Andrew Darlington – författare

Small Faces. Big Sound. Therewere but four Small Faces.First, they were the sharp little modfourpiece of the ‘All Or Nothing’ Decca years, Carnaby Street, Ready SteadyGo! and Rave magazine. Then they were the irreverent freakbeatexperimentalists of the Immediate years, with ‘Tin Soldier’, ‘Lazy Sunday’ andclassic album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake. Their hits were praised, coveredand imitated by subsequent rock musicians such as Paul Weller and NoelGallagher. When The Small Faces split, Steve Marriottformed Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, and the rest of the band became TheFaces with the addition of future Rolling Stone Ron Wood and vocalist RodStewart. The Faces became one of the biggest rock bands of the seventies viaalbums such as A Nod Is As Good As A Wink… To A Blind Horse and Ooh La La orworldwide hit ‘Stay With Me’. When those bands came to a natural end, and with‘Itchycoo Park’ returned to the top ten, The Small Faces reformed for two morealbums. Were they ill-advised  or arethey ripe for re-evaluation? The evidence is laid out here. For this is thefull story song-by-song, from the very start, to the end …

‘Every generation throws a hero up the Pop charts’ wrote Paul Simon in _The Boy In The Bubble_. He and Arthur Garfunkel were most unlikely candidates for Pop stardom, but as generational culture shifted, they perfectly articulated the minutiae of those changes. Together, and then separately, the duo charted the course of Folk-Rock through the 1960s and 1970s, from ‘The Sound Of Silence’ to ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, until the 1982 reunion _Concert In Central Park_, took them into a new level of success for newer generations.This is the full story of Paul & Art, song by song, album by album, also taking in their earliest adventures as Tom & Jerry, their subsequent solo careers, as well as their sporadic reunions.

There are a million stories that take place within the arc of Derek Taylor’s life.He lived a charmed life, which started on Saturday, 7 May 1932, in the Liverpool 17 suburb of Toxteth Park South, and saw him becoming a writer best known as the press agent for the Beatles. He became the band's friend and intimate across thirty years. Indeed, there are no shortage of claimants to the ‘honorary’ or ‘fifth Beatle’ status, but Derek’s claim is more valid than most.His urbane charm, his easy intelligence, and the value of his contribution to the Beatles’ collective story are beyond dispute. He put spin on stories decades before the term 'spin doctor' was concocted, with his droll, idiosyncratic way of speaking.It all began in 1964, when he co-wrote A Cellarful Of Noise, the best-selling autobiography of Brian Epstein. Soon after, he became Epstein’s personal assistant and The Beatles' press agent. In 1965 he moved to Los Angeles, where he started his own public relations company, managing PR for bands like Paul Revere And The Raiders, The Byrds, and The Beach Boys. Brian Wilson called him a ‘PR whiz’ and ‘a colourful, slick-talking Brit’. But he could also be a ‘theatrical, slightly conspiratorial man’ according to Ray Coleman. Derek was co-creator and producer of the historic Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. He’s there in song when John rhymes ‘Derek Taylor’ with ‘Norman Mailer’ in 'Give Peace A Chance'. He returned to England to work for the Beatles again as the press officer for the newly created Apple Corps.This is the definitive biography of a man that was at the heart of the music world of the 1960s and 1970s. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the Beatles of course, but also to anyone yearning for a deep dive into the colourful world of a man who helped define a era.

Everyone loved The Hollies. They were the 'group's group'. Never confrontational or rebellious, always smartly suited, always smiling. The band had an unbroken run of immaculate pop singles which, while they seldom had that must-buy factor of the latest Rolling Stones or Beatles record, was hallmarked by tight harmonies and unfailing chart sensibility. Throughout the sixties and well into the seventies, everyone had - own up - at least one or two Hollies singles in their collection. No-one begrudged The Hollies their hits.When 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother' and 'Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress' became global million-sellers, The Hollies were inducted into The Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame. Graham Nash - by then deep into his second career as part of Crosby, Stills and Nash - was reunited with other members of the outfit, all on stage together in the March 2010 ceremony.This book tells the full story, from the band's origins in Manchester, through the full arc of hits, and the albums - track-by-track, into the twenty-first century, then... now... always

Sheffield in the late-1970s was isolated from what was happening in London in the same way that Liverpool had been in 1963. A unique generation of electro-experimental groupings evolved in the former Steel City around Cabaret Voltaire and The Future. The Future split into two factions, Clock DVA and The Human League. Then The Human League split into two further factions, Heaven 17, and The Human League as we now know them, fronted by Philip Oakey with Joanne Catherall and Susan Sulley.Dare became one of the most iconic albums of the eighties; the album by which Human League are most instantly recognised. It is a musically ambitious album, both driven and voracious album, with giddy grenades of shared inventiveness. A triumph of content over considerable style, at once phenomenally commercial and gleefully avant-garde. The American success of 'Don't You Want Me', accelerated by the high-gloss movie-quality video, exploiting the band's extreme visual appeal, heralded what was soon termed the Second British Invasion. It was the first of two Human League singles to top the American charts.This book tells the full story, from the band's origins in Sheffield, through the full arc of Human League and the very early Heaven 17 hits, and the albums - track-by-track, into the twenty-first century...

There are many reasons for loving The Yardbirds that go way beyond knowing that the 'group' was the launchpad for three superstar guitarists - Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. The Yardbirds operated as an interdependent unit, from their 'most blueswailing' origins following The Rolling Stones with a 'Crawdaddy Club' residency, through their series of innovative hit singles - 'For Your Love', 'Evil Hearted You', 'I'm A Man' into 'Shapes Of Things' and beyond, which rivalled The Beatles, The Kinks and The Who at the very bleeding-edge of 1960s rock culture. The neglected psychedelic classics 'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago' and 'Mister, You're A Better Man Than I'carried their legacy over into the punk era. Their cult albums, Five Live Yardbirds, Roger The Engineer and Little Games, remain highly esteemed and collectable decades later, while their sequence in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up movie catches the sixties at its most swingingly iconic. Classic rock seldom came as classic as it does with The Yardbirds, and now considered stars of heritage Rock, this book exhaustively traces the full Yardbirds story track-by-track from first to last, then picks up the narrative as former members become Led Zeppelin, Renaissance, Box of Frogs and the later Yardbirds reunion.

There are many reasons for loving The Yardbirds that go way beyond knowing that the group was the launchpad for three superstar guitarists - Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. The Yardbirds operated as an interdependent unit, from their 'most blueswailing' origins in which they followed The Rolling Stones with a Crawdaddy Club residency, through their series of innovative hit singles - 'For Your Love', 'Evil Hearted You', 'I'm A Man' into 'Shapes Of Things' and beyond, which rivalled The Beatles, The Kinks and The Who at the very bleeding-edge of 1960s rock culture. The neglected psychedelic classics 'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago' and 'Mister, You're A Better Man Than I' carried their legacy over into the punk era. Their cult albums, Five Live Yardbirds, Roger The Engineer and Little Games, remain highly esteemed and collectable decades later, while their sequence in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up movie catches the sixties at its most swingingly iconic. Classic rock seldom came as classic as it does with The Yardbirds, now considered stars of heritage rock. This book exhaustively traces the full Yardbirds story track-by-track from first to last, then picks up the narrative as former members become Led Zeppelin, Renaissance, Box of Frogs to the later Yardbirds reunion after the death of frontman Keith Relf.While interviewing Fairground Attraction for their recent second album, Andrew Darlington found himself discussing favourite biscuits and the correct art of dunking with singer Eddi Reader. As part of UV Pop, Andrew s own lyrics can be found on the CD See You Later, Cowboy. His popular Eternal Assassin Sci-Fi-Fantasy stories are available from Tule Fog Press, taking the chronology from prehistory all the way into the far future. This book follows his other works on The Hollies, The Human League and The Small Faces. He lives in Ossett, West Yorkshire.

Derek Taylor lived a charmed life. It started on Saturday, 7 May 1932, in the Liverpool 17 suburb of Toxteth Park South, and it saw him become a writer best known as the press agent for the Beatles. He became the band's friend and intimate across thirty years. Indeed, there are no shortage of claimants to the 'honorary' or 'fifth Beatle' status, but Derek's claim is more valid than most. Indeed, his urbane charm, his easy intelligence and the value of his contribution to the Beatles' collective story are beyond dispute. He put spin on stories decades before the term 'spin doctor' was concocted, with his droll, idiosyncratic way of speaking.It all began in 1964, when he co-wrote A Cellarful Of Noise, the best-selling autobiography of Brian Epstein. Soon after, he became Epstein's personal assistant and The Beatles' press agent. In 1965 he moved to Los Angeles, where he started his own public relations company working for bands like Paul Revere And The Raiders, The Byrds and The Beach Boys, and also co-created the historic Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. Brian Wilson called him a 'PR whiz' and 'a colourful, slick-talking Brit'. Later, he returned to England to work for the Beatles again as the press officer for the newly created Apple Corps.This is the definitive biography of a man that was at the heart of the music world of the 1960s and 1970s. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the Beatles of course, but also to anyone yearning for a deep dive into the colourful world of a man who helped define an era.Andrew Darlington has walked the magma crust of the Nisyros volcano. James Lowe of the Electric Prunes is his Facebook friend and Dave Davies of The Kink answered his Tweet. He writes about music for R N R (Rock n Reel), and counter-culture for IT: International Times. His science fiction has appeared in Asimov s Science Fiction magazine and in his own parallel universe collection Saucerful Of Secrets. His latest poetry collection is Tweak Vision: The Word-Play Solution To Modern-Angst Confusion and his Science Fiction Novel In The Time Of The Breaking are both from Alien Buddha Press, USA. His writing can be found at Eight Miles Higher: andrewdarlington.blogspot.co.uk. He lives in Ossett, West Yorkshire, UK.