(StatePoint) Whether you’re a Beatlemaniac or a more casual fan, you likely have an opinion about the band’s final days together and their eventual breakup.
However, a brand-new book may challenge everything you thought you knew about the band’s twilight hour. Already a New York Times bestseller, “The Beatles: Get Back” from Callaway Arts & Entertainment and Apple Corps Ltd., is the first official standalone book to be released by The Beatles in over 20 years. Presenting transcribed conversations drawn from over 120 recorded hours of the band’s studio sessions, along with hundreds of previously unpublished images, including photos by Ethan A. Russell and Linda McCartney, this exclusive, in-their-own-words account of the “Let it Be” recording sessions paints a new portrait of their final days together.
“Legend has it that these sessions were a grim time for a band falling apart, but it becomes clear from the fuller transcripts that John, Paul, George and Ringo were not only productively collaborating on works we still know and love today, they were having fun doing it,” says Nicholas Callaway, publisher, Callaway Arts & Entertainment.
This intimate, riveting book invites readers to travel back to January 1969 as the foursome regrouped in London for a project, initially titled “Get Back.” Over 21 days, first at Twickenham Film Studios and then at their own Apple Studios, with cameras and tape recorders documenting every day’s work, the band rehearsed a huge number of songs in preparation for what proved to be their final concert, which famously took place on the rooftop of their own Apple Corps office building and brought central London to a halt.
These sessions, which generated the “Let It Be” album and 1970 film, represent the only time in The Beatles’ career that they were filmed at such length while in the studio creating music. While some hold the 1970 film responsible for the collective idea that there was bad blood between the bandmates before they parted ways, the newly-released transcripts and images, as seen in the book, paint an altogether different and fuller picture of this time in the band’s history that might be closer to the truth.
For this reason, “The Beatles: Get Back” is an essential complement to both director Peter Jackson’s documentary film series of the same name, and the 50th anniversary special edition worldwide release of “Let it Be,” which has been newly-remixed, and features expanded and never released session recordings. Available globally and in 10 languages, more information about the book can be found by visiting thebeatles.com and callaway.com.
“The Beatles gave my generation their genius and their joy and they changed the world through their art. The creativity and inspiration expressed in these candid, behind-the-scenes moments are as important and relevant today as ever,” says Callaway.