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The Beatles have been at the top for fifty years, their music remains exciting, their influence is still huge, their acclaim and achievements cannot be surpassed. But who really were the Beatles, and how did they and everything else in the 1960s fuse so explosively?
Mark Lewisohn’s three-part biography is the first true and accurate account of the Beatles, a contextual history built upon impeccable research and written with energy, style, objectivity and insight. This first volume covers the crucial and less-known early period – the Liverpool and Hamburg years of a hungry rock and roll band, when all the sharp characters and situations take shape.
This is the Beatles like you’ve never read them before. It isn’t just ‘another book’, it’s the book, from the world-acknowledged authority. Forget what you know and discover The Complete Story.
Mark Lewisohn’s three-part biography is the first true and accurate account of the Beatles, a contextual history built upon impeccable research and written with energy, style, objectivity and insight. This first volume covers the crucial and less-known early period – the Liverpool and Hamburg years of a hungry rock and roll band, when all the sharp characters and situations take shape.
This is the Beatles like you’ve never read them before. It isn’t just ‘another book’, it’s the book, from the world-acknowledged authority. Forget what you know and discover The Complete Story.
Reviews
A radical event and a joy to read - Lewisohn tells the tale with such authoritative command of the evidence and so intimate a grasp of the Beatles' daily lives that the reader emerges knowing - with a certainty denied all previous generations - that this is how it really happened.
Lewisohn's work stands as a monumental triumph, a challenge not merely to other Beatles biographers but to the discipline of biography itself. If only all important subjects had their Lewisohn
A triumph. Not only an enthralling account of the Beatles' origins, far superior to anything that has gone before, but also an essential piece of social history.
Lewisohn has set out to do the Beatles justice and write the definitive history. I think he is succeeding
Mark Lewisohn raises the biographical bar to stratospheric heights. This first volume suggests he is on the verge of achieving what was heretofore considered impossible: blowing the cobwebs off one of the late 20th century's hoariest cultural myths, scraping away decades' worth of accumulated crud and revealing detail no one previously suspected was there
An epic unprecedented in rock 'n' roll biography, and a great read ... Does far more than enrich with mind-boggling detail, there's a surprise on every page ... The detail is sharp and incisive ... It's the kind of book where want-to-know and need-to-know is wrapped into a narrative that unfolds brilliantly and, for once, justifies that 'real story of the Beatles' billing
Positively a page turner, both for excitement and anticipation - Lewisohn has enhanced the story as a beautifully flowing factual tale that reads like a classic novel. Nobody but nobody could begin to match this work of joy and detail; and reassuringly, nobody ever will. This is the best work ever produced on the subject of the Beatles. A five star review is an insult, it merits an unheard of ten
The accomplishments of the Beatles has given rise to a near deification of them as both people and myth. Lewisohn brings that story back down into the world of real people.
Tune In clears the air of myth and legend, leaving as much reality as a biography can offer. Every single page brings the Beatles back into focus and moves them away from legend. Common myths fall apart under Mr. Lewisohn's research
Presents the Beatles story in a way it's never been seen before: truthfully and completely. The end result is a herculean effort, a fast-moving page-turner overflowing with warm humor, passion, and (of course) music. Likely to become a principle text in 20th-century studies, a sort of Complete Shakespeare with a much better soundtrack. For anyone who loves music, this book is the genuine ultimate
The saga is clearer and richer here than it's ever been. Lewisohn writes in novelistic detail and with the obvious conviction that none of the previous Beatles biographies have ever been good enough
This is Torah! Huge on a massive scale, the most altruistic thing anybody's done in the arts since the Beatles, and it needed to be done. God keep Mark Lewisohn alive to finish what he's started
Tune In is brilliant in describing the addictive power of rock and roll when there was no imaginable alternative in a doomed town. Mark Lewisohn's achievement lies with the fact that he never tries to 'explain'. He is not argumentative but turns up the colours in a world that has faded to grey
The best book I read all year. I expected data collection. I got data, but also interpretation at a very high level, obsessive reporting and high quality music criticism. Lewisohn's a writer as much or more than an assembler of information. This is a great book, there's nothing like it in music and damned little anywhere else (it makes The Power Broker seem superficial)
Lewisohn amasses and investigates facts without sacrificing an iota of the excitement. In its close focus and historical ambition, the trilogy may be compared to Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, or John Richardson's Life of Picasso; it is unlikely to be surpassed
A game-changing study which raises the bar in a genre characterised by pap or pretension. A meticulous piece of work - I can't wait for volume two
I can think of no greater praise for Tune In than to say that it gives the Beatles the beginnings of the biography they deserve. It is hard to imagine the subsequent volumes, covering more familiar ground, matching the gripping quality of this constantly surprising work
With imagination, energy and a gripping plotline, Lewisohn manages to put flesh and blood on the story as never before
Packed with revelations and demystifications
A major event in music publishing . . . the definitive account of the Beatles
I doubt anyone expected to be surprised about the Beatles again, but the story only needed supersizing. I continued reading with bewildered pleasure
Fills in vital details that had been missing from the existing Beatles canon and corrects mistakes that have been reprinted for years. A definitive history of the band
The widest possible angle on an extensive and engrossing group biography built on a well-raked mountain of exacting new research ... expertly controlled and propelling
Epic in its scope, forensic in its detail, Tune In is like reading the Beatles' story for the very first time.
Lewisohn's art is to tell the story compellingly: his prose has a vibrancy that sustains a remarkable page-turning momentum throughout its entire length. And what a story! Tune In leaves the reader breathless
Lewisohn manages to fill in blanks that no one knew were empty
