$36.09 with 10 percent savings

List Price: $39.95

FREE delivery Friday, May 10. Details

Or fastest delivery Thursday, May 9. Order within 1 hr 25 mins. Details

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$36.09 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from

kozybooks85

Ships from

kozybooks85

Sold by

kozybooks85

Sold by

kozybooks85

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.

Read full return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

$7.87

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

Personally inspected. Slight cover shelf wear. Pages have no writing or highlighting. One page creased. Binding shows no wear. Personally inspected. Slight cover shelf wear. Pages have no writing or highlighting. One page creased. Binding shows no wear. See less

FREE delivery Monday, May 13 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 12 hrs 25 mins

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$36.09 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. Details

${cardName} not available for the seller you chose

${cardName} unavailable for quantities greater than ${maxQuantity}.

Sold by Bertoni Ventures LLC and Fulfilled by Amazon.

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (29) from $7.87 FREE Shipping on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon.

Follow the author

Kenneth Womack

+ Follow

More books from this author

Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles Paperback – May 30, 2007

by Kenneth Womack (Author)

4.5 29 ratings

See all formats and editions

There is a newer edition of this item:

Long and Winding Roads, Revised Edition: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles
$34.15
(9)
Only 10 left in stock (more on the way).

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$36.09","priceAmount":36.09,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"36","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"09","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"4z3tzDd%2FlL9CAp%2BZ2gwFwrZcXPcfz%2B%2By%2B5jcs18nYSvpfFfnlCCXniQYPXCx5sMXFJhra827R29z49L7A7luL545IgP4WMFmDa06veicVo2Vl5OmM8OrXm9ZKn2CCiYhK%2B1dIcvAt3c7CQwKVAUdq8n5GSvQ7wE6QTTjwsiay%2F2Rybs75A6sHA%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$7.87","priceAmount":7.87,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"7","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"87","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"4z3tzDd%2FlL9CAp%2BZ2gwFwrZcXPcfz%2B%2By0mv5bsQjC6XUm6T1LozWni4Y1TPSigm%2BvlUq8vsQ0k1RC7TjZMkWJda%2BnOoWRzLrUnYF%2Bp1l6SYA2j93Fy38DIwRZkBIh0L3V0IEABBBEZjsp3l6xHMALWo7dR%2BdVkmrTPx9%2FRXJx3pYFTFt6FWy2g%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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." -CHOICE --Sanford Lakoff

Mention in Memphis Flyer--Sanford Lakoff

Mention in The Bookseller--Sanford Lakoff

Mention in Memphis Flyer--,

Mention in The Bookseller--,

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

Mention in Memphis Flyer--Leonard Gill

Mention in The Bookseller--The Bookseller

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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Continuum; First Edition (May 30, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0826417469
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0826417466
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.01 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,294,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #472 in The Beatles
- #6,026 in Music History & Criticism (Books)
- #6,603 in Rock Music (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 29 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Kenneth Womack

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Kenneth Womack is a world-renowned authority on the Beatles and their enduring cultural influence. His Beatles-related books include a two-volume biography devoted to famed producer Sir George Martin; Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles; John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life; and All Things Must Pass Away: Harrison, Clapton, and Other Assorted Love Songs. Womack is also the author of five novels, including John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel, The Restaurant at the End of the World, Playing the Angel, I Am Lemonade Lucy!, and The Time Diaries.

everythingfabfour.com

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

29 global ratings

2 star

0%

1 star

0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Michael

Detailed look at the Beatles recording years

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2008

Verified Purchase

Much like the book "A Day in the Life," this one details all the songs, recording sessions and goings-on behind the scenes of the Beatles' studio career. Unlike "A Day in the Life," this book was able to make use of the Anthology interviews, and other tidbits that have surfaced the past 12 years. It is very interesting and doesn't fail to hold your attention throughout, all while reinforcing many things you already know about the Beatles' recording sessions, as well as giving you new insight into many songs.
Much like Abe Lincoln material, Beatle books are ubiquitous and a dime a dozen. This one deserves to be on your bookshelf with a few select others.
Besides, the picture on the front cover is cool.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jayne Err

An Essential Book About The Beatles

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2008

Verified Purchase

As a somewhat obsessive fan of the Fab Four, I've read dozens of books about them. Books about their public personas and private lives, about how some of their songs came to be written and experiences they shared as a group of young men in one of the most exciting periods of rock history. But aside from George Martin's slim journal about the making of the "Sgt. Pepper's" album, I'd never read one about their 'evolving artistry' as author Kenneth Womack succinctly puts it. The focus of this book is clearly that- from song structure and content to gaining more artistic control of how the songs were sequenced on their later albums and the cover artwork that accompanied them as well as which directions their music would take. Copiously footnoted and lovingly detailed, "Long and Winding Roads" is a must-have for longtime fans and folks that are just discovering the magic of the Beatles' music.

23 people found this helpful

Helpful

ABQChris

A wish for more focus on the music itself, and less on the lyrics

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2010

Verified Purchase

I wanted to love this book; I might have approached it with unfair expectations, but one is led to believe that Womack shares some original insights on the Beatles' music. The book is merely a cursory overview of the Beatles' backgrounds (again?), private lives (again?), and recorded output, with a couple of long detours to discuss the band's image; it's not nearly as in-depth or freshly perceptive as its press indicates. On the positive side, there's certainly one aspect of the narrative that's highly praiseworthy, even if it's not directly related to the music -- so I'll mention that after first elaborating on my disappointment with the book's failure to fulfill the promise of the subtitle.

Womack's curious tendency is to focus on the romantic psychology behind the lyrics, which always seems to be quite a stretch, as the words meant nothing to the Beatles themselves during the first half of their recording career (apart from the words' strictly phonetic functions in melodic delivery). This arbitrary exercise is especially overreaching throughout the first two-thirds of the book, considering the superficial boy-meets-girl nature of the first few albums' lyrics.

As the Beatles' inventiveness and culture-altering imaginations were so effective due to melodic, harmonic and stylistic innovations and convention-breaking, and certainly not their lyrics, it would be much more interesting to read about any musical insights that might have rewarded the author's close listening, rather than the over-analytical lyrical guesses.

Further, there are several errors sprinkled throughout, both factual and lyrical; they're small, but they add up over the course of the volume to make the reader wonder why there's yet another Beatles book if, rather than adding a new perspective of any kind, it merely muddies the literary knowledge base with misconceptions, however slight; do we, in other words, really need another condensed Beatles-history book?

Examples of my admittedly pedantic nitpicking include: It was in the control room, and not Studio 2 itself, where George Martin lectured the Beatles, and heard George Harrison's well-known joke about not liking Martin's tie; it's not only Paul who vocally duets with John during "Money"; the hyperactive "Please, Mister Postman" is certainly not "lifeless"; the Beatles played more than just "All My Loving" during their first Ed Sullivan appearance; the line in "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" is not the nonsensical "Well, it's only try and understand," but rather, "If it's funny, try and understand"; John and Paul don't both sing the lead vocal in "You're Going to Lose That Girl" -- it's only John, double-tracked; there's not a "lone piano note" after the guitar solos in "The End," but a full piano chord; etc.

Finally, the numerous footnotes are highly distracting. This sort of thing is obviously expected in a textbook or an exhaustive exegesis, but not packed together so closely throughout the main text in such a fleeting narrative. As each footnote requires the reader to turn to the end of the current chapter, I can't help but wonder why the extra prose wasn't simply incorporated into the main -- or printed at the bottom of each page. That's a minor complaint, of course, but it does break up the reading experience quite frequently.

This is all not to mention the numerous grammatical errors, which are curious, considering that Womack is an English professor. One can perhaps blame the book's editor(s).

Where the author shines, however, is in his formidably acute grasp of media-fueled mythologies, the ability of an iconic performer to find commercial success due to the repetition of facile images and messages, and the ways in which the young listeners of the sixties identified with the Beatles myth. Womack's knowledge of the history of popular culture is vast, especially regarding the quick usurping of the new "teen music" by cynical corporations in the late '50s and early '60s. Frankly, his insight is astonishing.

So the book's worth reading if you happen to be interested in media-propagated mythologies, and how the marketing world responded to the Beatles' previously unheard-of level of media success and social influence; but again, the subtitle indicates that the music will be the narrative priority. (In all fairness, perhaps the subtitle and book descriptions were impressed upon Womack by the publisher.)

What does come through consistently, however, is Womack's genuine love for the Beatles' music. I might disagree with the particularly over-analytical manner in which he attempts to dig tributaries from the music's joys into the rest of life's elusively defined waters, especially given his top-heavy focus on the lyrics, but you might not -- for you'll find here none of the aloof, irrelevant "cooler than thou" cynicism that most self-styled "critics" are guilty of.

In terms of the creative processes behind the music itself, recommended instead are Many Years from Now by Barry Miles, the Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn (in spite of its own errors, it's at least interesting), and the group's own Anthology book.

If you're really in the mood for besides-the-point musical trainspotting vis-a-vis the Beatles, a couple of much more insightful -- or at least more thought-provoking -- books are Tell Me Why by Tim Riley and the Cambridge Companion to [sic] the Beatles.

Absolutely to be avoided is the largely negative and subjectively critical Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald, the wholly sensationalistic The Love You Make by Peter Brown, and the simply fabricated Here, There and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick.

19 people found this helpful

Helpful

Joseph Studlick

Another view on the Beatles

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2007

Verified Purchase

There are hundreds (thousands?) of books written on the Beatles. However, Mr. Womack has added another significant chapter to the story. This well written and researched book will be enjoyed by the ultimate fan or folks just becoming familiar with this group that will long be realized as a major force in 20th century popular music.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Beaconia

Beatles Addict

Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2011

Verified Purchase

Being a sad Beatles fan I was just looking for additional information. Perhaps some snippet or fact previously hidden or overlooked. Sounds impossible? This book delivers in spades. A great read from beginning to end. A book that cannot be put down.

Helpful

psufan

Great read about "the boys!"

Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2013

Verified Purchase

Bought to complement a workshop I took with the author of the book. Amazing to take a closer look at the Beatles, how they became a groundbreaking band, as well as a deeper look into each of them as real people outside of the most famous band in music history!

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

rjk5021

Average look at the Beatles history and impact on society ...

Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2016

Verified Purchase

Average look at the Beatles history and impact on society. You have to be a huge fan to maintain enthusiasm through this tome chronicling the inner workings of the band.

One person found this helpful

Helpful