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Title: Ready, Steady, Go: The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London by Shawn Levy ISBN: 0-385-49857-8 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 23 July, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.08 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Time and Place the Likes of Which We'll Not See Again
Comment: This is a fun, fascinating, engrossing portrait of one of the most exciting moments of the past several decades: London in the sixties. I think of the sixties, especially the sixties of London, as a kaleidoscope, a never ending swirl of colors and images. And just as it is impossible to capture a kaleidoscope in a single image, so it is impossible to express fully in one book the Swinging London of the sixties. READY, STEADY, GO! is a series of snapshots rather than a precise replication, but while it fails, of course, to do the period full justice, neither are the images in any sense not accurate reflections of what happened.
Shawn Levy's skills and orientation are primarily those of the biographer, and READY, STEADY, GO! is largely a series of mini-biographies that taken together contain the gist of his story. Most of the story that Levy is intent to tell is found in his recounting of the lives and careers in that decade of a few key individuals: photographer David Bailey and his superstar model Jean Shrimpton; fashion innovator Mary Quant and hair styling revolutionary Vidal Sassoon; actor Terence Stamp; Brian Epstein and the group he pushed to fame, the Beatles; Andrew Loog Oldham and the Stones, especially Mick Jagger; art dealer and promoter Robert Fraser; the unlikely superstar model Twiggy; the person who is one of the great symbols, victims, and survivors of the sixties, Mariane Faithful (read her marvelous autobiography FAITHFULL); and a supporting cast of dozens. While most of the emphasis of the book is on personalities, there is also a strong emphasis on the places they went. Levy does a marvelous job of highlighting the places all these souls went to mingle, to party, to have fun, and to be seen. The nightclubs, the restaurants, the sometimes bizarre clothing stores, all receive their fair share of attention.
While Levy mainly focuses on telling the stories of the main personalities of the period, he doesn't neglect completely the larger scene. He begins the book by describing how one thing that made the sixties possible was the fact that the youth of the time were beneficiaries of the first economic boom to follow WW II, and for the first time in decades, people had money to spend on more than merely life's necessities. He also discusses how the fashions and styles developed by what was a cultural elite sifted down to the masses, and how the ideas and trends were transformed in the migration. I have to say, however, that I found this aspect of the book to be somewhat lean. I would have liked to know a great deal more about how the sixties influenced and impacted kids as a whole. Instead of delving into this aspect in any depth, he instead continually skirts back to his core characters.
The first half of the book, about the "smashing rise" of Swinging London is, as might be expected, for more interesting and enjoyable than the second half, which chronicles first the mass popularization and more-or-less institutionalization of the trends, and then the gradual dissolution of the entire scene. The "giddy fall" derives from a number of factors, though an unhealthy number of them would seem to be drug-related. Tara Browne's death in a single car crash (immortalized in the Beatles' "A Day in the Life"); the bust of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Robert Fraser for drug possession and use; the decline and deaths of Brian Epstein and Brian Jones; the shattering of relationships as people become more and more involved in drugs; and the death of Jimi Hendrix were all more or less brought about by the increasingly large role that drugs came to play in the scene. In particular, Levy emphasizes the way in which the extensive use of LSD began to put a damper on things, as it drove people more and more into themselves and away from others.
I would have like to seen greater detail on the legacy of Swinging London. In a very real sense, it is still very much with us. Many of the clothes we wear, much of the music we listen to, the way we wear our hair. We owe much of the fabric of ours lives to London of the sixties. Still, this is a marvelous visit back to the most exciting time and place of the past half decade.
Rating: 4
Summary: London in the Sixties! The Center of the Universe!
Comment: What a Great Time! What a great Scene! I love books about different Cultural/Musical scenes. This one does not dissappoint. Learn about the Movers & Shakers, and overall Tastemakers! Clubs! Shops! Photographers! Graphics! Drugs! Haircuts! Movie Stars! It Girls! Power couples! If you were not there, No Need to go without feeling like you were! A Fun Read as well! Shawn Levy has a very readable and enjoyable writing style.
Rating: 5
Summary: SWINGING LONDON IN VIVID DETAIL
Comment: This is a great connect the dots guide to this brief moment in time. I couldn't put it down.
If this period is of interest to you then read this book. It is a knockout!
PS: By the way, author Shawn Levy's book on Jerry Lewis is a very revealing and detailed look at the comic's life/career. /gt
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Title: Mod a Very British Phenomenon: Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances by Terry Rawlings, Richard Barnes ISBN: 0711968136 Publisher: Omnibus Press Pub. Date: December, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Stoned : A Memoir of London in the 1960s by Andrew Loog Oldham, Ron Ross ISBN: B00007CWHG Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Swingin' Chicks of the 60's by Chris Strodder ISBN: 0768322324 Publisher: Cedco Inc. Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: All the Rage by Ian 'Mac' McLagan, Dave Marsh ISBN: 0823078426 Publisher: Watson-Guptill Pubns Pub. Date: 15 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Sharper Word by Paolo Hewitt, Dick Hebdige, Tom Wolfe ISBN: 190092434X Publisher: Helter Skelter Publishing Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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