The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles

by Kenneth Womack (Editor)

From Please Please Me to Abbey Road, this collection of essays tells the fascinating story of the Beatles - the creation of the band, their musical influences, and their cultural significance, with emphasis on their genesis and practices as musicians, songwriters, and recording artists. Through detailed biographical and album analyses, the book uncovers the background of each band member and provides expansive readings of the band's music. - Traces the group's creative output from their earliest recordings through their career - Pays particular attention to the social and historical factors which contributed to the creation of the band - Investigates the Beatles' unique enduring musical legacy and cultural power - Clearly organized into three sections, covering Background, Works, and History and Influence, the Companion is ideal for course usage, and is also a must-read for all Beatles fans

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

334 pages, Paperback

Published December 14, 2009

About the author

Kenneth Womack is a world-renowned authority on the Beatles and their enduring cultural influence. His latest book project involves a two-volume, full-length biography devoted to famed Beatles producer Sir George Martin.

Womack's Beatles-related books include Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles (2007), The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles (2009), and The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four (2014).

Womack is also the author of four novels, including John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel (2010), The Restaurant at the End of the World (2012), Playing the Angel (2013), and I Am Lemonade Lucy! (2019).

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is recommended by the historiographer Erin Torkelson Weber, which is how I came to hear of it. It’s sort of an academic work, consisting of different articles/essays, laid out chronologically for the most part. They’re all written in an accessible way, though a couple were a bit too esoteric for even my fandom. For example, I don’t know a thing about music theory, so that essay went completely over my head, though what I did get out of it is that some Beatles compositions are as good as those of Beethoven and Brahms.

I have the third printing (2011) of this book and found a few mistakes, which I corrected in my copy with post-it notes. It’s all information a fan like me would know, so maybe it will be changed in subsequent printings. I was surprised that two of the essay writers cite a book by Geoffrey Giuliano as a source. He’s considered unreliable and sensationalistic in general, but maybe in that one book of his he’s factual somewhere, like an old-fashioned broken clock is said to be correct at least twice in a 24-hour period. (Does this analogy still make sense in a digital age?)

[Googoogjoob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty solid collection of essays, with a rather heavier emphasis on providing a factual outline of the Beatles' career than on providing criticism or analysis, though it does have the latter. Decent and (mostly) competent, and a useful synthesis of an array of sources that would be a good introduction to the subject.

(I say "mostly" competent largely because of the second essay in the book, "The Beatles as Recording Artists" by Jerry Zoltan, which has a number of errors ranging from the trifling and baffling (saying that people misheard the "cranberry sauce" at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever" as "Paul is dead" rather than "I buried Paul"; claiming that "Something" has an "unusual structure", when it has a very simple AABA'A pattern) to the more serious and nearly alarming (misattributing "Back in the U.S.S.R." to John Lennon and "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" to Paul McCartney, when it's exactly the reverse; claiming that Paul played all the instruments on "Why Don't We Do It In the Road?", though Ringo played drums on it, as a glance at Lewisohn, MacDonald, or even Wikipedia would have confirmed). It's puzzling how an essay so far inferior to the others slipped in.)

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather academic. Some of the essays were better than others.

[Mzfitz]

TCLIB 782.42166

[Kevin Kamphaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful. Haven't read a Beatles book quite like this before.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting collection of academic essays. Probably most suited to the hardcore fan.