Solid State
The Story of "Abbey Road" and the End of the Beatles
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- $37.99
Publisher Description
Music writer Womack delivers a fascinating, in-depth look at the creation of Abbey Road, the Beatles' penultimate album released 50 years ago.... Womack displays a detailed and insightful analysis that fans will hope he applies to the band's other albums. Publishers Weekly
Acclaimed Beatles historian Kenneth Womack offers the most definitive account yet of the writing, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road.
In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles' sound, and included "Come Together," "Something," and "Here Comes the Sun," which all emerged as classics. Womack's colorful retelling of how this landmark album was written and recorded is a treat for fans of the Beatles.
Solid State takes readers back to 1969 and into EMI's Abbey Road Studio, which boasted an advanced solid state transistor mixing desk. Womack focuses on the dynamics between John, Paul, George, Ringo, and producer George Martin and his team of engineers, who set aside (for the most part) the tensions and conflicts that had arisen on previous albums to create a work with an innovative (and, among some fans and critics, controversial) studio-bound sound that prominently included the new Moog synthesizer, among other novelties.
As Womack shows, Abbey Road was the culmination of the instrumental skills, recording equipment, and artistic vision that the band and George Martin had developed since their early days in the same studio seven years earlier. A testament to the group's creativity and their producer's ingenuity, Solid State is required reading for all fans of the Beatles and the history of rock 'n' roll.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Music writer Womack (The Beatles Encyclopedia) delivers a fascinating, in-depth look at the creation of Abbey Road, the Beatles' penultimate album released 50 years ago. The record received mixed reviews upon its release, and Womack observes that critics generally agreed that the album "sounded different" from the band's previous work. He astutely argues that the adoption of a series of new technologies at the EMI Abbey Road recording studio, where the band had recorded its previous albums most notably a new solid state eight-track mixing desk lent the music "brighter tonalities and a deeper low-end that distinguished Abbey Road " from the band's earlier works. In enthusiastic descriptions, Womack then breaks down the album song by song, showing how "Come Together" and "Something" benefited from "superlative musicianship, an innovative production team, and an evolving studio technology," and how the studio's new mixing deck allowed the band to capture exquisite three-part harmonies and effortless solo work on the fabled "suite" of songs that close the album. Womack displays a detailed and insightful analysis that fans will hope he applies to the band's other albums. Correction: An earlier version of this review twice mistakenly referred to the author using an incorrect last name.
