The End of Innocence: Photographs from the Decades That Defined Pop : The 1950s to the 1970s

by Liz Jobey (Editor)

Includes portraits of the Beatles, the Supremes, Chubby Checker, the Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, the Hollies, and Deep Purple

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

267 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

well I absolutely loved this book, but it may be my age. It says on the cover that this book spans the 50s to the 70s, but the first photos are from 1959, and the last (Michael Jackson, still black, on a coach, and playing with a mask) from 1972. So, really, this book is all about the 60s. The photos are of groups and solo artists who worked at the EMI studios or visited, and a lot of them have the Manchester Square building in the background (or foreground - the Beatles first LP cover 'Please Please Me' has them looking down from a balcony there) or artistes are photographed on the roof or the strip of grass and trees outside. What is instructive is how all groups are treated the same, eg there's no difference between how the Beatles are photographed and the Castaways, also looking over the same balcony in the same manner. They are all treated as 'product', look very similar in suits and hair style, the women similarly dressed too. Until about 1965 (the book is in chronological order) and then the hair starts to get longer, the mod look creeping in (eg Rod Stewart, the Yardbirds etc), the clothes more casual, and as the book goes on the hair on the men gets wilder and wilder until you get the scruffy abundance of the Edgar Broughton band or Syd Barrett looking totally 'zoned' out (a marvellous picture), surely on acid. It is like a history of the decade that was my childhood. I remember all the bands, the Hollies, Freddie and the Dreamers, P J Proby, the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas (there are a big bunch of Motown stars photographed on visits in various cheesy but wonderfully kitschy poses), Billy J Kramer, The Merseybeats, Chubby Checker on telly, on TOTP or Ready Steady Go as I was growing up (I was 5 in 1960), and the later groups (15 in 1970) have the ache of true nostalgia: I looked just like Edgar Broughton (i grew my hair and got into psychedelia around then), listened to Pink Floyd, Marc Bolan (pre T Rex), and later got into other people pictured here - Kevin Ayers and the Whole World pictured in a pub with the very youthful Mike Oldfield, Roy Harper, The Pretty Things (in fact only just now really getting into them)..

I could go on and on but I'd probably end up mentioning most of the photos, Cilla and Lulu are there. These are photos that resonate deeply with me, maybe they wouldn't with others, the younger goodreaders would probably be bored. I wanted to scan and put up a few pictures but not sure how to do that. A very telling sequence would be the photos of Julie Driscoll, seen first (1963?) as an unaffected teenager sporting unstylish clothes and haircut, then in the mid 60s, rather more stylised, mod -ish, and finally the singular round-the-face haircut and make up she wore for her most famous hit (Wheels On Fire).

I don't want to take this back to the library. I'll end up buying it.

Julie Driscoll 1963?


Julie Driscoll 1964



Julie Driscoll 1967?



Julie Driscoll 1969?



Syd Barrett


hurray I've managed to upload images!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic, fun photos with an informative essay about the use of photos in the music industry especially by EMI from the 1950's to about 1965 written by Liz Jobey.
Also included is a less successful essay by Gordon Burn that never explains the title of both his essay and the entire book.
The majority of photos are taken between 1962 and 1965. It seems to me that the photos should have ended in 1968, however included are a few from 1972, long after there could be any claim of innocence.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

On one level this is a book full of crappy portraits of bands, but that is also part of its great charm. One gets the feeling that the photogrpher(s) were called out at a moments notice to photograph a band for the EMI organization. Most of the material was probably never printed in magazines. But alas you do get images of the early Marc Bolan, Bowie, and various forgotten 60's British bands.

The book is beautifully edited - it is sort of like going through someone's studio and uncovering this secret culture. And also great images of Motown groups and individuals when they first came to London. Really an essential book for photo-lunatics and pop history obsessives.