Way Beyond Compare: The Beatles' Recorded Legacy, Volume One, 1957-1965

by John C. Winn

An answered prayer for Beatles fans and collectors, the first ­volume of a unique work that exhaustively chronicles all known and ­available Beatles recordings!

Have you ever watched a Beatles film clip and wondered:
• Where was that filmed?
• Is any more of that footage available?

Have you ever heard a Beatles interview and asked:
• When was that taped?
• Where’s the best place to find the complete recording?

Way Beyond Compare has the answers to these and thousands of similar questions. It’s the key to unlocking the secrets behind every known Beatles recording in circulation through 1965, telling you where to find them, what makes them unique, and how they fit within the context of the Beatles’ amazing musical and cultural journey.

Author John C. Winn has spent twenty years (twice as long as the Beatles were together!) ­sifting through, scrutinizing, organizing, and analyzing hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings—and putting them into a digestible chronological framework for Way Beyond Compare and its companion volume, That Magic Feeling: The Beatles’ Recorded Legacy, Volume Two, 1966–1970.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Reference

416 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

About the author

John C. Winn was born one year after the Beatles disbanded. He has dedicated most of his life to collecting, studying, and enjoying their music.

Reviews

[Nathan Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

An alternative way of reading about the Beatles' history, constructed strictly from every audiovisual recording that's known to exist of them, presented chronologically and summarized by Winn informatively and with great energy. This is especially helpful if you're a hardcore fan but don't want to slog through the Lazy Tortoise bootleg series that contains all of the press conferences and such. Winn's explications of the recording sessions feel a little redundant since all that is available in so many places already, but his breaking down of interviews and bootleg concert recordings as well as film and video footage is enormously helpful. This is the first half of a two-volume set; I bought the eBook to keep as reference on my phone, and I'll grab the second half soon.

[Kurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thoroughly researched volume on the recordings of the Fab Four on audio and video tape during the first half of their career. It's a wonderful companion to Mark Lewisohn's and Bruce Spizer's works onThe Beatles. It is perfect for any Beatle fanatic. Casual fans of the Boys can take away a lot from it too as it follows the evolution of the band leading up to their peak years. A follow up book will be out soon. An earlier version was published several years ago.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The updated 2nd edition provides an excellent chronological guide to the first half of the Beatles' career, including recordings, concerts, and radio and television broadcasts.