‘Tune In,’ Part 1 of a Beatles Biography, by Mark Lewisohn
(from The New York Times)
by Janet Maslin
On Oct. 12 or Oct. 13, 1961, Paul McCartney and John Lennon visited the Hôtel de Beaune in Paris, near the Seine, to have their hair cut by a friend. Mark Lewisohn, billed on his book jacket as “the world’s only professional Beatles historian,” may know more about this seminal pop-cultural event than anyone else on the planet, including Mr. McCartney. The budding Beatle might have been too caught up in the moment to remember its exact details. Mr. Lewisohn has had some 50 years to parse them.
In “Tune In,” the first installment of a projected three-volume history of the Beatles, Mr. Lewisohn describes how Jürgen Vollmer, a photographer then friendly with the Nerk Twins, as those two Beatles sometimes called themselves, obliged their wish to look less Liverpudlian and more Left Bank bohemian. So he cut Mr. McCartney’s hair first into what Mr. Vollmer called a Caesar style and what the guy on the other end of the scissors called “a kind of longhaired Hitler thing.” It looked better when it grew in.
Cuttings from both Beatles’ hair were stashed under the bed; their present-day eBay value is incalculable. The next morning the hotel concierge found the mess and was furious. “She would not be the last to scream over the Beatles’ hair,” Mr. Lewisohn writes.
And Mr. Lewisohn is not the first to describe that screaming. But he is the most scholarly and painstaking, and he is the most serious historian to have examined the Beatles’ lives and work. The results can be dubious at times, when the minutiae becomes too microscopic or when he assumes that what he has not uncovered cannot be known. As for romantic entanglements, for instance, during that same Paris sojourn, Mr. Lewisohn writes about Lennon, “It isn’t known if he and Paul got l’amour in Paris.” It probably is known to Mr. McCartney, who has cooperated with Mr. Lewisohn on many of his other Beatles projects. But Sir Paul stayed mum on this one.
“Tune In” is liable to be approached slowly and suspiciously. It’s an opening salvo that doesn’t get beyond 1962. This edition, with text that runs 803 pages (lengthy notes and index are extra), turns out to be an abridgment of a two-volume version that was published in Britain and is nearly twice as long. And much more expensive. (That version is available by mail order from Britain; it hasn’t come out in the United States.) The most eager readers have little choice but to tackle both versions, a maddening battle plan. And this abridgment could have been short enough to be more approachable. But it is not: Mr. Lewisohn’s sometimes arrogant emphasis on research trumps his desire to make “Tune In” reader-friendly.
Still, the intrepid reader who enters the portals of “Tune In” is probably in the presence of slow-gestating greatness. The finished history promises to have monumental stature, and this warm-up may turn out to be its most revealing installment. Mr. Lewisohn executes the difficult trick of introducing five major characters — John, Paul, George, Ringo and Liverpool — and patiently establishing each before their paths cross. It is invaluable to view each band member as a separate individual, as in the case of Richy Starkey, a.k.a. Ringo Starr, who is the brashest, sexiest and sickliest of the four before he becomes a Beatle, three-quarters of the way into “Tune In.” It’s also eye-opening to read Mr. Lewisohn’s revisionist versions of the most widely propagated myths about band members’ early years, especially when it comes to Lennon’s romanticizing of his mother.
“Tune In” pays close attention to the many American influences on the young pre-Beatles. (Was Lennon’s early group the Quarry Men or Quarrymen? Of course Mr. Lewisohn has a footnote for that.) They hit adolescence just as rock ’n’ roll records became buyable, and “Tune In” keenly chronicles the favorites that they would draw on or recycle, even for their name: Beatles was a play on Buddy Holly’s Crickets, simple as that. And he astutely points out that they had to experience their own versions of Beatlemania to inspire it later: Holly and Elvis Presley drove them wild.
George Harrison never forgot the sight of Eddie Cochran at a live show, brushing back his hairdo and murmuring “Hi, honey” to an adoring fan. Mr. Starr, after seeing Johnny Ray dropping postcard photos of himself out a hotel window, knew this was the life for him. If there is one overall point that “Tune In” makes emphatically, it’s that the Beatles didn’t happen by magic. They envisioned a highly original goal and then fought toward it, every step of the way.
Once readers get over the hump of tuning in to “Tune In” and accepting that it must be read at a very leisurely pace, Mr. Lewisohn’s nuances can be fully appreciated. He captures the internecine struggles and bonds that were so important to forming the band’s winning formula. There is much illuminating biographical material on both Brian Epstein and George Martin and keen insight into why they became essential to the Beatles’ success.
Then there are the extra Beatles, about whom much misleading information exists. These were teenage boys, after all, and they had friendships and rivalries. Mr. Lewisohn provides an in-depth explanation of why the bassist Stu Sutcliffe brought out Mr. McCartney’s possessiveness about Lennon, though Sutcliffe’s girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, had a strong influence on the band’s early look. As for Pete Best, the drummer who is one of many contenders for the moniker Fifth Beatle, Mr. Lewisohn treats him harshly. The book presents detailed evidence that he was recruited in desperation when the band needed a drummer for its stint in Germany and dismissed for two good reasons: he couldn’t keep a beat, and Mr. Starr was better.
“Tune In,” which starts out as a doorstop and evolves into a rich cornucopia for those with the patience to stay with it, concludes suspensefully on the last night of 1962, with the Beatles on the brink. The text’s last words, from Lennon: “It was just a matter of time before everybody else caught on.” And one last, welcome word on the final page: “Intermission.”
TUNE IN
The Beatles: All These Years, Vol. 1
By Mark Lewisohn
Illustrated. 932 pages. Crown Archetype. $40.
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