Beatles Undercover

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly good
Review: I believe this is a must for those seeking a highly informative and yet a simple to read book. I commend Kris Engelhards' dedication and perseverance for eight years on excellent research. I love that a CD is enclosed with three songs that John Lennon had produced and one that he had penned. In fact, this may be the first time anyone besides those who were involved with the recording has ever heard. I also might add, that I am one of the two singers on this CD that was honored to have worked with John, Lori Burton

Rating:
Summary: What did I buy?
Review: I looked at this book for 20 minutes and still had no idea what it was about. I have every book about the Beatles but to me, this was a piece of garbage. This is the only book I've ever returned in my life-anywhere.

Rating:
Summary: Well researched & written; excellent reference book
Review: Painstakingly researched, thoroughly documented, well organized and entertaining to read, this is a reference book that any Beatles completist will want to have. Seven years of research and interviewing went into this comprehensive catalog of the contributions that each Beatle made to other artist's recordings. It includes their roles as writers, producers, vocalists and session musicians. The book includes 399 individual recordings from 220 artists from Alexeyev to Zappa. Readers who consider books by Mark Lewisohn and Doug Sulpy as essential to their Beatles' reference library will want to add this one to their shelf. If you thought you had everything recorded by a Beatle on vinyl or CD, wait until you read this book. You'll find quite a few surprises.

The acknowledgments read like a "who's who" of musicians, producers, singers, writers, authors, researchers and members (past and present) of the Beatles' inner circle. The recollections and contributions by these people add to the credibility of the information presented. In the introduction, the author acknowledges how people's recollection and memory of events may diminish over time or may have been altered by the drug and alcohol scene of the past. He has made every effort to indicate what is documented and what is speculation.

Each entry includes artist name, record label and catalog number, media (vinyl, CD, VHS, etc.), producer, description of the jacket and other packaging, recording date and location, song details, composer, release date and country, and musicians. The author also indicates the level of likelihood of a Beatle contribution to a specific recording in the instances when it has not been confirmed. While not every possible version of a release is given, Engelhardt lists the recordings in their "best available" format as far as quality of recording.

The bonus CD includes three previously unreleased tracks produced by John Lennon and provided courtesy of Ray Cicala and permission of Yoko Ono. These are Incantation - performed by Dog Soldier with Patrick Jude, lyrics by John Lennon, produced by Roy Cicala and John Lennon; Let's Spend the Night Together - vocals by Lori Burton and Patrick Jude, produced and arranged by John Lennon; and Answer Me, My Love - vocals by Lori Burton, produced by Roy Cicala and John Lennon. The sound quality of the recordings is superb and add to the desirability of this book for the ultimate collector.

While it may appear that the book is merely a listing of facts and trivia, the author delivers well written prose to tell the stories behind the recordings. The book can be read cover to cover or used strictly as a reference book. It is alphabetized by artist and includes an index.

Rating:
Summary: A great read, and a major piece of scholarship
Review: This is really a terrific book for a lot of reasons -- best of all it's completely fun to read (you won't be able to put it down) plus it's so packed with rare and esoteric information that in about five minutes you'll have absorbed enough obscure factoids to impress anybody at the next Beatles convention, and even sound nearly as expert as author Kristofer Engelhardt himself, a true Beatles scholar and collector who has lovingly gathered the information here for the past seven years. That in itself is extraordinary: how many writers have spent seven years researching one book? And the author's ambitious scope is immediately obvious: it's amazing how active and involved the Beatles have been in other musicians' recording sessions from the most famous (Dylan, Beach Boys, Zappa) to the utterly obscure (Crowbar, Splinter, Timon, though most musicians here will be familiar) as well as to combinations of both (who were all those players in 'Elephant's Memory'? ).

But what makes this book really so valuable is that Engelhardt has a professional historian's fanaticism for accuracy. Full disclosure: I've been lucky enough to know couple of the musicians discussed here (Dennis and Brian Wilson, guitar legend Jesse Ed Davis) and the facts Engelhardt entertainingly lays out in BEATLES UNDERCOVER are all rock-solid as far as I can tell. Tangential rant: it's not widely known but a lot of rock and roll "history" books are junk...woefully inaccurate and historically useless, with various tales, myths and canards repeated ad infinitum verbally and then immortalized in print by so-called professional writers who really don't know what they're talking about (Steve Gaines' book on the Beach Boys is a glaring example... ). Here you get the real thing -- as far as I can tell everything here is solid gold you can take to the bank, and no doubt BEATLES UNDERCOVER will be must-read basic source material for all future writers with a serious interest in the Beatles and the 60's-and-beyond pop music scene.

Besides the Beatles' own stories there's a further interest served with Engelhardt's fascinating and erudite thumbnail overviews of the careers of all the non-Beatle artists discussed. If you didn't know that Count Basie was born in 1904, started on the drums and then studied piano with Fats Waller, it's all here, and if BEATLES UNDERCOVER does neglect to mention that Jesse Ed Davis claimed to have taught Duane Allman how to play the slide guitar -- a claim with substantial merit it turns out -- that's only because the Beatles never jammed with the Allman brothers ... because if they had, they'd be in this book!. A great read, and a major piece of scholarship that will be re-read for pleasure and consulted for serious study for a long time to come.