Many of the interviews quoted are from those featured in the documentary films, and additional interviews were conducted specifically for the book. The book, which is billed as the only autobiography of the Beatles, also features more than 1,200 rare photos and color illustrations. It includes interviews with all four band members, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, together with others involved, most notably producer George Martin, press officer Derek Taylor and roadie and head of Apple Corps, Neil Aspinall, who oversaw the project. This was part of The Beatles Anthology film project. This is the First Edition, published by Chronicle Books of San Francisco in October 2000. This is The Beatles Anthology, a hard cover book BY THE BEATLES. There was just one problem: they were all guitarists.You can't be a Beatles fan and not own this book. There were other band members in those days, but when the musically gifted trio of John, Paul, and George came together, it felt good. But there was something in the way he played guitar – he was obsessed with them – so he too joined the Quarry Men.

George was from a similar background to Paul – his dad was a bus driver and former seaman – but he was in the school year below nine months younger than Paul and more than two years younger than John. But Paul found he got stage fright when he tried a solo, so he roped in a kid he got the school bus with, George Harrison. With a little help from a mutual friend, Ivan, Paul met John one day at a local fair, and Paul impressed enough to get into John’s group, the Quarry Men – even though he was playing his guitar upside down. His family was poorer than John’s, but warmer – and more musical, especially his dad, a trumpeter who passed on his love of brass bands and piano music. Losing his mother was a bond he shared with Paul McCartney, who was 14 when his mum died of cancer. As he got older, he reconnected with his mother, Julia – but tragically, she was killed in a drunk-driving accident when John was 17. Then he discovered rock’n’roll, guitars, and girls. But his parents split when he was four, and John moved to a wealthier part of town to live with his Aunt Mimi.Ī trendy young boy, always the ringleader, he would lark about with his friends and sell lemonade in Strawberry Field, around the corner. John Lennon’s first memories come from a three-bedroom red-brick house on Newcastle Road, in a Liverpool suburb called Penny Lane.

The beatles anthology book