Long and winding roads: the evolving artistry of the Beatles

Abstract

Kenneth Womack. Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles. New York: Continuum, 2007. HB $75.00 PB $21.95. Kenneth Womack's Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles is the latest entry in the growing field of academic work on the Fab Four. Womack's volume, however, distinguishes itself both by concentrating on the Beatles' narrative art and in relating the by-now familiar story in a fresh, highly entertaining, but always insightful, way. Comprehensive in scope, Womack's book manages to avoid the uncritical pap of the cultist without resorting to the antiseptic jargon of the pedant. He truly enjoys the music, yet he seeks to discover why it transcends the work of lesser groups and how the Beatles transformed from a competent, even inspired, pop band into an artistic force. Complementing Walter Everett's magisterial scholarship on the Beatles' musical talents, Womack's Long and Winding Roads demonstrates how the group first honed their craft as storytellers and then rewrote the rules of rock narrative. Particularly impressive is the depth of Womack's knowledge of both the Beatles' biography and their musicianship, for this information-in combination with Womack's considerable narratogical skills-allows him to show readers the interconnectivity that is crucial to understanding the Beatles' success. Rather than focusing on the lyrics in isolation, Womack demonstrates both how they fuse seamlessly with the group's sonic experiments and how they reflect the emotional turbulence of the Beatles' well-documented lives. The book proceeds album by album, all the while contextualizing the music within the scope of the band's evolving personality and talents. In the end is his beginning, and Womack commences the volume with a snapshot of the Beatles in their last moments as the cohesive unit that dominated the charts and forged the singular narrative aesthetic that still attracts legions of fans. Womack's implicit question, one that drives his argument, is how the Beatles arrived at that peak, how they moved from the twenty-seven muddy, barely audible sounds (4) of the earliest extant recording of the Quarry Men to the embarrassment of artistic riches reflected in their oeuvre (306). In answering the question, Womack eschews heavy-handed pronouncements in favor of narrative exposition. He locates a self-awareness and existential uncertainty (5) from the hardscrabble start of the band's career, one that drove them to value excellence over sentiment, and skill over friendship-as Pete Best and others discover. Womack illustrates that the ubiquitous, early personnel changes and general desire for newer, better equipment fit into a larger pattern of both ambition and curiosity that laid the groundwork for the later, greater experiments at Abbey Road studios. In one telling, early incident, erstwhile Beatle Stu Sutcliffe finagles his school into buying a superfluously sophisticated P.A. system, and, now able to shed their modest skiffle origins, the band would never be the same again (22). By infusing his book with such moments, Womack artfully demonstrates that the great breakthroughs of Rubber Soul and Revolver did not materialize solely through ineffable magic-or narcotics-but that from the start the Beatles (Quarry Men, etc.) were never a complacent band, even as they reached benchmarks (quality gigs, recording contracts, number one hits, fan adoration) that generally typify success. One of the book's many strengths is Womack's ability to evaluate the progression from the early club performances and quickly recorded albums through the extended-and unprecedented-studio sojourns required for The Beatles, Abbey Road, and the other masterworks. While most critics dismiss the Beatles' early recordings as ephemeral, albeit infectious-pop, Womack is adept at sensing the underlying connections between the Beatlemania phase and the more admired studio phase. For instance, in discussing P. …