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List Price: $16.95 | | Publisher: Da Capo Press
Salesrank: 249690
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
Liverpool-born author Tony Barrow worked beside The Beatles as the world-famous group's own public relations man through each exciting phase of their dazzling career in the sixties. His up-close-and-personal profiles of John, Paul, George, and Ringo probe their true personalities and reveal their amazing lifestyles as no other book has done
Barrow gives a devastatingly honest, powerfully authoritative, and absolutely credible eyewitness account of how his history-making clients acted in and out of the spotlight. Also published here for the first time is his astonishing collection of photographs, including candid snapshots taken in the sanctuary of dressing rooms and hotel suites from where press and paparazzi were excluded.
Barrow watched the Beatles' "greatest gig of all" at New York's Shea Stadium and, at Paul's request, he made a personal souvenir recording of The Beatles' final concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.
The author lets his quirky Liverpudlian sense of humor run all through the text because "rock 'n' roll was never invented to be taken too seriously."
John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me: The Real Beatles Story Reviews:
John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me 
2007-09-03 - Very interesting insight into the life of the Beatles. Tony Barrow reports first hand his experiences as their PR person.
Readable Glimpse of The Beatles in The 60's 
2007-07-31 - The people who actually surrounded The Beatles in their heyday were few, so it's good to get their perspective. While there are some parts of the book that drag, for the most part it's an interesting read by a 'regular guy' who didn't seem overwhelmed by the superstars he was working with. There are some factual errors that even the most basic Beatle fan would catch, as when he says Ringo wrote many songs, but only a few were recorded by The Beatles (there were two).
Barrow often focuses on his job as publicist, sometimes offering trivial info. Still, it's good to get it on the record. He knew Brian Epstein well, and gives him a lot of ink. This is not a book for the casual Beatle fan, but if you've read the rest of them, you will probably want to check it out.
The same old story 
2007-04-17 - I've always thought Tony Barrow should publish a book about the Beatles, but my idea was slightly different. I used to read those articles he would write for the "Beatles Monthly Book" and find them very interesting. Tony's challenge was to look for something new to write about the Beatles at a time when their story had been exhaustingly told in countless biographies. So he would choose a specific topic and explore it in full, thus providing us with up close views of different aspects in the life of the Beatles: "The Beatles and Money", "The Beatles were Night People", "The Beatles in Clubland", "The First Record John ever bought", etc. I've always thought he should select the best pieces and publish them in a book. Together they would form an original and detailed mosaic of those hard days and nights from an insider's perspective. Instead, Tony chose to give us just another Beatles biography. That makes "John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me" rather predictable at times. After all, the Beatles' chronology will always be the same, whether told by an insider or by a researcher. Most of us know the sequence of facts by heart, now, and reading this book feels like watching a familiar scene from a different camera angle. Whatever exclusive views Tony has to share are few and far between and concern mostly his work as the Beatles' press agent. Perhaps this is a book Tony felt he had to write. As someone who was once close to the Beatles, at least on a professional level, maybe he owed it to himself to write his own Beatles biography. The outcome is nothing spectacular, but still a worthy read for any Beatles fan.
Interesting in places, not a home run
2006-07-19 - This is a somewhat disappointing book because of Barrow's writing style, what he chooses to focus upon and what he leaves out. He had tremendous access to the Beatles, but one gets the distinct impression that he never really knew them, except superficially. Though he claims he eventually got close to John Lennon, he only bothers to detail one evening where the two got drunk. He was never in their houses, invited out with them and was never in the studio. He also never saw the boys after their split in 1969, which makes it obvious he was never that close to any of them. This leaves a large gap in the volume which Barrow chooses to fill with stories from his own life or from the life of Brian Epstein.
However, there are some fascinating aspects to the book and parts of it are riveting. Barrow devotes a chapter to dissecting each Beatle personality and this by far the most interesting section of the book.
Paul comes across as charming, adorable, press-savvy and hugely ambitious. Barrow makes the note that it was always Paul who checked his looks in the mirror before every photo shoot. George is portrayed as a decent, friendly and amiable bloke, but one whose psyche was destroyed by Beatlemania and the rigors of touring. Barrow does go into some detail about George's prodidigious womanizing, which dwarfed even Paul's exploits with the ladies.
The section on Ringo is interesting and it's obvious Barrow never really got to know Starr. He paints the Beatles drummer as a silent person unable to make conversation because he felt he had "academic deficiencies" and because he was a late-comer to the group. I was a little offended that he basically portrays Ringo as a stupid man incapable of small talk beyond a few pithy one-liners. Anyone who has seen Ringo in interviews knows he abounds with charisma and humor. Barrow makes it out that Ringo was an inconsequential member of the group, musically inferior and just along for the ride. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Barrow's recollections of John are the most seering. John's caustic and often cruel humor was directed against Barrow for several years. The press chief relates a story where John deliberately embarrassed Brian Epstein by grabbing him in the crotch during a business meeting. Poor Brian stood there, gasping in emotional and physical pain, while John plopped down in his chair, laughing.
It's hard to tell who Barrow liked the most of the Beatles, though one senses it's John, despite the fact that Paul was the friendliest, most self-effacing and approachable.
Barrow also brings out new information on the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein. The chapter on Brian is both riveting and extremely sad. Talk about self-destruction! His chapter on the Beatles in Japan contains much new information, as well as their hellish experience in Manilla. Barrow also dishes up new information on John's mental state in the aftermath of his "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus" remark in 1966. Who knew that prior to the press conference, John buried his head in his hands and cried?
The low points of the book are Barrow's tendency to write about himself, particularly in the first few chapters. Readers want to know his recollections of the boys, not details about his own life. A brief synopsis of his own life would have sufficed. Barrow's style is also bare-bones and spare, with little pizzazz.
There are some errors of fact and Barrow gets his dates wrong in several places. He also throws in some dubious quotes which contradict the actual facts. For instance, does anyone think John really said, "Pete Best was a great drummer, Ringo was a great Beatle?" Lennon has often been quoted as saying Pete was sacked because his drumming was not up to snuff.
Barrow's section on the Beatles famous meeting with Elvis in 1965 is one of the high points of the book. But his version flatly contradicts the Beatles own version, where they all claim (except John), that they never jammed with Elvis. Yet Barrow has Elvis and his sychophants providing guitars to the boys so they could sing "I Feel Fine." This strikes one as ludicrous since George, Ringo and Paul have all been adamant that they never sang or played with Elvis. Something is definitely wrong here.
I read the book in one evening and if you're a Beatles fan, this is essential reading. I just wish Barrow would have revealed more and gone into greater detail about personalities and lifestyles of the Fabs.
Barrow's Memoir fills in some gaps
2006-07-02 - There are so many Beatles books they are divisable into categories: memoirs of those involved, technical/reference works on recording and performing specifics, those that cover specifc periods and projects, and the most useless of all, overviews of their entire lives by those with no special connection to the Beatles or no special access to historical materials.
Barrow, was of course, an employee of Brian Epstein's NEMS organization and as such, his memoirs are worth reading. He had special access.
The good points: his section on the many disasters of 1966 is fantastic and his presentation of this year has made me think of it in a whole new way. His depiction of the butcher cover controvery, the awful Manila and Tokyo episodes, as well as the fear of bible-belt assassins all through the summer tour of the US is compellingly written and detailed.
Also very interesting are the depictions of how the Beatles fan club and the Beatles Book publication worked with Barrow, as the chief PR man, to spread the image of the lads. Barrow, like many old timers, is quick to remind us how much today's entertainment industry sucks compared to the old days. I can't say he's wrong there.
There's an excellent photo supplement as well, including a number I haven't seen before.
On the other hand, there are, as is inevitable in these memoirs, errors of fact or contradictions. Here are three I spotted on first reading:
1.) he accuses Alistair Taylor of "defect[ing]" (p.236), yet a few pages later Taylor is sacked by the dreaded Allen Klein (p. 248). According to Taylor's own recent memoir, the latter is certainly accurate.
2.) Barrow says that Lennon and Cynthia were divorced in November 1969 (p.241). But...didn't he marry Yoko in March of 1969? And wasn't the single, "The Ballad of John and Yoko," descriptive of their travails in trying to get married, released in May 1969? Unless bigamy was legal in the UK in the '60s....how could this be?
3.) There's one bit of confusion in the chapter, "The End of the Road," where Barrow calls the Dodger Stadium show, Aug 28, the "penultimate" show. Because he describes that show--perhaps it would be better described as "tumultuous"--AFTER the actual last show of the tour, Candlestick Park on Aug 29, it sounds as if he's made a chronological blunder.
(my own facts are checked against Mark Lewisohn's epic and indispensable, "The Complete Beatles Chronicle.")
The title of the book isn't fantastic and reminds me of
"John, Paul, George, Ringo... & Bert," a 1970's
play by Willy Russell. The cover art is just bizarre. The Fab Four are shown in sharp black and white glory while the ghostly image of Barrow hovers below. Weird. The index sucks.
Entertaining and specific, despite the occasional mean-spirited comment.
