I was born in 1960, and have been a Beatles fan all my life. One of my earliest memories is of being encouraged to sing a precocious ‘She Loves You’ into my Dad’s reel-to-reel tape recorder.
I'm now a freelance designer/writer/translator based in London and The Hague. As such, I've written extensively on a range of subjects for clients from airlines and law firms to the United Nations in New York. But my passion is music, in particular the music of the greatest band of all time.
However, I'm interested in most forms of music, and am also fascinated by musical theory and what makes music “work”. Analysing the work of (according to Tony Palmer) “the greatest song writers since Schubert”, who wrote instinctively with no formal musical training – or indeed ability to actually read music, was irresistible, and I hope my fascination shines through in my writing.
'And the Band Begins to Play', my first book, involved around twenty years of painstaking research – the publication of Mark Lewisohn’s 'The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions' first got me thinking it would be interesting to pull together information about individual Beatles songs in the form of a definitive reference book. It has been a true labour of love and my passion for it has never diminished.
Since then I have published a further book on the nitty gritty of the Beatles' songs, both recorded and performed live. 'The Songs the Beatles Played' gives detailed information on the the songs recorded by the Beatles, together with around 80 of the key songs the group played live but never recorded.