A riveting look at the transformative year in the lives and careers of
the legendary group whose groundbreaking legacy would forever change
music and popular culture.
They started off as hysteria-inducing pop stars playing to audiences of
screaming teenage fans and ended up as musical sages considered
responsible for ushering in a new era.
The year that changed everything for the Beatles was 1966--the year of
their last concert and their first album, Revolver, that was created
to be listened to rather than performed. This was the year the Beatles
risked their popularity by retiring from live performances, recording
songs that explored alternative states of consciousness, experimenting
with avant-garde ideas, and speaking their minds on issues of politics,
war, and religion. It was the year their records were burned in America
after John's explosive claim that the group was "more popular than
Jesus," the year they were hounded out of the Philippines for "snubbing"
its First Lady, the year John met Yoko Ono, and the year Paul conceived
the idea for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
On the fiftieth anniversary of this seminal year, music journalist and
Beatles expert Steve Turner slows down the action to investigate in
detail the enormous changes that took place in the Beatles' lives and
work during 1966. He looks at the historical events that had an impact
on the group, the music they made that in turn profoundly affected the
culture around them, and the vision that allowed four young men from
Liverpool to transform popular music and serve as pioneers for artists
from Coldplay to David Bowie, Jay-Z to U2.
By talking to those close to the group and by drawing on his past
interviews with key figures such as George Martin, Timothy Leary, and
Ravi Shankar--and the Beatles themselves--Turner gives us the
compelling, definitive account of the twelve months that contained
everything the Beatles had been and anticipated everything they would
still become.
