First instalment of a massive, two-part biog of Sir G is out at the start of September. The chaps at the “Something About The Beatles” podcast have a chat with author Kenneth Womack in this week’s edition.
http://somethingaboutthebeatles.com/117-george-martin-maximum-volume/
Sounds interesting – listening to the podcast now. I don’t know the author and I’m automatically wary of Americans writing books about British culture in the 1950s-60s (I’ve read many ‘cultural misunderstandings’ about usually minor things, but it can dent one’s confidence about that author’s grasp of larger matters…) but this chap has okay credentials and speaks well. Most importantly, he credits Mark Lewisohn as a major source. I would hope that his coverage of pre-Beatles and non-Beatles things is good – that’d be a bigger draw for me than the Beatle aspect. The world doesn’t really need just another book on the Beatles, from a slightly different angle. I’ll take a punt on it…
Yes, it can well be tricky – see Bob Spitz and in extremis, Albert Goldman for examples of getting it hopelessly wrong. ( That said, American Michael Braun’s 1964 “Love Me Do” got it spectacularly *right*).
But George Martin is an interesting subject – prior to Lewisohn, he hadn’t been really been investigated in depth. We know so much more now, especially about his signing of the Beatles in the midst of intrigue, scandal, office politics and so on. As Womack says in the podcast, Lewisohn’s research opens up an opportunity for a new, in depth analysis of his career. One more point, is that it will be interesting to see, as an American, how he deals with such fundamental elements of George M’s life and career as his very British class-consciousness, his determination to subvert rigid class divisions of the 1940s and 1950s. And of course, his very very British fondness and empathy with yer Goons, Flanders and Swann, Bernard Cribbins etc etc. Given that the first volume goes up to 1966, I think there’s a fair chance he’ll be covering these years and themes in considerable depth.
This should be a great read but I am going to wait until Giles Martin remixes it! 😎
Boom!