McCartney Times

In this lively new book, Beatles author Terry Wilson takes a fresh look at the making of the classic Let It Be album, and offers a radical new appraisal of how the sessions worked out. Never has a classic rock album been dogged by so many myths, and what emerges in this book will alter the way this album is understood.

Terry Wilson has studied every second of the ‘Nagra’ tapes and worked through all the available videos, books and biographies and – for the first time – is able to recount the story of the mis-named Get Back Sessions as they really unfolded. You won’t find any lazy re-hashing of the same old stories here – this is a sharp new appraisal based on evidence, which starts with a clean slate and tells of events as they unfold, including a day-by-day account of the Twickenham rehearsals running into mid-January 1969. And the Beatles are a lot friendlier and happier, not to say productive, than you may previously have thought…

Here, we find ourselves with a group hard at work, creating song after song – from the number 1 hit, Get Back, made up on the spot one Tuesday morning, to the magical sessions for All Things Must Pass, the band attempts at Two Of Us in its electric arrangement – and ultimately, inevitably, the point at which George had enough and walked. What happened? How did the Beatles react? And what really led to his sudden departure? The answers are in these pages.

This is part one of a two-book study, to be accompanied by a second volume in the near future, which will complete the story of the Let It Be album. It’s a fantastic episode in the group’s history, and deserves to be told as it really was.