The screaming hysteria of Beatlemania may be behind us, but after over 40 years of the Fab Four, it seems the public still wants to know everything about the lads from Liverpool. Bob Spitz aimed to do just that.
Spitz spoke about his experiences writing “The Beatles: The Biography” to a group of library supporters and Beatles fans at the Darien Library Sunday evening.
“As I biographer, I just assumed I had to set the record straight,” Spitz said of his task.
Crowded into the main section of the Darien Library, audience members sat listening in full attention to Spitz’s experiences with the Beatles, beginning from his first childhood memories.
“I was not a Beatles fan,” he revealed. After their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, Spitz said he announced to his friends at the bus stop that they were “the worst group I’ve ever seen, and they’ll disappear within two weeks.”
“I stand here dripping in irony at being their biographer,” he added.
His first impression served to be short-lived, as like millions of others, Spitz came to recognize the Beatles’ music as the soundtrack to his life.
As he set about writing the exhaustive biography in the late 1990’s, Spitz spoke with a recently-knighted ex-Beatle Paul McCartney about getting to the truth of the Beatles’ story.
Fresh off working on “The Beatles Anthology,” McCartney explained it more accurately could have been called “The Beatles Mythology,” with all the inaccuracies and half-remembered stories it contained.
In order to complete “The Beatles: The Biography,” Spitz interviewed more than 600 people, most of who had never before publicly spoken about the Beatles.
It took more than eight years for Spitz to research and write the book. He wound up with 80,000 pages of research that he whittled down to a hefty 2800 page biography. Expecting around 400 pages, the editors summarily trimmed the book to its final 973 page version.
As audience members groaned over the loss of such information, Spitz revealed that the excess material will be available for the die hard Beatlemaniac to peruse in the library of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
From his research, as well as from various personal meetings with the musicians, Spitz characterized John Lennon as the most complex of them all, “a man beset by demons.” He noted George Harrison as being initially the most unformed but one who grew the most during the Beatles’ run.
He cast Ringo Starr as the unlikely hero of the book. He was a wonderful man, Spitz said, not overly ambitious and always a friend to the others, even during their difficult times together near the end of their career.
Paul McCartney, in spite of Spitz’s praise of his second-to-none musicianship and vision, earned a more ominous title: a “colossal snake.” McCartney became overly controlling, particularly during the recording of the Beatles’ last albums.
“He is, what I believe, the reason the Beatles broke up,” he said.
Spitz also said McCartney tried to control him during the writing of the book. Spitz resisted, but he reported that McCartney was happy with the end result regardless.
A Darien resident for four years, Spitz was very appreciative of the Darien Library’s support of both his and other writer’s works. He lived in New York City for more than 35 years, where he found the public libraries, with strange and limited hours and minimal resources, of little value.
Spitz frequently writes articles for various publications, including GQ, the Washington Post, and Esquire, but is perhaps best known for his travels with and writings about musicians such as Bruce Springsteen and Elton John.
Dot Kelly, a newly appointed member of the library’s board of trustees, enjoyed Spitz’s in-depth and informative speech. “He really gave us a snap shot of each of the Beatles,” she said.
Zach Miners, a Fairfield University graduate and Beatles fan from Norwalk, was happy to be a part of the audience that was so interested in the subject.
“It was a great sense of excitement, all the passion for the group,” he said.
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