The website for the book Still the Greatest: The Essential Songs of the Beatles' Solo Careers
Beatles expert extraordinaire Robert Rodriguez had me on his super podcast Something About The Beatles to talk about the ex-Beatles during the era of my new book 1973: Rock at the Crossroads. Against a backdrop of AM vs. FM – 60s giants vs. emerging upstarts – mainstream vs. underground, the four issued five albums of all new material, all of which made the Top Ten (while three scored US number one hit singles, two of them back-to-back).
It’s episode 187 at https://somethingaboutthebeatles.com/
From Thunder Press, it’s a take off on Where’s Waldo with twenty double-page illustrations packed with Beatles trivia in which you have to find Ringo and other Beatles-related people and things, and fifty pages of text.
The artwork by Oliver Goddard, Takayo Akiyama, and David Ryan Robinson is beautiful, each with their own inimitable style: from childlike whimsy to outrageous psychedelia.
With the prose I did my best to cover all the bases from the boys’ early days in Liverpool to their final album, Abbey Road, all told from Ringo’s perspective.
You can look inside at Amazon here:
Excerpts, videos, and more are available at http://www.1965book.com and http://www.facebook.com/1965book.
Fifty years ago, friendly rivalry between musicians turned 1965 into the most ground-breaking year in music history ever. It was the year rock and roll evolved into the premier art form of its time and accelerated the drive for personal freedom throughout the Western world.
The feedback loop between the artists and their times ignited an unprecedented explosion of creativity. The Beatles made their first artistic statement with Rubber Soul and performed at Shea Stadium, the first rock concert to be held in a major American stadium. Bob Dylan released “Like a Rolling Stone”—the quintessential anthem of the year—and went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. The Rolling Stones’ hit song “Satisfaction” catapulted the band to world-wide success. Fashion designer Mary Qaunt raised the hemlines of her skirts to above the knee, introducing the iconic miniskirt.
This was not only the year of rock as new genres such as funk and psychedelia were born. Soul music became a prime force of desegregation as Motown crossed out of the R&B charts on to the top of the Billboard Top 100. Country music reached new heights with Nashville and the Bakersfield sound and competition between musicians coincided with seismic cultural shifts wrought by the Civil Rights Movement, psychedelics, and Vietnam.
In 1965, Andrew Grant Jackson combines fascinating and often surprising personal stories with a panoramic historical narrative.
“Andrew Grant Jackson makes a powerful case…This book is a welcome reminder of some truly great music. Recommended.”—National Review Online
“Jackson’s rapid-fire jaunt through the musical highlights of 1965—the rise of Motown and Stax Records, the early music of David Bowie, the arrival of the Bakersfield sound—is a helpful survey for readers unfamiliar with the history of popular music.”—Publishers Weekly
“Jackson presents a thoroughly entertaining romp through one mighty year in pop-music history.”—Booklist
“Lively… ackson does a solid job covering the hit-makers.”—Kirkus Reviews
“From the Beatles to the Byrds, from Dylan to the Stones, from the Beach Boys to Motown, author Andrew G. Jackson brilliantly details how the year 1965 was essentially rock and roll’s coming-out party. 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music is filled with interesting insight and analysis into how a unique confluence of cultural events helped spur many of popular music’s all-time greats to reach their artistic apex, all within one, short, action-packed twelve-month period. If you weren’t there the first time around — or even if you were — sit back and prepare yourself for one heck of a ‘ticket to ride.’”—Kent Hartman, author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Best-Kept Secret, winner of the Oregon Book Award and the Audie Award
“The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Coltrane, The Dead, Velvet Underground, Motown … what wasn’t happening in 1965? Andrew Grant Jackson painstakingly chronicles this pivotal year in music with an eye for detail and the big picture – an exciting ride with a timeless soundtrack.” —Joel Selvin, author of Summer of Love and Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues
“1965 is a year that pop fans… revere [for] the sheer volume of innovative music and cultural transformation. A half-century on, it all remains astonishing but Jackson takes us through these 365 earth-changing days with steady hands and an addictive style. I started making a playlist almost immediately.”—Marc Spitz, author of We Got the Neutron Bomb and Twee
1965 IS AVAILABLE AT:
For some great Beatle websites and facebook pages, pull the browser open wide enough so you can see the list on the right. (It hides if your browser if the browser isn’t opened enough.) Please shoot me an email to add your site! andrewgjackson(at)hotmail(dot com)
solobeatles 