From 4 quarters, an uneven crop

If a single event signaled the musical end of the ‘60s, it would have to be Paul McCartney’s announcement 35 years ago that he was quitting the Beatles, news that broke with shattering finality the intoxicating spell the Fab Four had cast through most of that decade. Would there be life after the Beatles for John, Paul, George and Ringo?

Having given fans an authoritative tour of the Beatles’ musical legacy in four previous books, New Orleans musicologist Bruce Spizer now turns his attention to what happened when the collective one became the individualized four.

Spizer’s exhaustive research makes him a pop music Indiana Jones, poking through crevasses of recording studio ledgers and sifting through rumors, myths and outright fabrications that have long dogged the Beatles. Obviously a fan, Spizer nonetheless brings a disinterested mind-set to cataloging and evaluating the work that John Lennon, McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr did separately, starting before McCartney’s formal announcement.

As with his other volumes, this one serves two masters: the Beatle fan who’s interested in the music and what was going on behind the scenes; and Beatle collectors who are more interested in which typeface was used on the label of Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” single than in the identities of the people he namedrops in the song.

Spizer’s allegiance seems to be to the latter, as he scrupulously documents each musician’s recordings from 1968, when Harrison put out the first project developed for Apple Corps Ltd., his “Wonderwall Music” soundtrack, through the December 1975 release of Harrison’s single “This Guitar (Can’t Keep From Crying),” the final record from an ex-Beatle to bear the Apple label.

Fortunately, he also lets his feelings about the music come through. Of Lennon’s often clumsy 1972 album “Some Time in New York City,” Spizer notes that the most outspoken Beatle said -- after releasing “Imagine” in 1971 -- “Now I understand what you have to do: put your political message across with a little honey.”

Then Spizer adds, “There is nothing sweet about the [‘Some Time in New York City’] album. It isn’t even bittersweet. It’s just plain bitter.”

The chart information Spizer provides for each record is helpful and often insightful, as he includes what else was a hit at the time. McCartney’s first release in 1973, the single “My Love,” reached the No. 1 spot in Billboard by knocking out the Edgar Winter Group’s instrumental “Frankenstein.” Harrison’s single “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth),” in turn, bumped “My Love” out of the top slot.

Spizer makes the mistake, however, of according Billboard’s reviews as much credibility as its chart numbers (and even those were far less reflective of reality back then, before SoundScan in 1991 came up with a way of accurately tracking sales).

Yet slowly, methodically, occasionally pedantically, he also reinforces the idea that the Beatles continued to push boundaries well after even most admirers thought they’d hit their peak.

Lennon broadened rock’s emotional palette, McCartney showed the power of catchy melodies in hit single after hit single, and Harrison helped open Western ears to music from other parts of the world. Even Starr, not often considered an innovator, anticipated the fascination with music of an earlier generation with his “Sentimental Journey” outing of pop standards in 1970, predating by three decades Rod Stewart’s similar move. “The Beatles Solo on Apple Records” isn’t merely a coffee table tome offering the back story on a particular album or single; it’s an invaluable reference. *