The explosion of British bands onto the American rock scene in the 1960s is examined in this thorough history. Marking the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' first trip to the United States, this look at British rock music covers in detail the pre-Beatles music that first gave Americans a taste of the British style, Beatlemania, and the British acts that followed their lead, including the Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Kinks. This account includes in-depth interviews with key figures and fully updated information on this dynamic time in American pop music. Previously unseen photographs and reproduced newspaper front pages provide a visual history of that music explosion.

Publisher: Chrome Dreams (May 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1842402471
ISBN-13: 978-1842402474

Editorial Reviews
Review
“Bill Harry knows more about the Beatles than the Beatles know themselves.” —Mike Read, disc jockey

About the Author
Bill Harry attended Liverpool College of Art with John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe and arranged for Brian Epstein to visit the Cavern, where he saw the Beatles for the first time. He is the founding editor of Mersey Beat, the music paper that helped launch the Beatles music career, and the author of The Beatles Who’s Who, The Best Years of the Beatles, and The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia. He has appeared on Good Morning America and received the Gold award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. He lives in Liverpool, England.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

the Best Book on the subject yet!
By [email protected] on September 13, 2010
Wow- I grew up during all of this, thought I had heard all of the stories, details over the years, but this book is unreal. Lots of unknown facts about the whole thing, I learned quite a bit and I am not even all the way through the book yet. It's heavily biased towards the whole Beatles thing- which is fine and works well in the book.

The author was there with many of these musical talents during these history making times and contributes an incredible amount of personal experiences and recounting tales of musical comradery with the Beatles and all of the other groups that were a part of this once in a lifetime event.

If you love the 60's British Invasion, the old music and want to feel good all over again, get this book!

It's awesome!
By Toki on November 17, 2010
I bought this book because I had to write a reseach paper about British Invasion for my college and it really helped me out. It not only has so much background infos about the bands but also has the background for this phenomenal movement