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In Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles, Kenneth Womack brings the band’s story vividly to life–from their salad days as a Liverpool Skiffle group and their apprenticeship in the nightclubs and mean streets of Hamburg through their early triumphs at the legendary Cavern Club and the massive onslaught of Beatlemania itself. By mapping the group’s development as an artistic fusion, Womack traces the Beatles’ creative arc from their first, primitive recordings through Abbey Road and the twilight of their career.
In this updated second edition, Womack addresses new insights in Beatles-related scholarship since the original publication of Long and Winding Roads, along with hundreds of the group’s outtakes released in the intervening years. The updated edition also affords attention to the Beatles’ musical debt to Rhythm and Blues, as well as to key recent discoveries that vastly shift our understanding of formative events in the band’s timeless story.
“Combining masterful storytelling and intellectual rigor, Kenneth Womack takes readers on a spellbinding tour of Beatles history. Journeying through the band’s music-making album by album, this revised edition of Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles captures all the dynamism, poignancy, and magic behind the now-iconic discography. An engaging and invaluable text, Womack demonstrates once more why he is a leading voice in Beatles scholarship.” ―Christine Feldman-Barrett, author of A Women’s History of the Beatles
“Follow the Beatles down their Long and Winding Roads with Kenneth Womack as guide. This is the Goldilocks choice of Beatles books: meticulous sourcing and highly readable prose strike a just-right balance. Incorporating the latest research in an ever-growing field, the revised edition continues to be the choice for scholars and students of the band. Offering an authoritative reference and a book to tuck into, Womack will have you turning the pages of a story you only thought you knew.” ―Katie Kapurch, co-editor of New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles
Critical praise for the first edition:
“Any music library strong in Beatles surveys and references will welcome Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of The Beatles, which takes quite a different approach than most biographical focuses. The one maps the group’s evolutionary trends from their first recordings to the height—and then fall—of their career. The Beatles’ body of songs—not their lives—are considered on an analysis which does include some biography, but doesn’t make this the focal point. The result is more well-rounded than most Beatles coverage with an emphasis on music over inspirational influences.”—James A. Cox, The Midwest Book Review
“Kenneth Womack’s Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles is the latest entry in the growing field of academic work on the Fab Four. Womack’s volume, however, distinguishes itself both by concentrating on the Beatles’ narrative art and in relating the by now familiar story in a fresh, highly entertaining, but always insightful, way. Comprehensive in scope, Womack’s book manages to avoid the uncritical pap of the cultist without resorting to the antiseptic jargon of the pedant. He truly enjoys the music, yet he seeks to discover why it transcends the work of lesser groups and how the Beatles transformed from a competent, even inspired, pop band into an artistic force.”—James M. Decker, Style