In a nutshell

The book covers the main, commercially successful, creative artists of the period (January 1963 - May 1970). By ‘creative’ I mean those bands and solo performers who wrote their own songs. I focus on the albums they released, although the ‘album era’ didn’t commence until late 1965, taking The Beatles’ release of Rubber Soul as the start of the era. I briefly include detail on the origins/rise-to-fame of each artist covered although there is more detail on the major artists (such as Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan).

The ‘Rock Renaissance’ started with The Beatles. They were ‘eight-handedly’ responsible for the transformation of popular music in the mid-sixties. This involved the way songs were written, performed, and recorded. The old rock ‘n’ roll had ‘died’, but The Beatles, Rolling Stones and others, influenced by the old rock ‘n’ rollers, such as Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, created what would become known as ‘Rock’. The book has the following structure:

Part 1 - 'Pre-naissance': this consists of two chapters describing the formation of The Beatles and the other early big names in rock: Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Beach Boys.

Part 2 - 'The Guitar Band Explosion': three chapters covering 'Beatlemania', 'The British Invasion' and the start of American bands.

Part 3 - 'The Album Era': this constitutes the bulk of the book and chronologically describes the evolution of the various rock genres and those involved - folk-rock, blues-rock, psychedelic rock, the US West Coast boom, progressive rock, the ‘Supergroup’, the ‘Sensitive’ Singer-Songwriter, jazz-rock, hard rock, classic albums by US singer-songwriters, ‘the end of an era’ – The Beatles break-up; notable ‘solo’ performers, early ‘heavy metal’.

The work includes many notable quotes and a good sprinkling of humorous anecdotes and a centre section of photos.

I should also explain that there’s more - a second volume, in fact. When I started on this writing project, I knew where to start but I wasn’t sure where to finish. I finally decided that when punk rock and ‘new wave’ came along, that was a new revolution in pop music - a second ‘renaissance’, so I finished at the end of 1976, which roughly coincides with that event. So ‘Part 2’ (or ‘Phase 2’) covers June 1970 - December 1976.