It Was Twenty Years Ago Today - Softcover

Derek Taylor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593012690 ISBN 13: 9780593012697

Publisher: Fireside / Simon and Schuster, 1987, 1987

Synopsis

The former press agent for the Beatles recreates the events and feelings of 1967, the year "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released, capturing the psychedelic and religious explosion, the music, and the civil rights demonstrations

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

A newspaper journalist and press agent for the Beatles and other groups, Taylor recently served as consultant for Granada Television's documentary celebration of 1967, which some consider the high point of the '60s counterculture. Here Taylor incorporates material from the TV show and presents interviews and quotations in which key people from the periodincluding Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsburg, Timothy Leary, Michelle Phillips and Hunter Thompsonremember the time. Wavy Gravy, who led the Hog Farm happenings, perhaps sums up the moment best when he recalls a "feeling that extraordinary things were about to happen and it felt as if we were at the centre of things, making them happen." This sense of excitement about the possibility of change pervades the book, as Taylor discusses the Monterey Pop Festival (which he cofounded), the rise of acid culture, be-ins, the impact of the Diggers (who distributed free food) and Marshall McLuhan, the psychedelic poster fad, protests and demonstrations, as well as trends in fashion, films, art, happenings and literature. And, as the title hints, Taylor devotes much space to the significance of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. This is an exhilerating remembrance.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

With his title taken from the opening line of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , Taylor provides an impressionistic, anecdotal reminiscence of the year in which the Beatles' masterpiece was released. Starting with an insider's view of how the album was conceived and produced, the author, who was the band's press agent, explores some of its mythology as well as centrality to the events of 1967. That year saw the high-water mark of hippiedom, the heyday of love and long hair, peace and flowersoffset by the violence of antiwar protests. Taylor manages to recapture some of the temper of that time, especially its sense of freedom and possibility. But his disjointed style and unapologetic promotion of hippie philosophy relegate his book to the category of ephemeral pop nostalgia. Photos not seen. Paul G. Feehan, Univ. of Miami Lib., Coral Gables
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fireside / Simon and Schuster, 1987
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0593012690
• ISBN 13: 9780593012697
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288