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mrdashwood's review
2.0
Fred Goodman's book falls short of being a biography, but provides an interesting perspective on the years of the British Invasion's musical revolution in the United States. Much of the book's action is in fact located in London, as Allen Klein's pursuit of The Beatles involves a strategy of looking for contacts in the British music scene.
The focus of the book is constricted by the nature of Klein himself. He appears to have been something of a workaholic, mastering all the details of a contract and of tax laws in order to secure the best possible deal for his client -- after, of course, looking after himself. It's hard to make long evenings poring over such details interesting, even in a short book, and the results of these efforts are crucial to the trajectory of Klein's life. So the treatment of such things as Klein's faux-Xanadu in Riverdale and his apparently colourful love-life get rather minimal coverage.
I found a lot of useful information here for my project, nonetheless, and if you are interested in the years during which The Beatles broke up, this book has a great a description of the business background to that. And, more generally, it covers an aspect of the music scene that might be overlooked by fans.
The focus of the book is constricted by the nature of Klein himself. He appears to have been something of a workaholic, mastering all the details of a contract and of tax laws in order to secure the best possible deal for his client -- after, of course, looking after himself. It's hard to make long evenings poring over such details interesting, even in a short book, and the results of these efforts are crucial to the trajectory of Klein's life. So the treatment of such things as Klein's faux-Xanadu in Riverdale and his apparently colourful love-life get rather minimal coverage.
I found a lot of useful information here for my project, nonetheless, and if you are interested in the years during which The Beatles broke up, this book has a great a description of the business background to that. And, more generally, it covers an aspect of the music scene that might be overlooked by fans.
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