All Our Loving - A People's History of The Beatles - Book Review
It’s hard to convey now just how bleak and drab Fifties and sixties Britain were. Rationing might have been over for a while, but the regimented wartime vibe pervaded the torpor of the long snooze of the decade. As a kid I was bored rigid by the Adam Faiths & Cliff Richards, let alone GI-era Elvis & all the other US crooners. Surely there must be something else, or should I resign myself to a life of Light Entertainment hell? Fortunately, salvation was at hand in the form of the Beatles. At 60+ years distance their early pop hits sound like quaint emanations from another age, but for all their naivete songs like “She Loves You” & “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” still convey an impact, and a freshness absent from the mostly dreary US fixated pop that filled the charts then.
They brought a whole new approach, in terms of attitude and appearance, and innovations like George Harrison’s 12-string Rickenbacker, but most of all the Lennon/McCartney songwriting axis. Once they’d got going things were never going to be the same for the Tin Pan Alley hacks who churned out formula pop for mostly transient acts. The music biz establishment sat back and waited for the group – and all those soon following in their wake – to be a passing craze. Sure enough many of the old-school showbiz acts like Freddie & the Dreamers were soon left looking out of time, but there was no stopping the momentum once other acts started to follow the Beatles example. Andrew Loog Oldham was quick to spot this development and told Mick Jagger & Keith Richards they had to write their own material or be left behind – allegedly locking them in a room until they came up with the goods. They were soon to leave the purist Blues and R&B sound of their early singles – which even included a Lennon/McCartney song – and produce classics like....
Source: Den Browne/louderthanwar.com
