The Lost Beatles Photographs: The Bob Bonis Archive, 1964-1966 – Groundbreaking Photos from Studio, Stage, and Backstage

Although I have not read the entire book yet, it is a joy just to look at the fabulous and fun photographs that were taken of the Beatles while they were in America in the early 1960's. I was only 12 when they burst on the music scene. My friends and I loved them, picked our favorites,listened to their records constantly, screamed while watching their movies, etc. but I was not old enough to follow where their tours were (except to know it was not any place near enough to actually go to a concert). This book has not only pictures of the Beatles themselves at play and in concert but pictures of ticket stubs and other memoralbilia of different concert dates...like a collector got together all of this neat Beatle collectables and put them in an album for you. There is very good informative writing to go along with the pictures. It is a book that you can just pick up, look at some photos, read a page or two, be entertained and enlightened and then put it down till next time if you would like. Of course, you could start on page 1 and read it all the way through, but you don't have to read it like a traditional book to be able to enjoy it.

If you are fan of The Beatles, then this book is a must have for you. What makes this book a must have is that these photos have never been seen or published before. Most Beatles books that have been published in the last 20 years contain the same photos we have been seeing over and over for the last 20 years. What also makes this book interesting is that the photographer Bob Bonis was a nonprofessional photographer, he was just their American tour manager, but I would say his photos are as good as Robert Freeman's or Robert Whitaker's who were professional photographers and both published their own Beatles Photo Books.I am very thankful to Bob Bonis' family for sharing these pictures with the world as Bob passed away in 1992 and never released them himself. This book is well worth a Beatles Fan's time, attention and money. A Splendid Time is Guaranteed when you look through it.

This is an excellent photo history journal for any Beatles’ fan of their 1964, 65, & 66 American tours.

Love beatles

This original Beatles fan - yep, one of the Ancient Ones - has been collecting rock photos & books for decades. So many photo collections contain rehashes of many of the same photos that it seems nothing new will ever be discovered. Not so!!! With this and its sister volume on The Beatles, the estate of late US tour manager Bob Bonis has indeed provided scores of genuinely never-before-seen images of the classic 60's bands, taken of the boys onstage, backstage & in private tour moments by Mr. Bonis, who had virtually unrestricted access. Bob kept almost all of these photos stashed at his home, seen by VERY few people, even his family. His son & the estate decided it was time to share it all with the world, resulting in a rare, totally fresh, often candid, remarkably immediate, occasionally cheeky assembly of images absolutely essential for any serious rock photo collector. Even if you're not into the Stones or Beatles, these books provide a scarce first-hand inside glimpse of what a mid-60's US rock tour was like. INDISPENSABLE!!!!!

These photos were never lost, so why the title? Nearly every page claims these are the 'lost photos;' they were just in s box or closet all these years, sitting around, never lost. Makes it seem more mysterious than they really are. And some VERY UNCOMFORTABLE photos of the Beatles and Mel Evans playing around stupidly with a gun, that should NOT have been put in the book (let alone ever taken in the first place!) that get the book off to a very uncomfortable start...but then some mostly cool glimpses of the Beatles on their USA tours! Maybe only a good handful are really super, and a few too many look like typical 'trip photos' that show up in everybody's piles of old photos, but generally a very good collection. The intro mentions that Bob (the photographer) had one of George always hanging in his office, but doesn't mentions which one, where the photos of George show up from that date. And Bob says things about the Beatles that DO NOT agree with the same topics in other books; was he being honest or 'quiet' about the boys questionable tour behavior? So the book just adds to the never ending mystery and uncertainty of who the Beatles might have been, and what they ACTUALLY might have done. Actually, what I find most interesting about the book is Mr Bob Boris! In all my Beatles readings (I am rather well read) I just do not remember him at all (I have always forgotten names easily; need to check back in my books!); he had quite a job to do, seemed to have done it very well, and very interesting that he had the great chance to take all these photos (was not professional photographer), and never published them or made himself into a 'Beatles expert' which he both could have easily done. Cool dude! But yes, I like the book, and some day might cut out those gun photos. This might not be a MUST HAVE book though it is very refreshing to have NEW photos after all these years of the same ones being re-cycled so many times. And he took thousands of photos? How about a Web site of some or all of the rest?

Though the new photos aren't phenomenal (though some really are) I find that the back stories behind them is all the more interesting. We learn about the photographer and his relations to The Beatles and even how his son felt growing up with select photos as big a part of their collection as family portraits. Included are scans of not only various tickets, but also staff badges and all other things the guys behind the band were issued. It's neat to see all this as it really does help to ground this man in his little bit of Beatle history. There is a good mix of everything: photo, scan and story, that lend a very balanced feel to this.

This is probably my favorite Beatles book that I own. How many other books have live photographs of the Beatles taken on stage or in the front row? Bob Bonis had access to the band that almost no other photographer had at the time and the pictures are amazing! I would recommend this book to all Beatles fans but especially to the hardcore Beatles fan like myself. I loved this book and wish I could print some of these live pictures in a bigger format and frame them, they're that good.