2010 8 Feb

Here, There, And Everywhere By Beatles Recording Engineer Geoff Emerick

Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles is perhaps my most favorite Beatles connected book. Why is that? Because it provides such a fascinating and lifelike perspective on the recording of The Beatles classic albums such as 1966’s Revolver.

I enjoy that this book is concentrated on what was going on within the studio instead of what the guys were doing personally as far as who they were dating and all of that kind of stuff. In comparison other books on The Beatles are too targeted on the biography of The Beatles and not enough on the music that made them famous. It’s because of their songs that anyone is concerned about their biography.

The book isn’t entirely about The Beatles, it is more of a Geoff Emerick memoir (with a clear focus on his time working with The Beatles) however if you’re thinking that that may make it less interesting, I really do not think that is true. I actually believe it helps make his stories about The Beatles seem more “real.”

In fact the book’s “realness” is one of the best things about it. I have read a heap of books on the band however many of them appear quite clinical in comparison. They’re often like a bunch of facts thrown together. With Here, There, and Everywhere I really felt like I was there at Abbey Road Studio in the 1960s. Sort of like a fly on the wall, taking it all in.

This book offers a nice look into The Beatles as musicians there’s actually a series of books called The Beatles as Musicians which goes into that more indepth.) We get a glimpse of McCartney working for hours to get his bass guitar parts perfect and we see George Harrison greatly improve his guitar playing skills through the decade.

Emerick was a very important part of the band’s sound throughout their psychedelic period. Amazingly on his 1st full day as lead engineer he came up with concepts which helped make the last track on Revolver, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” sound so incredible.

If you are interested in buying this book you aren’t stuck with shopping for it on old fashioned paper, you’ll be able to also obtain it for your Kindle. If you do not have a Kindle yet then I suggest shopping for the Kindle DX Digital Reader because of it’s larger size, it makes it far more easy to read. If you live outside of the States, you’ll need to buy a Kindle with Global Wireless.

As much as I like reading about the recording of The Beatles music, I enjoy listening to their music even more than that. And I think it’s a great idea to have the new Beatles remasters around to hear to while you’re thumbing through this great book. I particularly suggest getting The Beatles Mono CD Box Set because Emerick mentions on several occasions in this book how he thinks the mono mixes are superior (specifically in relation to Pepper.)