Guitar World eBook: 'The Beatles On the Record' Tellsthe In-Depth Story Behind Every Beatles Album and More

The editors of Guitar World have published a brand-new digital book, The Beatles On the Record: The Ultimate Guide to the Recordings, Songs and Gear of the Fab Four.

The eBook provides an in-depth look at the Beatles’ studio achievements through the legendary group’s 13 albums and their associated singles.

No mere retelling of history, this compendium explores the Beatles in the studio not only through the gear of John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney but also through the unique recording equipment in Abbey Road Studios with which they captured their sounds and forever changed music.

The Beatles On the Record is available for download now at:

• Vook
• Amazon
• iTunes
• Barnes & Noble

The Beatles are such an integral part of rock and roll history that it’s easy to forget they were once struggling musicians who couldn’t get a record deal. In 1962, when they were still unknown, the odds were stacked against them. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Ringo Starr were just four hard-working musicians from Liverpool.

For years, they had logged long hours on the road and onstage, playing a brand of American-style rock and roll for audiences in England and Hamburg, Germany. They’d wooed a manager, Brian Epstein, who then carried their demo tape from one London record label to another, only to be turned down by each. “Guitar groups are on the way out,” Decca Records A&R man Dick Rowe told him.

And it was true. The rock and roll that the Beatles plied in 1962 was based largely on the Fifties-style music of their idols: Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly. But by 1962, those artists were, respectively, in jail, born again and dead. Pop music had been taken over by record-label marketing departments. They kept teens satisfied with a parade of sexually innocuous singing idols who crooned doltish songs written for them by professional composers.

With their electric guitars and a growing repertoire of self-penned songs, the Beatles didn’t seem to stand a chance of getting a record deal—at least not until Epstein convinced producer George Martin to give them a listen. The head of EMI’s Parlophone Records, Martin was as unlikely as the Beatles to become a major player in the pop music scene.

The story continues, of course! Read more — plus the stories behind all 13 Beatles albums and their associated singles and the gear used to create them all. You can learn more by visiting the links above!