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Please Please Me
Sixties British Pop, Inside Out
Gordon Thompson
352 pages
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12 halftones, 1 line illustration
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234x156mm
978-0-19-533325-1
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Paperback
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18 September 2008
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- First ethnomusicological study of important milieu of western popular music
- First integrated overview of how the London music industry functioned in an era of rapid transformation
- Based on interviews with key players in Londons popular music infrastructure during the sixties, some of whom had never been interviewed before and others who long ago left the UK for America, South Africa, and Australia
- Contextualizes the Beatles in Britains popular-music industry, illustrating how in many ways they were typical of the era and, at the same time, unusual
- Provides cross-referenced confirmation that members of some the most successful British bands of the era, (e.g., the Dave Clark Five), did not play on many of some of their own recordings
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.Readership: Students, scholars and fans of popular music.
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"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
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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