Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 12/16/2023 + 1191 more book reviews

Pattie Boyd was a model working in London in the 1960s and was fortunate enough to be cast as a school girl in the movie Hard Days Night where she met, fell in love with, and ended up marrying George Harrison of The Beatles. This thrust her into the heyday of 60s rock and roll and especially into Beatlemania. As the years progressed, she became less infatuated with George and left him for Eric Clapton who she also married thus becoming the wife of two of rock's icons. Boyd inspired Harrison's song "Something", and Clapton's songs "Layla", "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Wonderful Tonight".

This memoir by Boyd provided a lot of insights into both Harrison and Clapton including the good and the darker sides of both. Both Harrison and Clapton were brilliant musicians but they also drank, used drugs, and were unfaithful to Pattie. Clapton was especially portrayed as a really offensive person who was an alcoholic and kept Pattie away from him so he could have affairs with other women. I know in recent years Clapton has been vilified because of some racist comments he has made and also because of his anti-vaccine stance during Covid.

Boyd also includes in the memoir her life before and after these marriages including growing up in Kenya, the divorce of her parents, and her early modeling career. Later she also became quite well known for her photography, especially her photos of musicians during the 1960s. But her story often meanders and she throws in a lot of information about her trips to various locations around the world, fixing up houses with descriptions of the furniture, her forays into cooking, etc. that don't really provide any meaningful content to her relationships. Overall, I did like that the memoir gave a first hand look into the lives of some of the great rock legends of the 60s, especially the Beatles, but it also was very disjointed and I often got confused trying to keep track of some of the people mentioned -- Pattie had a tendency to throw out a lot of first names throughout the memoir that I could not really remember who they were, family members, friends, other musicians, or ?? Only a mild recommendation for this one.

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