Barry Miles Books
Barry Miles: Known as Miles has known Paul McCartney for many years. He was a cofounder of the International Times in the sixties and also ran the Indica Gallery where John and Yoko met in 1966.
His books include biographies of Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd and Jack Kerouac. To me he has written one of the best books about the Beatles and their music I have ever read.
Called “Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now , published in 1998 by Owl books, is based on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews undertaken over a period of five years by Miles and with complete access to Paul McCartney’s own archives, this is Paul McCartney in his own words.
Barry Miles basically questions Paul on every song and album the Beatles created. It is as close to the gospel as one can get on the songs and records of the Beatles.
Seriously, you cannot get any closer to the original source then this. These are Paul McCartney’s recollections as to “How They Did It”…there can simply be no better source.
Here is an excerpt of Paul talking about some of the songs written for the movie “A Hard Days Night’:
People forget that John wrote some pretty nice ballads. People tend to think of him as an acerbic wit and aggressive and abrasive, but he did have a very warm side to him really which he didn’t like to show too much in case he got rejected. We wrote “If I Feel’ together but wit the emphasis on john because he sang it. It was a nice harmony number, very much a ballad. We wrote “I’m Happy Just To Dance with you” for George in the film. It was a bit of a formula song. We knew that I E if you went to an A-flat minor, you could always make a song with these chords; that change pretty much always excited you. This was one of those.Certainly “Do You Want to Know A Secret” was. This one anyway was a straight co-written song for George. We wouldn’t have actually wanted to sing it because it was a bit…The ones that pandered to the fans in truth were our least favorite songs but they were good. They were good for the time. The nice thing about it is to actually pull off a song on a slim premise like that. A simple little idea. It was songwriting practice.
Coming in at over 650 pages this book will keep you involved and smiling for weeks. You will find most of the quotes on this website attributed to Paul come from this book. I highly recommend getting a copy for yourself. Used copies are available at Amazon for very reasonable prices.
Barry Miles has also written a book about the Beatles that I was unaware of, called “The Beatles Diary, Volume 1 : From Liverpool to London (Falk Symposium)
” published in 2002 by Omnibus Press, it is currently out of stock at Amazon and has some conflicting reviews on their site Example:
Miles joins the ranks of such copy-cat authors as Mark Hertsgaard with his "Diary". This book is far from being "an astonishingly detailed chronology of gigs, venues, quotes, and memorable facts about the world's most famous band". Miles has simply taken the contents of Mark Lewisohn's extensively researched "Chronicle" and added pictures.
Aside from being a great-looking "coffee table" book, it is hardly worth the price. The book contains no great revelations, nor does it have any details that have not been covered ad nauseum in the any of the hundreds of books already written about the Beatles.
If you can live without the big pictures, I strongly suggest locating a copy of any of Lewisohn's books.
Paul, NYC
And: The Beatles: A Diary" is a comprehensive and enjoyable look at rock n' roll's greatest band, from the births of all of the Beatles through their 1970 break-up. Accompanied with nearly 300 photographs, this oversized tome is a must-have that exceeds any other book on the Beatles I have seen. Listing so many details of their career in diary form, this book includes record releases, recording sessions, and a list of all of their concerts. One thing that stands out for me is that the concerts are in their own font so that the gigs all stand out and are easy to find. I expect to get many more hours of enjoyment out of Barry Miles' wonderful book and wholeheartedly recommend it to any fan of the Beatles, or anyone just wanting to get to know these rock pioneers.
Jim in Arizona
If you have read this book and would like to contribute a review please feel free to do so, my current list of Beatles books to read and review is quite massive and I don’t dare add another to it.
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