Saturday, April 05, 2008

Book Review: Wonderful Tonight by Pattie Boyd



Those of us who grew up as Beatle fans have grown up since, and what with the way of the world and all that, our hearts may not pound as they once did at any news of a....BEATLE! Nevertheless, when Pattie "ex-Mrs. George Harrison" Boyd's memoir came out last year, I bought it immediately and devoured it faster (if such can be imagined) than a big bag of potato chips, turning each page eagerly, as if at last I might discover the secret of....the BEATLES!

Ironically enough, one of the things I realized from Pattie Boyd's narrative (which is decently written, although a little heavy on the girlish breathiness) is that is was not easy to be a BEATLE! The now well-trodden territory of losing most or all of one's privacy to the press was relatively new, especially in Britain, especially for what most establishment people viewed as a passing trend. George (always my fave rave), Paul, John and Ringo were ill-prepared and basically, flummoxed on many levels by their rapt public, while the government (remember those drug arrests) basically fucked with them at every turn.

Read my full review of Wonderful Tonight here on LAist, and do go see the show at Morrison Hotel Gallery on Sunset (same block as Toi, across from Meltdown), which opens this Sunday and runs for a few weeks (there are links to the Gallery in the LAist piece). And the book is being issued in paperback in late May, just in time for the beach.

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