The1960s Bibliography: Popular Culture, TV and Pop Music

Popular Culture, T.V. and Pop Music

Popular Culture (general)
Bigsby, C.W.E. (ed), Approaches to Popular Culture (London: Edward Arnold, 1976) [an early collection which includes theoretical sections as well as essays on TV comedy, the impact of the blues on European popular culture, and screen violence in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange].
Bracewell, Michael, England is Mine: Pop Life in Albion from Wilde to Goldie (London: Harper Collins, 1997) [a reading of C20th culture conducted through the figures, books, films, music and lifestyles which have come to be defined as pop culture].
Featherstone, Mike, Consumer Culture and Postmodernism (London: Sage, 1991).
Hebdige, Dick, Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things (London & New York: Routledge, 1988).
Loss, Archie, Pop Dreams: Music, Movies, and the Media in the 1960s (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1999) [a study that centres on US culture].
Melly, George, Revolt Into Style: The Pop Arts in Britain (London: Allen Lane, 1970) [700MEL].
Strinati, Dominic, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture (London & New York: Routledge, 1995).

Popular Culture (TV)
Aldgate, Anthony, James Chapman and Arthur Marwick (eds), Windows on the Sixties: Exploring Key Texts of Media and Culture (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000) [contains essays on film (This Sporting Life, A Hard Day’s Night, The Apartment, Seven Days in May), TV (The Avengers, Panorama), literature (the novels of Alison Lurie) and the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album].
Carpenter, Humphrey, That Was Satire That Was: The Satire Boom of the 1960s (London: Victor Gollancz, 2000) [a detailed history of the characters and contexts behind Beyond the Fringe, The Establishment Club, Private Eye and That Was the Week That Was].
Corner, John (ed), Popular Television in Britain: Studies in Cultural History (London: BFI, 1991) [essays on the popular genres between 1950 and 1965; 791.450941/POP].
Gitlin, Todd, The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley, L.A., London: University of California Press, 1980) [Analyses the ways in which the American media reported protest and dissent in a media-saturated decade].
Halloran, D., Philip Elliott and Graham Murdock, Demonstrations and Communication: A Case Study (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970) [An analysis of the anti-Vietnam march in London on 27^th October 1968. Some discussion of 60s protest in Britain, but the emphasis is on the media ‘framing’ of the demonstration as a news ‘event’].
Laing, Stuart, Representations of Working-Class Life 1957-1964 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986) [covers social context, film and TV, theatre and literature; 305.562/LAI].
McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964).
Mellor, David Alan, and Laurent Gervereau (eds), The Sixties, Britain and France, 1962-1973: The Utopian Years (London: Philip Wilson, 1997) [a large format lavishly illustrated book, foregrounds art, design, image and fashion, but contains interesting essays on music, youth, politics, the counter-culture, the new press, cinema, etc].
Miller, Toby, The Avengers (BFI Publishing, 1997).
Moore-Gilbert, Bart and John Seed (eds), Cultural Revolution? The Challenge of the Arts in the 1960s (London & New York: Routledge, 1992) [Highly recommended; 700.103].
Spigel, Lynn, and Michael Curtin (eds), The Revolution Wasn't Televised : Sixties Television and Social Conflict (London: Routledge, 1997).

Popular and Progressive Music
Beatles, The Complete Beatles' Lyrics (London: Omnibus Press, 1982).
Bennett, Tony, Simon Frith et al (eds), Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies, Institutions (London & New York: Routledge, 1993).
Bigsby, C.W.E. (ed), Approaches to Popular Culture (London: Edward Arnold, 1976) [an early collection which includes theoretical sections as well as essays on TV comedy, the impact of the blues on European popular culture, and screen violence in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange].
Bracewell, Michael, England is Mine: Pop Life in Albion from Wilde to Goldie (London: Harper Collins, 1997) [a reading of C20th culture conducted through the figures, books, films, music and lifestyles which have come to be defined as pop culture].
Bromell, Nick, Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the 1960s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001)
Clarke, Michael, The Politics of Pop Festivals (London: Junction Books, 1982).
Cloonan, Martin, Banned! Censorship of Popular Music in Britain, 1967-92 (Aldershot: Arena, 1996).
Derogatis, Jim, Kaleidoscope Eyes: Psychedelic Music from the 1960s to the 1990s (London: 4th Estate, 1996).
Dickstein, Morris, Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties (New York: Basic Books 1977; repr. Harvard University Press, 1997) [973.92 DIC].
Faithfull, Marianne, with David Dalton, Faithfull (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995)
Fong-Torres, Ben (ed), The Rolling Stone Rock ‘n’ Roll Reader (New York: Bantam Books, 1974).
Frith, Simon, Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock 'n' Roll (London: Constable, 1983).
——— Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
——— and Howard Horne, Art Into Pop (London & New York: Routledge, 1989) [781.64 FRI].
Green, Jonathon, All Dressed Up: The Sixties and the Counterculture (London: Jonathan Cape, 1998) [A highly recommended account of the origins, practices and outcomes of the 60s counter-culture in Britain].
Henke, James, with Parke Puterbaugh (eds), with essays by Charles Perry and Barry Miles, I Want To Take You Higher: The Psychedelic Era 1965-1969 (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997) [a large-format lavishly illustrated 'coffee-table' book that is packed with images and comments on the creative 'underground' scenes in the USA and the UK].
Henderson, David, ’Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: The Life of Jimi Hendrix (New York: Bantam Books, 1981) [originally published as Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child of the Aquarian Age, in 1978, an impassioned and ‘creative’ biography with a lot of interesting quotations and extracts].
Hewitt, Paolo (ed) The Sharper Word: A Mod Anthology (London: Helter Skelter Publishing, 1999) [a collection of short extracts from and about the Mod phenomenon].
Inglis, Ian (ed), The Beatles, Popular Music and Society (London: Macmillan, 2000).
Kureishi, Hanif, 'Eight Arms to Hold You', in London Kills Me (London & Boston: Faber and Faber, 1991), pp. 81-94 (a slightly modified and illustrated version of this essay appeared under the title 'Boys Like Us' in The Weekend Guardian, November 2-3 1991, pp. 4-7).
———and Jon Savage (eds), The Faber Book of Pop (London: Faber and Faber, 1995) [an anthology of writing on pop music and culture 1942-1994, with generous sections on the 60s featuring articles, interviews and extracts from the likes of Lennon, Hunter S. Thompson, Germaine Greer, George Melly, Andy Warhol, Nik Cohn, Angela Carter, Tom Wolfe, etc.]
Lee, C.P. (with photos by Paul Kelly), Like the Night: Bob Dylan and the Road to the Manchester Free Trade Hall (London: Helter Skelter, 1998) [an account and analysis of Dylan's 1966 acoustic/electric concert (where he was confronted with the shout 'Judas!') which looks at the tensions between folk purists and the emerging rock scene while providing insights into music's role and impact in the English provinces in the mid 60s].
MacDonald, Ian, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (London: Pimlico, 1995) [Recent publication, some detailed discussion of songs with a good introduction (and a good preface in the updated edition of 1997); 782.42164].
Marcus, Greil, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991).
———— Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (London: Secker & Warburg, 1989) [the focus is mainly on the early C20th avant-garde, the Situationists, and punk, but it's still a fascinating 'alternative history']
Meisel, Perry, The Cowboy and the Dandy: Crossing Over from Romanticism to Rock and Roll (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) [an analysis of the deconstruction of cultural and intellectual boundaries as a practice central to literature and pop culture].
Melly, George, Revolt Into Style: The Pop Arts in Britain (London: Allen Lane, 1970) [700MEL].
Melechi, Antonio (ed), Psychedelia Britannica: Hallucinogenic Drugs in Britain (London: Turnaround, 1997) [a collection which includes essays on the history and psychology of psychedelics, psychedelic music and psychedelia into the 90s].
Mellor, David Alan, and Laurent Gervereau (eds), The Sixties, Britain and France, 1962-1973: The Utopian Years (London: Philip Wilson, 1997) [a large format lavishly illustrated book, foregrounds art, design, image and fashion, but contains interesting essays on music, youth, politics, the counter-culture, the new press, cinema, etc].
Miles, Barry, Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (London: Secker & Warburg, 1997) [good on music, the early London 'scene' and counter-culture].
Moore, Allan F., The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997) [an analysis of the album, its reception, and its legacy].
Murray, Charles Shaar, Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-War Pop (London: Faber and Faber, 1989).
——— ‘Street Fighting Man: Jimi the Radical’, Mojo 72 (November 1999), pp. 76-86 [both a synopsis and extension of the political analysis of Jimi Hendrix that appears in Crosstown Traffic].
O'Brien, Lucy, She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995).
Palacios, Julian, Lost in the Woods: Syd Barrett and the Pink Floyd (London & Basingstoke: Boxtree, 1998). [good on the early London and underground scenes].
Palmer, Tony, All You Need is Love: The Story of Popular Music (London: Futura, 1977).
Rawlings, Terry, and Keith Badman, Empire Made: The Handy Parka Pocket Guide to All Things Mod (London: Complete Music, 1997).
Schaffner, Nicholas, Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1992) [good on the early London scene].
Taylor, Derek, It Was Twenty Years Ago Today (London & New York: Bantam Press, 1987) [Mainly about The Beatles, but some good quotations and pictures].
Whitcomb, Ian, Rock Odyssey: A Chronicle of the Sixties (London: Hutchinson, 1983).
Whiteley, Sheila, The Space Between the Notes: Rock and the Counter-Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1992).
——— (ed) Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender (London & New York: Routledge, 1997).
Willis, Paul E., Profane Culture (London & Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978) [a study of subcultural attitudes and practices, focusing on bikers and hippies, with extensive treatment of subjects such as social and political positions, values, music, drugs, style, creativity, etc;301.2209/WIL].
——— 'Symbolism and Practice: A Theory for the Social Meaning of Pop Music' (University of Birmingham: stencilled occasional paper, 1981).
Wolfe, Tom, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) [A journalisation/novelisation of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, the Acid Tests and the Grateful Dead; 814.3].

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Gerry Carlin & Mark Jones