The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Vol. 2: Help! through Revolver

by Jerry Hammack, Gillian G. Gaar (Editor)

The second volume of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC)-nominated, four-book series, The Beatles Recording Reference Manuals, "Help!" through "Revolver" 1965-1966 tracks the evolution of the band from the end of Beatlemania with "Help!", through the introspection of "Rubber Soul", and finally, to their initial explorations of all the studio could offer with "Revolver".

Through extensive, fully-documented research, these books fill an important gap left by all other Beatles books published to date and provide a unique view into the recordings of the world's most successful pop music act.

The collection and analysis of hundreds of recordings (takes, outtakes, remixes and release versions), books, magazine articles, photos, film and video evidence, and interviews with key engineers who worked on the sessions filter out the noise of myth and conflicting fact to arrive at an accurate telling of the creation of The Beatles classic recordings.

Genres: Music

423 pages, Paperback

Published February 15, 2018

About the author

Jerry Hammack is a Canadian-American musician, producer, recording engineer and author living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Reviews

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could be a 5-star book / series. The breakdown of every Beatles song into how it was recorded, who played what, instruments used, studio gear and effects employed, etc. is right up the alley of this Beatles geek. But two things irk me to no end. Firstly, as noted in my review of Volume 1, the editing is extremely lacking, resulting in an abundance of poor sentence structure (even though it's a reference manual and not a narrative, it's still a hindrance for the reader). The funny part is, the author thanks his editor in the Acknowledgements for her "keen eye", followed by three gaffs in the Introduction alone! Secondly, and this left me dumbfounded: How does a book so meticulously and painstakingly researched come to the conclusion that George Harrison's song "You Like Me Too Much" is a Lennon-McCartney composition? Can't be a typo because Hammack states this twice. For a $45 book I expect the author to at least know the composer credits. Despite all this, following the construction of each song from backing track to finished master is fascinating stuff, especially as the music evolves in complexity. So it's on to Volume 3.

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hammack does it again, excellent resource and reference book of The Beatles recording sessions.