For this latest installment in Wiley's Turning Points series of personal perspectives on defining American issues, music writer Goldsmith (The Inextinguishable Symphony
) looks at the 1964 arrival of the Beatles in America to show how the "unleashed, unbridled joy and unparalleled excitement" of Beatlemania "was an earthquake, and we continue to feel its aftershocks forty years later." Goldsmith clearly expresses his love of the Fab Four and is especially good at detailing their famous appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show
. However, while Goldsmith unassailably argues that the group that appeared on TV in 1964 was an act that had been honed during four previous years of hard work, he devotes the first half of the book to proving that point by giving a short history of their entire early career, including childhoods as well as the tough tours of Hamburg and England, where they forged their style. For someone who has never heard of the Beatles (if such a person exists), this may be necessary, but this material has been covered more thoroughly and with more detail in many other works. The book does offer many fascinating details related to their arrival (such as negative reviews of the band from mainstream newspapers including the New York Times
and the Washington Post
). Goldsmith never explores in-depth some of the "lasting changes" that he says the Beatles' arrival made in "music, broadcasting, journalism and fashion." A little less Beatles history and more material on their actual arrival would have made this a more effective narrative. (Feb.)
