Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1025417 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 120 pages

Customer Reviews

You were not there if you haven't read this book
Those old cliches, about not remembering the 60s if you were there, hold a grain of truth. If you were there, you're probably heading for your own 60s now and ready to have a visitor and your teeth put back in.

If you want to remember, though this book is a terrific aide memoire. The Beach Boys were certainly there as part of our every day lives, in as much as they were a backcloth to the burgeoning sense of freedom. You didn't get too much Californian sun in industrial England but the Beach Boys made you feel that you could reach out and let those rays tan you.

We didn't actually know individual names - I suspect that Brian Wilson became more well known for having hit the dirt road than as the source and inspiration of so much popular music of his generation. The Beach Boys were a - oops, nearly said 'band' - a group, a Big Group, one of the biggest, but one of many.

Not until I read Alexander Farquharson's book did I pick up on just how much an influence Wilson had on the temperament and flavour of his times, the intricate way his music embedded itself into our perception. Almost a philosophy, certainly an art.

So be prepared to be impressed, and to think - and to remember, if you can.