Description

John Lennon said: “We were born in Liverpool, but we grew up in Hamburg.” To paraphrase John, we could say that: “The Beatles were born in Liverpool, grew up in Hamburg, reached maturity in London, and immortality in New York.” Four cities. Four stars. The Beatles are revered the world over, but it is in these urban centres that their legacy shines brightest. Liverpool: where the band graduated from cafe gigs, leaving their initial line-up as ‘The Quarrymen’ far behind. Hamburg: where numerous arrests earned them a more notorious celebrity reputation. London: where The Beatles produced Sgt Pepper, and home to the iconic album cover for Abbey Road. And New York: the city that became John’s final resting place. The Beatles: Fab Four Cities invites the reader on a cosmopolitan trek across continents, tracing the Beatles’ rise to fame from one metropolis to the next. Flush with timelines, biographical details, trivia and both pop cultural and local history, this is a travel guide like no other. AUTHORS: David Bedford is a nonpareil of The Beatles’ fan-led underworld. His three books Liddypool (2009), The Fab one hundred and Four: The Evolution of The Beatles (2013) and Finding the Fourth Beatles (2018) celebrate the band, and the home city they share. He is a guest speaker/vendor at the Annual Liverpool Beatleweek every year. Susan Ryan first achieved renown among Beatles fans through her online publication Rooftop Sessions. She now conducts walking tours for both The Beatles and John Lennon enthusiasts in New York City. She is an outspoken supporter of women in The Beatles’ fandom. Richard Porter has led The Beatles London Tour for over 25 years, guiding avid fans in the Fab Four’s footsteps. The author of Guide to the Beatles’ London, he is proud to hold the title ‘Beatles Brain of Britain’. Known as the authority on the band’s London presence in the 1960s, his tours have featured on National Public Radio in the US. Simon Weitzman, the project wrangler for this title, is the director/writer of the Beatles fan film Here There and Everywhere, due to be released in 2020. He is also the author/production manager of four other Beatles titles.