Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me | Pattie Boyd, Penny Junor

Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me | Pattie Boyd, Penny Junor | Wonderful Tonight!

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Wonderful Tonight:...

	Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me Pattie Boyd, Penny Junor Harmony, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 240 reviews view larger image
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Wonderful

Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me What a delight to catch up with Pattie after all these years. I'm so sorry for all her pain.

Wonderful Tonight!

What a delight! I love reading about people's lives, and Pattie Boyd has led an interesting one. It was good to learn about George and Eric. See, we thought they were perfect. It's about time Pattie Boyd wrote a book. A good read all the way through.

An honest, telling book

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the life of this famous muse, told from her own honest perspective.

Fascinating autobio, but audio book version severely abridged

Fascinating autobio of the former model who married George Harrison, then Eric Clapton. While it's intriguing to walk through her life through her shoes, it also depicts the often aimless life of the rock star wife, not to mention the chronic and casual infidelity of the rock stars they are married to. Boyd describes her experiences growing up and during and after her marriages to these rock icons with humility and honesty, or so it seems. The audio book is severely abridged, so much so that the original book loses a lot of its focus and nuance; I read the complete book and listened to the aud simultaneously, and the differences became very notably apparent - much moreso than with other aud abridgements.

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Being the Wife of Rock & Roll Legends is Depressing as Hell

I can't recall when I've been so depressed reading about the lives of two of my favorite popular musicians. I'd never heard of Pattie Boyd. I woke up one morning to her giving an interview about her memoir to one of the local talk shows. Her wonderful British accent made her sound so distinguished and clever. While I didn't recognize her name, I quickly figured out she was talking about her marriages to songwriters and musicians George Harrison and Eric Clapton. That realization grabbed my attention and I immediately ordered her book to learn more.
I'd recently read Andy Summers autobiography and loved how he was able to share the passion that had driven him and his music throughout his life. This book however was totally without passion and short on insights one would have expected. By the time I was nearing the end of it I didn't really care whether I finished it or not. But I did just in case there was more than I'd found so far. Pattie (being born on Saint Patrick's Day is the reason for her name) had finally matured enough through the pain of her marriages to begin to discover herself. What she was discovering doesn't say much for living with Rock & Roll Gods unless one occasionally gets enough pleasure and satisfaction from their reflected glory. Otherwise her life was a lonely life spent enabling and caring for spoiled men who had never grown up and were compulsive in every way. They were apt to substitute one form of obsession with another one in order to escape their own self-doubts and addictions. George Harrison, who Pattie married when they were both kids, was a very shy man who couldn't quite come to grips as to why he was famous. He felt there were lots of musicians and songwriters who were better and more deserving than he was. When his manager Brian Epstein died at age 32, he and the other Beatles were totally helpless because Brain had seen to their every whim, want and physical need as well as making them famous and rich. They were like children who had never had to grow up. The world revolved around them and they did nothing for themselves. Pattie and George lived in a twenty-five bedroom English Estate but took it for granted. George eventually seized on Eastern Religion to escape his demons but was soon back living in a cocaine fog. He would often mediate and chant for eight hours at a time and sometimes he would goes days doing nothing but chanting and fondling his prayer beads. He turned into an angry and frustrated man.
Eric Clapton eventually seduced Pattie away from an inattentive George and he turned out to be alternating between heroin addition and alcoholism. Since I'm the same age as Pattie reading her book was like a nostalgic trip down memory lane. But while I was a simple observer she was a major player--the girl on the cover of the photographic book about beautiful women in England entitled "The Birds of Britain." And while normal people such as myself may dream of what it's like to be in Pattie's world, it turns out to be more of a nightmare. She was the muse of two of the greatest Rock & Rollers of all time, but she wasn't a part of their inner world. She was just a pretty face to have around. The book is ghost written but still lacks detail and the kind of insights one would expect. "Sex and Rock & Roll" may seem exciting to we outsiders, it isn't so for the main characters of the drama and their family and enablers. There were some very famous events such as the legendary Guitar Duel between George and Eric and the writing of the song "You look Wonderful Tonight" that were described in the sparsest and the most unsatisfying detail. It's like Pattie wasn't even there and was simply giving a second-hand account. Or perhaps she was simply too drunk or stoned to recall and share the wonderful details of those famous moments in the lives of those popular artists. There were zero insights about her husband's music. One also feels incredible pity for Pattie who was unable to have the children she so desired and who was married to two of the richest men on Earth and only managed to end up with a modest divorce settlement from either marriage. Eric had actually married her because of a bet for 10,000 pounds he'd made while drunk. She didn't find that until after the quickie marriage had taken place. Naturally she would have preferred to never learn that information.
The book is disturbing depressing. As she wrote, the musicians she was around all the time never grew up. They were never criticized. They were just kept happy. To Hell with everyone else around them. They didn't care about anybody else or if they did, they weren't sober enough to realize it. This book is about Lost Souls. It's amazing they were able to create music that is so, so appealing.

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