August 13, 2008

The Beatles: Here, There, and Everywhere

Rating:
Awards:
Author: Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey.
Narrator: Martin Jarvis
Category: Bios, Memoirs, Artists, Writers, Musicians
Publisher: Penguin Audiobooks
Release Date:
Length: 7 hours and 48 min.
Abridged

An Overview:
The Beatles: Here, There, and Everywhere, My life recording the music of The Beatles by Geoff Emerick. Sound engineer of the Beatles at Abbey Road Studios in England.

Imagine if you can what it might be like to be a young assistant sound engineer aged 18 to take over the role of chief sound engineer for one of the world's greatest pop bands, the Beatles. This is a situation that befell Geoff Emerick, the sound engineer of the Beatles at Abbey Road Studios in England.

Geoff Emerick tells the story for the first time in this audio book Title In Here, There, and Everywhere. Emerick speaks of the creative processes which fueled by the Beatles quest of constantly searching for new sounds inspired him to develop the new and innovative recording techniques many of which are still in use today.

This audio book will give any Beatles fan a great insight in as to how the Beatles records were made. Emerick also speaks about each Beatle as individuals in the recording studio, their personalities and traits and how they affected the recording process.

Emerick speaks about the rigid and constrictive rules, beginning with dress code and restrictions governing the use and placement of microphones etc. He mentions some of the risks he took by breaking some of these rules to achieve the new sounds and effects he was after.

All in all a very fascinating insight into the early days of how records were recorded, and how some of the new techniques were discovered and employed.

The Narration:

reviewed by Peter Markovic