I was far from a disinterested reader when I picked up Beatles’ engineer Geoff Emerick’s memoir on his time spent at the recording sessions with that most famous and revered pop group. I was 7 years old when The Beatles hit the States with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and 13 when they broke up. They provided the musical backdrop to my growing years during the magical sixties and had more than a little to do with making it the happiest period of my life. When I began writing songs in my teens, I modeled them after John Lennon-Paul McCartney compositions and later, from 1979-1981, the band I played in would center its sound around that of The Beatles (though by then it was clearly antiquated). Emerick’s Here, There and Everywhere was published in 2006 and I knew that I would read it at some point, though I heard in the media that he hadn’t been kind to Beatle George Harrison in the book. There have been books on people in the arts that I wish I’d never read; Spoto’s work on Alfred Hitchcock and Lynne’s biography of Charlie Chaplin come to mind as having gone to unnecessary lengths to savage their subjects (though Chaplin deserves some of what he gets). It never occurred to me not to read Here, There and Everywhere for such reasons.

That said, I can say that Geoff Emerick’s book is tremendously informative, incredibly entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny throughout, and a true addition to The Beatles’ lore. I don’t read about the group much in books, but I’m full of facts and figures on its history. And although the authors present a volume of material that most hardcore Beatles fans would not know, there’s plenty that many of us wish we hadn’t been exposed to. One of the aspects of the book for which I was unprepared was Emerick’s tough treatment of the band’s heralded producer, George Martin. Though the author does laud him at many points, his criticisms of Martin sting harshly for those of us who believe that the producer added an incredible dimension to The Beatles just in his orchestral scorings alone.

Most Beatles fans are aware that The Beatles often fought in the studio. Bastardizing Tolstoy, one could say that all melodic bands make harmonious music, but all creative bands with players with large egos fight in a unique fashion. For example, members of the group The Who spoke of knife scars on their bodies as the result of arguments in the early days of the band. There was downright bitter hatred amongst members of The Byrds and The Mamas and The Papas. My own band came to a few wrestling matches and one piece of equipment accidently “fell” on me after a heated discussion over a song’s arrangement. I would venture to say that when you are in a band and are serious about it as an art, one’s instrument or song becomes indistinguishable from oneself; and therefore, there is an almost natural territorial defensiveness about one’s playing, etc. So when you get a group like The Beatles with two genius songwriters having to direct the other members of the band on how to achieve their vision, it was destined to become a terrible test of wills. The band members became nasty, sarcastic, bitter, angry, and argued to the point that not only did Emerick quit as engineer during The White Album sessions, no other engineer at EMI wanted the job knowing what was in store for them.

Geoff Emerick worked in a variety of engineering capacities for The Beatles, beginning as a teenager fresh from school at their very first recording session at EMI’s famed Abbey Road studio. Both EMI and Abbey Road are relentlessly derided by the author throughout the book (and for good reason). Emerick was elevated to chief engineer for The Beatles in 1966 during the sessions for their great album, Revolver. On his first day, he made his mark in recording history with his studio effects on John Lennon’s voice in “Tomorrow Never Knows” and by manipulating the sound of Ringo Starr’s drums on the same tune. When The Beatles decided to no longer tour or appear live as a group, they buried themselves in the studio and began their 1967 masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The stories that Emerick weaves in this section of the book are fascinating and I found myself unable to turn the pages fast enough to hear him relate on how the group crafted the album. Emerick was instrumental in creating the remarkable sonic texture that graces Pepper’s.

The perfectionist attitude on Sgt. Pepper’s would haunt The Beatles in the studio for the three years that followed. They spent hours and hours at Abbey Road, often through the night, and the terrible arguments and fighting became a given. The constant presence of John’s wife-to-be Yoko Ono only fanned the flames of discord. The funniest moment in the book comes when George Harrison, from the window in the control room, spies Yoko stealing one of his biscuits down in the studio proper. The tirade he unleashed should become legendary.

Though Emerick quit the engineering crew in 1968, he was invited back for the group’s final album, Abbey Road. Things had settled down between the band members to a point of an uneasy truce, marked by the fact that The Beatles knew they worked best in smaller groups and without all four of them together in the same studio. By this point, the reader is tired of the Beatles’ tantrums and personality quirks and almost relieved that they called it quits in 1970. I personally have no doubt that if John Lennon, who died in 1980, had lived, the band would have reunited at some point. There are interviews at that time indicating that he had made peace with the others and that they all had finally moved on and matured and were ready to “let it be.”

The Beatles’ music takes on a new dimension for those having read Here, There and Everywhere. It’s such an entertaining and eye-opening book that I’m glad I read it, regardless of some of the negative portrayals.