books Archives - Page 4 of 9 - Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

Interview with Man on the Run author Tom Doyle

By Michael Gerber|2014-09-24T11:02:26-07:00September 23, 2014|1970s, books, Interviews, Paul McCartney|

At this late date, it's a rare book that fundamentally redefines what I think of a Beatle and his work. But after reading Tom Doyle's Man on the Run, I'm hearing Paul McCartney's Seventies music in a whole new way -- not as tuneful, inoffensive AOR, or bargain-bin Beatles, but as a legitimate second act -- a bit like Dylan after the motorcycle crash. Doyle is just the right man for this job; a longtime contributor to the Beatles-crazy UK music mags MOJO and Q, the spine of Man on the Run was formed by a series of interviews he did with [...]

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Joshua Wolf Shenk on Lennon and McCartney (Take 3)

By Devin McKinney|2014-08-15T10:35:18-07:00August 15, 2014|John and Paul, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Reviews|

Nancy & Mike, I feel like Peggy Lee: Is that all there is? If The Atlantic put this on the cover, it must have been a slow cycle, without much happening in the world. Or maybe they just needed a shot of Beatles magic in the rump. “The Power of Two” isn’t a waste of time, because it gives us all a chance to engage in more Beatle chatter, and is further evidence, or suggestion, that the Beatles will not dematerialize into nostalgic ether when the Baby Boomers pass from our midst. But taking the piece on its intrinsic, not incidental merits, [...]

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Joshua Wolf Shenk on Lennon and McCartney (Take 2)

By Michael Gerber|2015-04-11T11:43:35-07:00August 14, 2014|Breakup, John and Paul, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Reviews|

Hello there Nancy (and everybody)— Mike here. Nice post, Nancy; thanks. Here are some more thoughts spurred by The Atlantic's Joshua Wolf Shenk on Lennon and McCartney, perhaps too many. "I read The Atlantic, mmkay?" First of all, Shenk’s piece struck me as typical magazine journalism in the post-Gladwell age — well-written and not factually wrong, but persistently unambitious, only revelatory to somebody who hasn’t really thought about anything but TPS reports since the late 1990s. You know the drill: writer declares something to be conventional wisdom — Shenk even goes to Wikipedia for it — then demolishes it via a catchphrased [...]

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Joshua Wolf Shenk on Lennon and McCartney (Take 1)

By Nancy Carr|2014-08-08T15:09:33-07:00August 8, 2014|books, John and Paul, Joshua Wolf Shenk, The White Album|

[Beloved HD readers: We're trying something a little new here, a call-and-response. This is my take on a recent piece in The Atlantic by Joshua Wolf Shenk on Lennon and McCartney. Soon Mike and/or Devin will chime in with posts of their own. -- Nancy Carr] What hath Malcolm Gladwell wrought? Thith. Hi Mike and Devin, I just finished reading Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Atlantic cover story on the Lennon/McCartney partnership, and while it has its flaws, I'm glad to see John and Paul presented as full collaborators. How crazy is it that it's necessary to argue that the entire Lennon/McCartney songbook [...]

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Mark Lewisohn Interviewed at Critics at Large

By Devin McKinney|2014-08-01T11:51:23-07:00August 1, 2014|biography, books, Mark Lewisohn, Tune In|

DEVIN McKINNEY • One of my colleagues at Critics at Large, Toronto-based arts critic Deirdre Kelly, has scored a dynamite interview with Mark Lewisohn, recently in T-Town for a screening of the Hard Day’s Night re-release and a book-signing. The interview is both substantial and delightful, especially for we who so eagerly consumed Tune In last December, who still see its vivid pictures in our minds, still hear the hum of the history it reanimated. Lewisohn is just as engaged a subject as he is a writer, and Deirdre elicits much fascinating info about the research process he’s been following as “the [...]

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Jude Southerland Kessler’s Lennon books: not nonfiction

By Nancy Carr|2014-06-29T20:08:49-07:00June 29, 2014|books|

Jude Southerland Kessler, author of series of books on the life of John Lennon. NANCY CARR • As the Beatles’ story is told and retold, the line between fact and fiction can grow vanishingly thin, and that’s why this interview with author Jude Southerland Kessler alarms me. She’s currently promoting volume three of a projected nine-book Lennon project she hopes will be “John’s ultimate biography.” Kessler is writing Lennon’s life in novelistic style, basing the narrative on fact while fleshing out conversations and scenes. Here’s what concerns me: she insists her books are equivalent to conventionally researched and presented biographies, and [...]

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Happy birthday, Paul! (with a few notes on style)

By Devin McKinney|2014-07-01T10:18:27-07:00June 18, 2014|1966, 1970s, birthdays, books, Linda McCartney, McCartney family, Paul McCartney, Photos|

Where can I find that jacket? DEVIN McKINNEY • Today is Paul McCartney’s 72nd birthday. He shows no signs of slowing, save for the current illness which his spokespeople will identify only as “a virus” and which has forced him to cancel several dates on his world tour—a contingency unprecedented, as far as I know, in his career. (Surely it’s ironic in some way that he’s taking his rest in Tokyo, cite of his traumatic 1980 pot bust.) What can you say on Paul’s birthday but “Happy birthday”? What can you ask but the same question you’ve asked on every [...]

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Lewisohn’s “Tune In” Extended Edition back in print

By Nancy Carr|2014-08-01T11:53:24-07:00April 28, 2014|books, Housekeeping, Mark Lewisohn, Tune In|

Update for anyone who didn't seize a copy of the two-volume, extended version of Vol 1 of Mark Lewisohn's definitive biography of the Beatles: due to popular demand, it's been reprinted and is in stock in the U.K. You can buy a copy here. My advice is not to sleep on this, if you're interested. I wouldn't bet on another reprint.

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“I Hope We Passed the Audition”: How The Beatles’ Encounter With Abbey Road Studios Changed the World

By Devin McKinney|2015-04-26T06:04:30-07:00April 17, 2014|1960s, Abbey Road, books, Guest blogger|

By Grant Maxwell, Guest Dullblogger Grant Maxwell has served as a professor of English at Baruch College in New York. He holds a Ph.D. from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, and he’s an editor at Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology. He’s also a musician, having played on stages with members of The Rolling Thunder Revue, The Black Keys, and The Strokes. He lives in East Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and son. The following is a modified excerpt from How Does It Feel?: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Philosophy of Rock and Roll, issued March [...]

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Alan Bryson’s “Anagrams” imagines alternate Beatles history

By Nancy Carr|2014-04-07T11:28:52-07:00April 7, 2014|alternate history, Beatles fiction, books|

Time-traveling Nathan's car, the Hawk, parked outside Grams' house Anagrams, an alternate-history novel in which a Baby Boomer returning to 1962 not only meets the Beatles but changes their trajectory, has just been published by first-time book author Alan Bryson. The novel’s hero, Nathan Bellew, must decide when and how to intervene in events he knows are set to unfold, while coping with the issues that come with being, outwardly, an 11-year-old kid again. Bryson is an American-born music journalist based in Europe: you can read his work at AllAboutJazz and listen to his interviews at Talking2Musicians. He graciously sent [...]

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