Philip Norman wrote and published 'Shout!' at a time when there hadn't been a serious Beatles biography in years. As it was followed within a few years by Peter Brown's tell-all and a handful of Lennon bios with different agendas, it gained stature as definitive, when all it really was was another stab.
Luckily for us, one of his researchers was Mark Lewisohn, who has proven time and again to be more concerned with finding out the facts than Norman, who's coasted on his proclamations for decades, even extending them into four further Beatle bios of varying accuracy and attitude. His reputation among Beatlemaniacs has tarnished to the point where we wonder if any "new" info really happened.
Meanwhile, us younger Americans in the late '70s devoured Nicholas Schaffner's 'The Beatles Forever', which remains incredibly devoid of gross inaccuracies half a century after it was published.
I’m sure that there are similar inaccuracies in other areas of history, but it seems there are particular challenges in writing objectively about the Beatles.
Philip Norman wrote and published 'Shout!' at a time when there hadn't been a serious Beatles biography in years. As it was followed within a few years by Peter Brown's tell-all and a handful of Lennon bios with different agendas, it gained stature as definitive, when all it really was was another stab.
Luckily for us, one of his researchers was Mark Lewisohn, who has proven time and again to be more concerned with finding out the facts than Norman, who's coasted on his proclamations for decades, even extending them into four further Beatle bios of varying accuracy and attitude. His reputation among Beatlemaniacs has tarnished to the point where we wonder if any "new" info really happened.
Meanwhile, us younger Americans in the late '70s devoured Nicholas Schaffner's 'The Beatles Forever', which remains incredibly devoid of gross inaccuracies half a century after it was published.
I’m sure that there are similar inaccuracies in other areas of history, but it seems there are particular challenges in writing objectively about the Beatles.