The Beatles Bible - Topic: The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

JFKin60 on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Sat, 28 May 2011 19:33:24 +0100

Spitz's book was pretty tough to read and reading his mistakes on here were shocking.

However, it's a very detailed book and probably stands as the top biography of the band running through the Beatle years.

He comes of full of himself on Utube videos and endorsed Goldman prior to the Goldman book and ripped him after.

PennyLane on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Sun, 15 May 2011 22:03:20 +0100

I still need to read this...

GniknuS on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Sun, 15 May 2011 20:51:01 +0100

I read this book a few years ago and thought it was okay, but I'm leafing through it again at work and it appears as though Spitz let his imagination get the best of him at certain points. That's not necessarily a bad thing because it makes the book more interesting and readable, but I don't know how factual the book is, especially the White Album and Apple stuff where he really goes off the deep end. He seems to get most of his information from Anthology and various other places, but I get the feeling that he filled in ...

mr. Sun king coming together on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 20:09:15 +0000

vonbontee said:

That's exactly the sort of silly, easily correctable error that plagues the book – I think at one point Spitz claims that Rubber Soul has 13 songs, or something equally flat-out wrong. But when I call the book a "real-life novel", I'm thinking specifically about dramatic passages like this one, depicting the recording of "Twist & Shout"

That may not be entirely appropriate reporting – it's not as though Spitz was actually there, obviously – but it's good stuff. I'm not necessarily recommending Spitz's book (presumably everyone is going to wait for the Lewisohn's definitive works), just explaining what I ...

vonbontee on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:34:39 +0000

That's exactly the sort of silly, easily correctable error that plagues the book – I think at one point Spitz claims that Rubber Soul has 13 songs, or something equally flat-out wrong. But when I call the book a "real-life novel", I'm thinking specifically about dramatic passages like this one, depicting the recording of "Twist & Shout":

Everyone knew they’d have to get it on the first take — the band, the engineer, everybody had to do his job, without a missed note or a glitch. There would be nothing left of John’s voice after that.

[. . .]

John tore open a ...

deboraht on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:56:15 +0000

I think this is the book where he says Patti and George met on the set of Help...I found a few mistakes which quite annoyed me. He heavily used the official bio of the Beatles from 1968 by Hunter Davies for source quotes.

mr. Sun king coming together on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:51:14 +0000

PennyLane said:

I haven't finished the book yet. I got as far as I think about John taking dance lessons. I haven't had time to finish it because of my classes.

But reading those mistakes on the article made me laugh.

I saw them earlier, but I gave it a try. Bad choice.

PennyLane on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:42:42 +0000

I haven't finished the book yet. I got as far as I think about John taking dance lessons. I haven't had time to finish it because of my classes.

But reading those mistakes on the article made me laugh.

mr. Sun king coming together on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:15:20 +0000

You really needn't. Just my opinion of course but you seem to know more than Mr. Spitz

Joe on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:22:52 +0000

http://www.beatlesnews.com/new.....rrors.html

Apparently he wrote the photo captions in a rush just before a deadline, and were corrected for a second edition. I don't know about the rest - I've not read the book.

mr. Sun king coming together on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 14:25:29 +0000

I started it, but Spitz isn't my type of writer. Ov Vey

PennyLane on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:22:09 +0000

Hopefully the inaccuracies won't annoy me too much, but I like your description of it being a "tragic real-life novel". Cool, I'm gonna start reading it now. Thanks!

vonbontee on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:10:54 +0000

I enjoyed that book a lot, considered it practically like a tragic real-life novel. But apparently it's got a lot of inaccuracies, that you may or may not consider minor.

PennyLane on The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:36:05 +0000

I received this book as a gift and now that my classes are over, I have a chance to read it.

Has anyone read it? Is it any good?