the Beatles. Each record, each concert tour, each motion picture is covered in depth, but what is so particularly interesting about this book is that with its magazine format of individual articles, this book offers dozens of one-or-two page articles that report in incredible detail specific incidents about the Beatles that usually only receive two-or-three lines of type in even the very best books about the Beatles. Also, it seems there were smallish events about the Beatles back in England that made the daily papers over there that might not have been as widely reported here in the U. S. Because of the decidedly British veiwpoint of this book those long-ago remembered newspaper items are recalled here with detail and humor.

Two specific examples from the descriptions in the previous paragraph:

1.) Raymond Jones is often mentioned as the first customer to inquire about the Beatles at Brian Epstein's record shop. It was Epstein's determination to find out about this local musical group which started the Beatles to international fame. That early fan is thus honored in this book with a two page article, interview, and photographs. Indeed, a pivitol character in the Beatles' story.

2.) It seems that Brian Epstein (by this time the group's manager) was distracted from the group for perhaps a day, long enough for a fund raising executive from a major British charitable organization to get the Beatles to pose for photos showing he and them holding the charity's placcards and collection cups, which made it into the newspapers that same day. An article in this book details this brief incident and how hard Epstein hit the roof when he saw the pictures in the papers!

This book is just full of stuff like this, really great articles and photographs the likes of which I never seen in any other books about the Beatles, of which there are more than I can count.

Having said all this, I can say that this is one of the very finest books about the Beatles I have ever seen. I urge all fans of the Beatles who care to read about the group to please own a copy of this book.

A final postscript: The first of the three Mojo magazine special editions ("the Psychedelic Beatles") fetches fairly high prices for used copies. It seems this issue was not widely distributed at newsstands in the U. S., whereas the second and third editions were indeed widely available on U. S. newsstands and do not re-sale for nearly as much.

This book does a service to all by reprinting the articles that appeared in Mojo magazine in re the Beatles. Articles that were at one time not as readily accessible outside of the U.K. have been presented in their fresh, crisp form. The book picks up where the articles left off and includes plenty of bonus material that covers the pre-Beatle era, e.g. the days of John Lennon's group, the Quarrymen, the precursor group to the Beatles. Inclusion of material about early musical influences such as Elvis and Buddy Holly are given good coverage as well.

What makes this book stand out from so many others is the myriad of articles and personal perspectives about the Beatles, their work and their cultural influence. This work treats the subject with in-depth reporting ranging from the humorous, light-reporting of "trivia" to the more serious issues about the Beatles themselves.

I like the way individuals who had previously received little coverage are honored and recognized. A good example of this is Raymond Jones, the man who encouraged Beatles' manager Brian Epstein to check out their work.

Another aspect that I really like is the way a Beatle chonology is given of activities, concerts, recordings and song releases. This is the book every Beatle fan must have!

This is such an exceptionally high caliber work. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

If you liked the Anthology book, then you'll like this. The pictures are the best part about it because it is colour throught with hundreds of rare photos. The majority of the photos i have never seen before. And I have never heard of a lot of the stories before either.

The book is split up in hundreds of different bits. You get a page or two about one sepcific event, i.e. the london palladium show, and a couple of pictures, and then it goes onto another event.

So you can dip into the book, read a page, and then skip to another page 50 pages on without losing the thread. It sounds disjointed, but it works surprisingly well.