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Solid State

The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles

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Solid State

By: Kenneth Womack, Alan Parsons - foreword
Narrated by: William Hughes
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In Solid State, Kenneth Womack offers the most definitive account of the conception, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road.

In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles' sound and included "Come Together", "Something", and "Here Comes the Sun", which all emerged as classics.

Womack's colorful retelling of how this landmark album was written and recorded is a treat for fans of the Beatles. Solid State takes listeners back to 1969 and into EMI's Abbey Road Studios, which boasted an advanced solid state transistor mixing desk. Womack focuses on the dynamics between John, Paul, George, and Ringo and producer George Martin and his team of engineers, who for the most part set aside the tensions and conflicts that had arisen on previous albums to create a work with an innovative (and among some fans and critics, controversial) studio-bound sound that prominently included the new Moog synthesizer, among other novelties.

As Womack shows, Abbey Road was the culmination of the instrumental skills, recording equipment, and artistic vision that the band and George Martin had developed since their early days in the same studio seven years before. A testament to the group's creativity and their producer's ingenuity, Solid State is required listening for all fans of the Beatles and the rock 'n' roll.

©2019 Kenneth Womack (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing
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Opens up the story behind the Abbey Road album, as well as the technology, processes and relationships behind it….

Insightful

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the book felt like its been meticulously researced using sources who's worked closely with the 'Beadles ' ...

its Beatles not Beadles..

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Somehow in the carnage of their later years, and amid increasingly bitter personal relations, The Beatles continued to produce history-making music. This book chronicles the making of Abbey Road, but also looks at the Get Back sessions and Let It Be - it analyses the latter stages of the band’s work and is highly detailed, exploring the production technology as much as the composition, while also examining the behind-the-scenes turmoil engulfing the band. The level of detail in the earlier part of the book will be almost overwhelming for all but the most committed fans, but it becomes more gripping as it moves on, blending a musicological appraisal with a wider look at the personal tensions that blighted the band’s terminal stages. It is a bit disorganised, jumping around chronologically, and there is some annoying repetition of phrases - eg ‘associated with’ makes too many appearances, so maybe better editing was needed. The narration is fine, arguably a bit Marmite, but it worked for me; at times I increased the speed of narration to 1.5 before reverting to 1 after settling into it. This is a good summation of the endgame of the world’s greatest band, and well worth a listen for fans of the Beatles, and indeed music fans generally.

And in the end …

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Brilliantly written, plenty of tangents but never losing focus and easy to follow timeline. Superb book, one of my favourite accounts of probably my favourite era in music

Excellent concise account

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I came to this book hoping to learn something about The Beatles and their final sessions in the studio. I’m interested in the recording process and love The Beatles and always refer back to them as a high point for recorded music, so this looked promising. I got what I’d hoped for within the first hour of listening, but the thing I also got, that I’d not imagined I would, was a narrative as compelling as an excellent novel. I was listening to Murakami’s 1Q84 at the same time as listening to Solid State, and I kept forgetting that one was a novel and one was not. There was just such an incredible narrative pull. I’m sure this was assisted by William Hughes’s excellent reading, and I think it’s important to highlight this. He read with complete engagement and that’s a major plus for a listener.

The Fabs themselves emerge as complex, difficult, and gifted very young men. McCartney’s drivenness comes through very clearly. Ringo’s as much the hero of these recording sessions as anyone, and I’m really pleased Womack chose to highlight this.

Of course George Martin and Jeff Emerick in particular, deserve as much applause as it’s possible to give for their production work, and this book illuminates their (and several others), ‘above and beyond’ ethos, when it came to this album.
Listening to the album now, is an even greater experience.

This is something special.

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