Derek Taylor (1) (1932–1997)

John Lennon once said that everyone who knew the Beatles eventually wrote a book about them and, unlike some of the things Lennon said, this was no more than the simple truth. Derek Taylor, the Beatles dapper, individualistic and witty former press officer, was one of the first in what became a very long queue with this entertaining memoir published in 1973.

Born in 1932 Taylor was comparatively old by the youth obsessed standards of 1960s pop music. As Jon Savage observes in his introduction to the 2018 reissue he ‘crossed over the generational divide and never even thought about coming back’. Indeed, Taylor personifies the transformative power of ‘60s pop culture. A Daily Express journalist who had a Damascene experience at a Beatles concert in Manchester in 1963 he ran away from Fleet Street to join the rock ‘n’ roll circus.

His personal journey through the ‘60s mirrors the trajectory of pop culture itself as he travels from the joyous simplicity of Beatlemania to the earnest and anti-establishment counterculture of the late ‘60s. In a few short years commercially driven pop turned into rock and the emergence of the idea of youth culture as a quasi-revolutionary force.

Taylor metamorphosed along with the decade. By 1965, having temporarily split with the Beatles after falling-out with Brian Epstein at the end of their 1964 world tour, he was based in Los Angeles as an industrious and, one senses, fairly hard-nosed PR man to the Byrds, Beach Boys and many others. He wrote columns for pop publications with now deliciously dated titles like Tiger Beat and Teen in which he shamelessly hyped his own acts. Come the Summer of Love he was supporting Californian youth in conflict with the authorities and helping to organise the Monterey Pop Festival which became one of the defining events of the period. He was fully committed to the hippie dream (‘we believed we were going to make everything very beautiful, that it was going to be a wonderful world’) and also the intoxicants and hallucinogens that turned drab reality into glorious psychedelic colour.

The second half of this book is Taylor’s contemporaneous account of his time as press officer at Apple. The Beatles imagined Apple as an idealistic company which would combine the disparate and often conflicting strands of pop culture as it had developed during the decade: work and play, art and commerce, self-interest and altruism. All would come together in a Renaissance like outpouring of multi-media creativity under the aegis of the Fab Four. It went horribly wrong, of course, with high ideals quickly degenerating into low farce as every charlatan and freeloader in the known world descended on Apple’s Savile Row headquarters in pursuit of free money. These were the messy final years of the Beatles: drug busts, bust-ups in the studio and, in the end, lots of litigation.

This is where the book really comes alive mainly because it’s where Taylor seems most emotionally engaged with his subject. His informal yet stylish prose is suddenly injected with anger, melancholy and anxiety. Subsequent writers have concentrated on the financial shenanigans and who sued whom and for how much but Taylor, not caring too much for money, conveys the sadness of the collapse of youthful energy, ideals and optimism. You also sense his disquiet as he anticipates, correctly it must be said, that for the rest of his life he would be known as the man who used to be the Beatles press officer. These final pages have a perplexed and open-hearted quality which is really quite moving.

But let’s not end on a downbeat note. On the Beatles valedictory album, Abbey Road, John Lennon sang ‘everybody had a good time’. It’s clear from As Time Goes By that Derek Taylor certainly did.… (mehr)

This isn’t your traditional sort of biography. It’s a book of two parts: Part 1 is a transcription of George’s conversations with his friend Derek Taylor, who served as the Beatles’ press officer, and Part 2 discusses the inspiration for a selection of George’s songs, including reproductions of the handwritten lyrics.

I liked hearing George’s story in his own words and seeing the handwritten lyrics. I am sad that it stops at 1979, but wow did George ever accomplish a lot in the time period that *is* covered by the book.

I did find the conversation a bit hard to follow because of the formatting; Derek’s commentary was blended into George’s statements and set off with italics, but it was hard to read. I would have preferred a format where George and Derek got separate paragraphs.

This book has sent me down the rabbit hole of George’s solo catalogue (not me playing “Crackerbox Palace” ad infinitum), so if you’ve been looking to explore his work, the second half of this book especially might be of interest.… (mehr)

Big! Rock! Book! number three.

I still have my much-battered, much slimmer 1980 version of this book (regrettably, not the limited edition one that was put out). Thirty-eight years later, here I am again, with a beautifully-made extended edition, essentially encompassing every song of his career.

Harrison's modest, everyman personality shines through on every page of the book. He was never my favourite of the four—that honour goes to their troubled front man, Lennon—and I could never buy into Harrison's spiritual beliefs, but I gotta say, I do respect the man for not only living his values, but also taking the risky career move of letting those values shine through in his work.

Yes, he's a bit trippy—more than I remembered—but then again, so was Lennon, and a hell of a lot of others who came up through the Sixties.

But this? This is an interesting glimpse into the Quiet One.… (mehr)