As Time Goes by: Living in the Sixties with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Brian Epstein, Allen Klein, Mae

... Hello, my name is Heather, I have become enamored of this man. Derek Taylor, I mean; his work, his manner, his mantality (Yes, the spelling is correct.) And I've never met him before. And I never will. *grin* But that's not the point, is it? The point is to enjoy people like this, wherever they can be found---And you? And I post this on Valentines' Day. *laugh* Which I do not believe in. I don't think Derek Taylor did either. The idea of only ONE day of love expressed... is abhorent. *grin* Here, we have, exhibit A: a guy who influenced the Beatles, hung with them, helped with them, and I find nothing, when I come looking for him. Well, guess what? This book rocks. And the prose, and the people Derek talked about--people, yes, so many people--and the insights, are as swift and as bright and as deep as a new thought, in the dark. Who'd've thought I'd go looking, for the first time, in my life, for the Beatles, and find this guy. Amazing. You should read him. As he sure as hell read all of YOU *grin* Find this book. Get this man's work seen. I thank you. Meanwhile, read this piece, that I wrote, after searching for Derek. You may just like it. +++ Billions and billions of Beatle pictures. You can't see the fawking ROAD for Beatles pictures. Every once in a while though I'd find Derek. Hiding on a page. Standing so close, so intent, so integral to the mood, you almost wondered why you hadn't seen him more often in all those BLOODY photos. Needless to say, he (and others like him) had been cropped from view. We're here to see the Beatleboys, not the Beatleaides, not the Beatlekeepers, not the Beatle people so essential to the smooth-running operation that most fans didn't even know who the hell they were. Only that they often stood as a roadblock, a deterrent, a buffer to Beatle-baked people who clamoured for yet another BLOODY photo, yet another autograph, yet another insightful interview, yet another money-making endorsement, yet another banal or boring conversation with their Beatle boygods. Meanwhile, people like Derek Taylor provided an attempt at clarity, a soothing song in the ever-widening gyre of madness that hurricaned about them; a smoke-festooned-and-Scotch-laced Alka Seltzer to the moptop FabFour sanity and sense of self. It wasn't just Derek. Without Brian Epstein, Peter Brown, Mal Evans, Neil Aspinall or even George Martin, I don't think the Beatles would have existed. Oh, they'd be out there somewhere, playing in a dingy Cavernlike club. But I don't believe they would have reached the almost mythic proportions of pop/rock stardom they enjoyed (even to this day) without the incredibly devoted, rational and skilled people backing them up, holding their drunken heads or taking a punch for the Beatle benefit. Less insightful folks might feel otherwise, but if you look close, REAL close, you can see a pattern in the chain of command that surrounded these lovely lads from Liverpool. And standing close by, cigarett