How the Beatles changed the world by Martin W. Sandler
Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN 9780802735652.
(Age: all) Recommended. Beatles, Music industry, The 60's, Social
history. Historian Sandler has put his considerable talent and
expertise to this weighty tome about the Beatles. He has written
thirteen essays to accompany some of the many photos covering the
Beatles and their rise to fame and after, all of which show with
certainty the impact these four young men had on the world. The
first chapter deals with the night in 1964 when the Beatles, newly
arrived from Liverpool, appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in
USA. This was an amazing thing to do, as they admitted, Cliff
Richards had gone to America and failed, so for a group, unlike most
other rock and rollers who were lone acts, it was a risk. But their
reception at the airport set the stage. For a studio audience of
seven hundred, Sullivan's office turned down fifty thousand
applications, and the show that went to air remains the most watched
of any TV event of all time.
The next chapter concerns itself with the Beatles' impact upon
popular music, and includes things like album covers, offering hit
songs on both sides of singles, producing albums with themes and
writing your own words and music. It is only in the third chapter,
'How Hamburg changed the Beatles', that the reader is able to see how
the Beatles evolved and began their spectacular rise to fame. The
pictures in this chapter show the Beatles as they were before the
mop tops and suits took hold and tells the story of their incredible
round of appearances in eight hour shifts in the nightclubs of that
bombed city.
Chapter four, 'Beatlemania sweeps the world', shows their rise to fame
outside Britain and the USA, while the next two chapters deal with
their impact upon fashion, film and religion. In between these
chapters are more sobering discussions of how success imprisoned them
while the second to last chapter deals with their split and what
happened afterwards. The final chapter is a summary of their impact
upon the world, a coming together of what has been said before.
Entertaining and always interesting, it must be hard for writers to
find something new to say, but Sandler has brought together much of
the material seen in other books, on websites and magazines, and
has produced a book worth reading and keeping, a fascinating insight
into fame and its dangers, to the way a band can have an impact on
things much wider than the music they play. By starting with the Ed
Sullivan Show, Sandler announces his book will rely heavily on
stories and photos from the perspective of USA which sometimes
rankled in what otherwise is a readable and involving book.
A discography, list of sources and detailed index round off the 176
pages of good clear text and an array of crisply reproduced photos.
A wonderful addition to any library.
Fran Knight