Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I am a huge Beatlemaniac and put this book on my wish list for Christmas. I wish I hadn't. While there are a few interesting tidbits here and there, if you have read or seen the anthology, it is not new. Mr. Kane represents himself as more of an insider then it appears he actually was. The book contains far more remembrances from Beatle fans then actual Beatle quotes. As someone else has noted, the cd consists of mostly "Hi Larrys" from the band. Save your money on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I found the book hard to put down and did not want it to end. What I came away with was this; The Beatles were truely very nice people. Of course we all knew that they were geniuses and witty, but they were also very respectful and not one bit phony. I've read at least 15 other books on the Beatles and I saw a side of them in this book that the other books didn't show. Good job Larry.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have been written 25 years ago...
Review: I had high hopes for this book in that it was being written by a nearly true insider to the world of early Beatles stardom, when they were on the ascending exponential curve of their celebrity and creative genius. Unfortunately, Larry just doesn't remember much. He is eloquent, at times verbose, but offers little in the way of new information, and as another reviewer has suggested, does get some details wrong. He should have written this 25 years ago when he likely remembered more. And the Beatle quotes he intersperses offer little more...comments like "Its a drag" and "Shea was great" aren't exactly eye-poppers. If you are an ardent Beatles fan, you will want this book for the few interesting tidbits that do surface, but you will become frustrated as you read it knowing that it likely could have been more.
Rating:
Summary: good book....
Review: I really liked this book. It really held my attention the whole way through. This book is about The Beatles tour of 1964 and 1965 tour and their relationship with radio news guy Larry Kane. Larry built a relationship with The Beatles and even after The Beatles broke up he still stayed in touch and would see them occasionaly. The tour stories are very interesting.
You really get an inside look at how The Beatles really were.
Rating:
Summary: FAB FOUR AND MORE- by a class act
Review: I was maybe eight when Beatlemania hit. To me, Beatle tunes are like wallpaper- they're always in the background wherever I go. I'm one of the few people who picked this up (at least outside of Philly) because I'm a Larry Kane fan. I wasn't disappointed.
Larry Kane, who just might have been the best local TV anchor in the country, has had a fantastic career- yet he says that his Beatle experience is always the first thing people ask about. So here it is- a breezy, fly-on-the-wall chronicle of how an obscure 21-year-old radio guy from Florida got to join the (tiny) press entourage as the Fab Four hit these shores. From all four corners of our map- Boston, Key West, San Diego and Vancouver- plus everywhere in between, we get to know John, Paul, George and Ringo as people in a way the rock writers never got.
Much of the material in the book is also on the bonus CD, which includes unique and open interviews with all four guys.
We also get to know Larry himself, and how he went behind the screaming-kids surface to see just why the Beatles weren't just voices on your radio.
I had the good fortune to hear and meet Larry Kane in person when he did a book-tour stop here in Boston. Let me tell you, this is a class act- easily the nicest and most genuinely friendly guy I've ever met in a public setting. The Beatle saga you read and hear about in "Ticket To Ride" was only the beginning of his marvelous career (check out "Larry Kane's Philadelphia" for the rest of the story).
If you're even a casual Beatle fan, you'll really enjoy this as a snapshot of the original, and still best, rock n'roll mega-tour plus a glimpse of how those four guys from Liverpool did more than just change pop music- told in an engaging and offbeat way. And if you love good yarns by a first-class newsman,
you'll enjoy it as well. Philly's lucky to have Larry Kane and, for a few months in the mid-'60s, the world's biggest musical act was lucky enough to share their story with him.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazingly bad
Review: I'm the biggest Beatles fan around, but even I had to force myself to keep reading this book. It is probably the worst-written book by a professional writer (a journalist, in this case) that I've ever encountered. It's full of cliches, ham-fisted attempts to be eloquent or literary, and obvious attempts to make his role appear bigger than it was. My advice is to stay away.
Rating:
Summary: Ticket to Ride Review
Review: In reading this book, I was expecting more stories involving the Beatles. It was full of facts and lots of repetition about each city in the tour. Kane tries to use eloquent language but it comes out as cliches and stories with no relevance to the interest of the reader. There wasn't much new information and the interviews became dull after the first few chapters, because of the recurring information. It seemed that the interviews were just a different way of retelling what Kane wrote about in the previous text.
Rating:
Summary: A truly great book
Review: In the seemingly never ending avalanche of books appearing about The Beatles as a group or John, Paul, George and Ringo as individuals, there is very little corn in between the chaff, and you can't help hoping to come across a book that fascinates you so much that all you really want to do is finish it in 1 session.
This is such a book! Larry Kane was working as a news director for Miami based WFUN Radio in 1964 and was covering the news in the street, the courthouse, politics and the Cuban refugees coming to Florida in that year. The management of WFUN wanted Larry to secure an interview with The Beatles when they played Jacksonville (Gator Bowl, 11-Sep-1964) and so Larry wrote to Brian Epstein to arrange it. Epstein was impressed by Larry's title and letter and invited him to travel with The Beatles' entourage from coast to coast and to Canada in the official Beatles travelling press party. Larry (at the age of 21 in 1964) was therefore a witness to the entire 1964 U.S. tour and would later also travel with the Fab Four for the entire 1965 U.S. tour and the final part of the 1966 U.S. tour. So Kane gives us first hand accounts about travelling with The Beatles on the airplane and in limousines, hanging out with them in hotels and backstage, seeing the concerts and so on. His 'mission' was to record a daily (brief) exclusive interview with the boys, which WFUN then sold on to 45 nation-wide radio stations in order to pay for Larry's expenses.
The book is full of wonderful detail and once again makes it clear what a gruelling schedule The Beatles had to follow. There are many, many very interesting parts in the book. To list but a few:
- Larry's description of the concert in Vancouver (Empire Stadium, 22-Aug-1964) illustrates in detail the chaos going on during a typical Beatles concert. We all know about the continuous screaming that drowned out most of the music, but here he details how fans were trying to rush to the stage and how lots of people were trampled in the process, resulting in many, many injuries.
- The fact that the audience could hear the music better during the Hollywood Bowl concert (23-Aug-1964) as the audience there was slightly more mature and didn't scream so loud (still pretty loud I'd say when you listen to the recordings of that concert).
- Larry's description of the fact that The Beatles' favourite board game (Monopoly) wasn't the only relaxation they were craving. In their hotel (Lafayette Motor Inn) in Atlantic City (30-Aug-1964) about twenty young women showed up in the Beatles' suite, most of them in low-cut dresses and the men present were invited to 'take their pick'.
- In Chicago National Amphitheater (5-Sep-1964), Paul got hit by a slice of beef(!) and not just by jelly beans.
- The fact that hurricane Dora forced them to change their planned two-day rest stop from Jacksonville to Key West (recommended to them by Larry).
- The fact that a concert in Kansas City (Municipal Stadium, 17-Sep-1964) originally hadn't been planned for the tour, but was added to the schedule when the owner of Kansas City athletics. Charles O. Finley offered Epstein a $150,000 fee (then the largest amount paid for a single performance ever). In the Muehlebach Hotel, Finley then tried to get The Beatles to play longer than their standard 30-minute set by offering more and more money. John Lennon played the game of getting Finley to go higher and higher with his price but in the end turned him down. The concert wasn't sold out (50% attendance in a 40,000 seat arena) so Finley must have lost money on this concert. The Beatles did however play 1 extra song on this occasion: Kansas City.
- The fact that the journalists travelling with The Beatles were offered money, etc. by fans who wanted to meet The Beatles.
- The fact that Fans managed to get out on the tarmac in Houston (19-Aug-1965) when the airplane carrying The Beatles on board, taxied to the gate. Some of them even climbed onto the wings to wave at those inside!
- On the night of 21-Aug-1965, one of the engines of the airplane The Beatles were travelling on caught fire on the flight from Minneapolis to Portland. They were however close enough to Portland to safely land there. Of course everyone was very frightened by the experience and George Harrison said that The Beatles were all huddled in the back near the emergency door and had decided that their motto would be "Beatles and children first" if an evacuation became necessary. Throughout the book, Larry quotes liberally from the interviews he's done with all four. To top it all, a 58-minute CD is included with the book, which provides the original interviews linked by commentary from Larry.
The only criticism I have of this book is Larry's tendency to create cliff hangers at the end of each chapter in order to urge you to read the next chapter. This gets on your nerves after a while and the book really doesn't need it.
With all the detail provided and the objective style of reporting Larry uses, this book is a must have for any Beatles fan that wishes to know (a lot) more about the 1964 & 1965 Beatles Tours.
Rating:
Summary: They saved my life!
Review: It is hard to believe that 40 years have passed so fast since the Beatles arrived in America. They saved my life. We were mourning JFK when they came. They cheered us up with their great music. Having seen them live at Forest Hills, the stories told brings back great memories and good feelings of days gone by. "Ticket to Ride" brings the Beatles back to life. Larry Kane's experience as a TV journalist truly shows in one of the best written, unbiased views of the Beatles I have ever read. The CD is a collectable and even if you were not a Beatles' fan, this well written book is a must read!!
Rating: 
Summary: Behind the Scenes with a PG Rating.
Review: It isn't the Led Zeppelin tell-all, but this great book takes you inside the behind-the-scenes life of being a Beatle (or in their entourage) during their early tours of the U.S.A. New tid-bits about 'the boys', and how hard it was being in that blinding limelight that was Beatlemania!
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