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" The metaphor is unavoidable: Mark Lewisohn is the Beatles of Beatles biographers. Nobody else who has ever waded into this territory\u2014telling the story of the greatest saga in the history of popular culture\u2014has done so with as much swagger, style, power, or sheer confidence, the kind that comes from being way out ahead of the pack. The first volume of his long-anticipated three-part biography The Beatles: All These Years is just out in the U.S. from Crown; it&amp;#039;s called Tune In ($40). (One may hazard the guess that the second volume will be called Turn On and the third Drop Out, but nobody is willing to confirm this.) The book clocks in at 932 pages and concludes on New Year&amp;#039;s Eve 1962, the last night of the Beatles&amp;#039; rough-and-tumble, pharmaceutically driven Hamburg apprenticeship. Next stop: Global domination. But you&amp;#039;ll have to wait for volume two for all of that. We asked Mark Lewisohn to be a guest T&amp;amp;amp;C DJ this week, and he has kindly provided a playlist of early highlights from the band (along with his own commentary); it&amp;#039;s an audio portrait of how the world (or, at least, Britain) would begin hearing the Beatles just at the moment when they began their ascent out of smoky Liverpool and Hamburg dives and onto the airwaves. &amp;quot;I have a great affection for this early period,&amp;quot; Lewisohn\u2014who grew up and still lives outside London, and who first heard the band at age five in 1963\u2014told us the other day during a stopover in New York. &amp;quot;The stories people tell about the Beatles of this time are so close and immediate. There&amp;#039;s something particularly magical about it.&amp;quot; The spell never wears off. Some Other Guy The 1962\u201363 Beatles stage hit. Both John and Paul wanted to sing lead so they did it side by side, each trying to replicate Richie Barrett&amp;#039;s wondrous tooth-whistle \u2013 but never succeeding. Great all the same, this is the Beatles, live and powerful, on the BBC in 1963. Ask Me Why The B-side of the Beatles&amp;#039; first British #1 (&amp;quot;Please Please Me&amp;quot;)\u2013 mostly written by John, influenced by &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s So Good About Goodbye,&amp;quot; a Miracles song on Tamla (Motown). Love Me Do They called them &amp;quot;Lennon-McCartney Originals.&amp;quot; Written in 1958 by Paul (15) and John (17) under the Buddy Holly influence \u2013 though for the Beatles&amp;#039; first record in 1962 they added bluesy harmonica and went from country to city. Don&amp;#039;t Ever Change New York songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King were the dominant 1962\u201363 influence on Lennon and McCartney. This hit for the Crickets (whose name inspired &amp;quot;Beatles&amp;quot;) was a central plank of the Beatles&amp;#039; nightly stage repertoire, as heard on this BBC recording. I Saw Her Standing There Written by Paul in late 1962, started and finished in Liverpool and polished during a London hitchhiking trip with a girlfriend. Ideas were borrowed from a variety of other records but the result was powerfully original, strong enough to open the Beatles&amp;#039; first album. One After 909 The Beatles first cut this John song in 1960 \u2013 a lost recording. Eventually made public 10 years later on Let It Be. (This is an aborted 1963 studio version.) Like Dreamers Do Written by Paul when 16 or 17, this song snagged the interest of a London music publisher who in turn got the Beatles their contract with producer George Martin. This version was recorded January 1, 1962, during their failed Decca test, Pete Best on drums. Soldier of Love Recorded by Alabama-born Arthur Alexander, this was a biggie in the Beatles&amp;#039; 1962 stage act. (Here is a 1963 BBC recording.) Please Please Me The title was inspired by Bing Crosby (1932), the musical style leaned on Roy Orbison, but John Lennon created something truly original with this urgent love song \u2013 which became the Beatles&amp;#039; first UK #1. Three US record companies turned this down at the end of 1962, but it would be a Stateside smash 15 months later. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/reviews/a1355/beatles-biographer-mark-lewisohn-playlist/>