Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles

Review

Mention in The Bookseller (The Bookseller)

Mention in Memphis Flyer (Leonard Gill)

"Any music library strong in Beatles surveys and references will welcome Long and Winding Road: The Evolving Artistry of The Beatles, which takes quite a different approach than most biographical focuses. The one maps the group's evolutionary trends from their first recordings to the height — and then fall — of their career. The Beatles' body of songs — not their lives — are considered on an analysis which does include some biography, but doesn't make this the focal point. The result is more well-rounded than most Beatles coverage with an emphasis on music over inspirational influences." —James A. Cox, The Midwest Book Review, February 2008 (James A. Cox)

"Good on recognizing precursors to Beatles' songs, Womack does a fine job of bringing out the group's accelerated aesthetic development." —B. Diemert, CHOICE, July 2008, Vol. 45 No.11 (B. Diemert)

"Womack does a fine job of bringing out the group's accelerated aesthetic development."
-Choice, 2008

Mention in The Bookseller (Sanford Lakoff)

Mention in Memphis Flyer (Sanford Lakoff)

"Any music library strong in Beatles surveys and references will welcome Long and Winding Road: The Evolving Artistry of The Beatles, which takes quite a different approach than most biographical focuses. The one maps the group's evolutionary trends from their first recordings to the height – and then fall – of their career. The Beatles' body of songs – not their lives – are considered on an analysis which does include some biography, but doesn't make this the focal point. The result is more well-rounded than most Beatles coverage with an emphasis on music over inspirational influences." —James A. Cox, The Midwest Book Review, February 2008 (Sanford Lakoff)

“Good on recognizing precursors to Beatles’ songs, Womack does a fine job of bringing out the group’s accelerated aesthetic development.” —B. Diemert, CHOICE, July 2008, Vol. 45 No.11 (Sanford Lakoff)

Product Description

In Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles, Kenneth Womack brings the band's story vividly to life―from their salad days as a Liverpool Skiffle group and their apprenticeship in the nightclubs and mean streets of Hamburg through their early triumphs at the legendary Cavern Club and the massive onslaught of Beatlemania itself. By mapping the group's development as an artistic fusion, Womack traces the Beatles' creative arc from their first, primitive recordings through Abbey Road and the twilight of their career.
In order to communicate the nature and power of the band's remarkable achievement, Womack examines the Beatles' body of work as an evolving art object. He investigates the origins and creation of the group's compositions, as well as the songwriting and recording practices that brought them to fruition. Womack's analysis of the Beatles' albums transports readers on a journey through the Beatles' heyday as recording artists between 1962 and 1969, when the band enjoyed a staggering musical and lyrical leap that took them from their first album Please Please Me, which they recorded in the space of a single day, to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the White Album, and Abbey Road―albums that collectively required literally thousands of hours to produce. In addition to considering the band's increasing self-consciousness about the overall production, design, and presentation of their art, Womack explores the Beatles' albums as a collection of musical and lyrical impressions that finds them working towards a sense of aesthetic unity. In Long and Winding Roads, Womack reveals the ways in which the Beatles gave life to a musical synthesis that would change the world.

About the Author

Kenneth Womack is Professor of English and Head of the Division of Arts and Humanities at Penn State University's Altoona College.