Beatles - Here, There & Everywhere: Geoff Emerick's book

Cafe Society
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Anyone else read Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by Geoff Emerick? He was the then-teenager who engineered many of their albums, including Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. He worked for producer George Martin at Abbey Road, and apparently came up with some of the more famous experiments - e.g., recording John’s voice through a rotating Leslie speaker, recording Paul’s bass using a speaker as a microphone, etc. - he was also the guy who spliced Strawberry Fields from two versions based on John’s then-unthinkable demand that it be done. He was clearly knee-deep in their music.

  • Any thoughts on the book?
  • For Beatle-brains like **fishbicycle **and **Biffy **- how has the book been received by hardcore Beatles types?

I am about 1/2-way through and enjoying it. I like the fact that he is a bit gossipy - but in most ways, he reinforces biases I already had, so I suppose that is a factor. He goes on about how lousy a guitarist - in general and certainly in the studio - George Harrison was. I happen to agree - he played great parts that served the songs, but as a pure guitarist, meh to my ears. Emerick describes George Martin as classic Brit upper-crusty, John as a deeply creative, technically clueless gadabout, Ringo as almost a non-entity, etc. He goes out of his way to frame Paul as the true musician and true leader of the Beatles in the studio - not surprising, but interesting to hear how hard Emerick stresses this.

All in all a fun page-turner presenting an alternative POV to a history I am quite familiar with.

Your thoughts?

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Your post was the first I’ve heard of this book. You can bet it’s now on my list of Things To Get. Thanks for the heads up. It must be quite new, as I haven’t seen it mentioned yet at the Beatles sites I go to (admittedly much less frequently than I used to.) I’ll be real interested to read what he has to say about his experiences.

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I enjoyed it. He’s a good storyteller, and I was endlessly fascinated by the tightassedness of the EMI studio people.

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Finished this book over the New Year’s weekend. Great read if you are the least bit curious about the Beatles. Emerick seems to be pretty willing to share his point of view and somewhat insider’s perspective about many events that are part of the legend of the band, so it is fascinating. And George Harrison even comes out as a better guitarist by the end! But Phil Spector? Not so good…

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Now I know how I’m going to spend the Barnes and Noble gift card I received. Thanks.

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I’ve ordered it from amazon, and it’ll be here Thursday. Can’t wait!

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**Crotalus **and **fishbicycle **- come find this thread after you get into the book and let us know what you think! I think it does an excellent job for what it is trying to do…

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I just placed my order. I also ordered another book I’ve wanted to read for a while, All You Need Is Ears, by George Martin. I’ll be back.

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I got the book on Thursday evening, and finished it at 3 AM this morning. I could hardly put it down! But that’s because I’m very interested.

I didn’t see any historical inaccuracies, but there’s one questionable bit, of which there are now two conflicting, official accounts. In Mark Lewisohn’s “Recording Sessions,” he says about recording “Yellow Submarine” that “…outside session musicians - their names alas lost - were brought in to play traditional brass instruments.” Contrasting this, in his book, Emerick says that was the first time he and George Martin did the ‘compile tape recordings of brass bands, cut them into pieces, throw them up in the air and resplice them’ to get the brass bit in the middle of the song. He says further that Martin appears to have forgotten about it. Of course, they’re famous for having come up with that idea to get the sound of a fairground (with calliopes and organs) on “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” the next year.

I didn’t have any preconceived notions about George Martin; I only know him by having heard his voice on the outtakes, and having read some of his published comments. Emerick paints him as sort of a corporate git with a massive ego. Talented and innovative to be sure, but a git underneath the veneer. One with the kind of ego that drove him to make sure the tape operators and balance engineers were not in the control room if ever a photographer was coming in. He wanted to create the impression that he was responsible for the whole thing. The kind of ego that would allow him to disparage his staff to the artists, and refer to them more as though they were just the help, than “the team” or by their names. Emerick doesn’t seem to have had an axe to grind about it; I suppose he was just reporting his impressions, which can only be what they are.

I didn’t know about the regime change at Abbey Road that brought in a manager with a personality and policies so onerous that he drove away the best staff they had. That must have been an early example of what happens when you put bean-counters in charge of creative endeavors.

This book had more information in one place on the building of the basement studio at Apple than I had read anywhere else. They spent a ludicrous amount of money creating the best studio facility in the world, and later it got demolished because Ringo wanted to put in a film-scoring suite above it- which never happened.

If nothing else, his book underscores the notion that Paul Was God, The Others Not So Much. That gets a bit tiresome after awhile, even if McCartney was the most musically and technically adept of the four.

It’s a good read, and I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

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Emerick’s account makes no sense. The brass band break in “Yellow Submarine” is obviously a composed part, played in time with the backing track. It’s also continuous, with no splices evident. If Emerick were correct, you’d get the kind of random, out-of-sync effect you get with the calliopes on “Mister Kite.”

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I have no dog in the hunt regarding Yellow Sub - I read what Emerick wrote, but appreciat **Biffy’s ** observations.

Bottom line is that I am glad you enjoyed it **Fish ** - for many of the reasons I did. It was a fun read and an insightful look from a different perspective at a story many of us know pretty well - or thought we did.

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I received my copy on Saturday and I’m about halfway through. I’ve reached the point where they’re recording Sgt. Pepper. Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane are complete and released as singles. A few impressions and observations:

I was amazed at the fact that Emerick saw the Beatles perform in public only once. I really can’t explain why that strikes me as being so odd…

His observations on Harrison’s guitar ability match what my ears have told me for many years. George was a pretty good composer of guitar parts, and he executed his composed parts pretty well. He was incapable of playing an interesting ad libbed solo over even the simplest chord changes. I acquired this opinion listening to various outtakes over the years, especially those on the Anthology series. He needed time to work out what he would play. Off the cuff, he was pretty lame. There are even examples on Anthology and Live at the BBC (I’d have to relisten to cite songs), where Harrison played pathetic solos in Chuck Berry covers. I admire a lot of Harrison’s work in the final versions of lots of Beatles songs, but I’ve always felt he was stiff and inept off the cuff. McCartney, on the other hand, could just wail. Emerick was not involved in the Help sessions, but it has been reported elsewhere that Paul played lead guitar on Another Girl, which has some pretty cool fills which were clearly ad libbed. I think Emerick’s take on Taxman is interesting and rings true. I can’t remember when I first learned that Paul played that solo, but I remember it being an “aha” moment, because the solo (one of my all-time favorites) seemed so completely out of character for Harrison.

Emerick appears to credit McCartney with composing the Mellotron intro to Strawberry Fields in the studio while they were recording it. I’m pretty sure that’s not accurate. In the video version of Anthology, there are a number of scenes of the Beatles in hotel rooms during their first and second US tours, During one of these, Lennon is shown fooling around with a melodica, one of those keyboards that you blow into. He plays the intro to Strawberry Fields on the melodica. I’m pretty sure that the scene was from 1964. To be fair, I think Emerick says that Paul “worked out” the intro, not the same as composing it.

I was very interested in his take on the circumstances surrounding the recording of She Loves You. I Want To Hold Your Hand was the first song I heard by the Beatles, in December of 1963. I can still remember the circumstances clearly, I remember feeling swept up in the excitement of the song, and hearing the intro to the song still gives me a tingle. But I agree with Emerick that She Loves You has an electricity about it that the group rarely equalled, so his story about crazed fans invading the studio while they were working on it fascinated me.

As others have mentioned, it’s amazing to read of the atmosphere in which the Beatles did what they did. I have worked at Wall Street firms that were less rigid than the EMI studio in the 60s.

On the Yellow Submarine horn interlude: I didn’t get a chance to listen to it after I read about it, but Emerick’s account seemed a little off to me. If I recall correctly, it’s only a two measure break, but it does seem to be all of a piece, not patched together. I suppose it is possible that they found a two measure piece that fit among the EMI archives, but it doesn’t sound (in my memory) like something that was pieced together out of various sources.

My thanks to WordMan for alerting me to the existence of this enjoyable book.

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Thanks for the review, Crotalus.
I am no musician but have loved the Beatles since 4th grade and have the book on order. Thanks much to WordMan for the headsup.

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I received this book for my birthday back in October. I picked it up, read a dozen pages, put it down and read something else, picked it up again, read a few more pages, put it down and read something else. The subject material couldn’t be more fascinating, but Emerick’s writing just doesn’t grab me. I’ll probably finish it sometime soon, but it’ll be a bit of a chore.

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Very interesting what everyone is saying!
Here is food for thought:
In my extensive research of The Beatles, my understanding of their first session was that while John, Paul and George had replaced Pete BEst with Ringo, George Martin at the same time had hired Andy White to play on Love Me Do. My understanding (as well as George Martin’s account) is that they used Andy White and Ringo played tambourine. They later re-did the song with Ringo on drums and that is the version we all know and love. According to Geoff Emerick, the Andy White version is the one we know and love and not until the Past Masters vol.1 , was Ringo’s version released sans tambourine…
So there seems to be a discrepancy between the two accounts…any ideas?

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It’s one of those books I feel like I should read, seeing as I’m into recording music and everything.

But to be honest, I got over my Beatles 24/7 phase when I was about twelve years old, and ever since I’ve preferred them in small doses.

He was painfully young in those early Beatles days. And that was before the advent of extra light strings with the unwound G.

I think I pretty much agree with this too. When you see bits of old concert footage (not just single songs, but longer bits with all the banter and goings-on in between intact), you can pretty much see Paul being the band leader, directing it all from up on stage.

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Here’s what I wrote about it on the Whatcha Readin’ Mar 2011 Edition thread.

I stand by what I wrote.

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Zombie or not, Emerick being an egotist or not… this thread made another sale. Should get my copy tomorrow, yay!

What other Beatles books do some of our local experts recommend? How is the Lewisohn book, for example? And what about George Martin’s? Are the McCartney books that discuss the songwriting worthwhile?

I’m a little disappointed to hear that Martin is depicted by Geoff E. as being ungenerous. I was fascinated by what I heard during the BBC’s exended Producer’s Cut interview with George Martin a couple of years ago. He was very complimentary toward Ringo, for example, which was really nice to hear. (It’s not currently available on the BBC archives but there are… ways… of hearing it.)

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The Beatles by Bob Spitz.

Lewisohn’s Compleat Abbey Road is interesting, as is his complete history (tours and such).