Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out
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Review
a geniune and important contribution to the cannon of 1960s musical literature... the book offers a highly readable and clearly conveyed account of how the pop industry worked in its most fertile and experimental decade. (Paul Martin, Journal of Contemporary British History )
this meaty paperback is an academic, but throughly engrossing stugy of the UK recording industry in the 60s... His text blends facts, personal recollections and period flavour, with enlightening first-hand quotes woven throughout its pages helping to capture the special atmosphere. (Russell Newmark, The Beat magazine )
this meaty paperback is an academic, but throughly engrossing stugy of the UK recording industry in the 60s... His text blends facts, personal recollections and period flavour, with enlightening first-hand quotes woven throughout its pages helping to capture the special atmosphere. (Russell Newmark, The Beat magazine )
Product Description
Sixties British rock and pop changed music history. While American popular music dominated the record industry in the late fifties and early sixties, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, and numerous other groups soon invaded the world at large and put Britain at the center of the modern musical map. Please Please Me offers an insider's view of the British pop-music recording industry during the seminal period of 1956 to 1968, based on personal recollections, contemporary accounts, and all relevant data that situate this scene in the economic, political, and social context of postwar Britain. Author Gordon Thompson weaves issues of class, age, professional status, gender, and ethnicity into his narrative, beginning with the rise of British beat groups and the emergence of teenagers as consumers in postwar Britain, and moving into the competition between performers and the recording industry for control over the music. He interviews session musicians who recorded anonymously with the Beatles, Hermans Hermits, and the Kinks, professional musicians who toured with British bands promoting records or providing dance music, songwriters, music directors, and producers and engineers who worked with the best-known performers of the era. The consequences of World War Two for pop music in the late fifties and early sixties form the backdrop for discussion of recording equipment, musical instruments, and new jet-age transportation, all contributors to the rise of British pop-music alongside the personalities that more famously made entertainment news. And these famous personalities traverse the pages of Please Please Me as well: performing songwriters John Carter and Ken Lewis, Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Ray Davies, and Pete Townshend took center stage while the production teams and session musicians created the art of recording behind the doors of London's studios. Drawing his interpretation of the processes at work during this musical revolution into a wider context, Thompson unravels the musical change and innovation of the time with an eye on understanding what traces individuals leave in the musical and recording process. Opening up important new historical and musical understandings in a repertoire that is at the core of rock music's history, Please Please Me will appeal to all students, scholars, and fans of popular music.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is without a doubt the best book on the British Invasion (1964) that I have read.
I couldn't put it down, a great read.
I couldn't put it down, a great read.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Best of its kind
16 Dec 2008
Format:Paperback
In the interests of "full disclosure" I have to point out that I am one of Professor Thompson's subjects covered in his book and have worked and know intimately many of the other people he interviewed. Having had first hand involvement in the British pop music scene of the 60s, however, one can be certain that I am likely to be more critical than most. Based on that I can say that the result of the author's research has produced a remarkably accurate overview of the subject and therefore recommend this book over and above some of those pitifully inaccurate self-serving attempts by others.
Malcolm Addey
Malcolm Addey
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
I loved this book, but not everybody will
22 Jan 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book wasn't what I expected, but I was delightfully surprised that it was much more than I expected.
If you were a fan of British pop music in the 60's and want to read about how famous musicians died from drug overdoses and such, this is not the book for you.
But if you are fascinated by the recording industry and the legends who engineered and produced all those great tunes, I know of no other book that covers it as completely.
I already know everything I need to know about the Beatles. I'm more interested in George Martin, Geoff Emerick and Norman Smith, the guys responsible for turning the Beatles' musical genius into consumer products that we could all enjoy. Not to mention Micky Most, Shel Talby, Joe Meek, and the many others who really invented Brit-pop.
There are many interesting anecdotes. Here's one: when the Animals recorded House of the Rising Sun, they had to travel by train with their gear and make an 8:00 AM session. The version we all know so well was Take 2(!), finished at 8:15 AM. That classic recording that's held up for all these years was recorded in 15 minutes. Nowadays, it takes longer than that to serve the cappuccinos.
If you were a fan of British pop music in the 60's and want to read about how famous musicians died from drug overdoses and such, this is not the book for you.
But if you are fascinated by the recording industry and the legends who engineered and produced all those great tunes, I know of no other book that covers it as completely.
I already know everything I need to know about the Beatles. I'm more interested in George Martin, Geoff Emerick and Norman Smith, the guys responsible for turning the Beatles' musical genius into consumer products that we could all enjoy. Not to mention Micky Most, Shel Talby, Joe Meek, and the many others who really invented Brit-pop.
There are many interesting anecdotes. Here's one: when the Animals recorded House of the Rising Sun, they had to travel by train with their gear and make an 8:00 AM session. The version we all know so well was Take 2(!), finished at 8:15 AM. That classic recording that's held up for all these years was recorded in 15 minutes. Nowadays, it takes longer than that to serve the cappuccinos.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Behind the Scenes of a Music Revolution
3 Feb 2009
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Make sure to have your music player at hand when you're reading this book -- you'll want to listen immediately to the tracks he writes about, to hear for yourself the subtle craftsmanship that lay behind so many of these iconic 60s recordings. In many ways it's like having a time machine, so you can go back and be in the studio with the Stones or the Beatles or the Kinks, not to mention the less-celebrated session musicians, sound engineers, and producers that contributed so much to their sound (and finally are getting credit for what they did!). This book is a marvelous overall portrait of an exciting era in music, and the living-and-breathing community that created it.
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