Derek Taylor: For Your Radioactive Children...: Days in the Life of The Beatles' Spin Doctor

Derek Taylor. Sound familiar? There must be a lot of Derek Taylors in the world; but this one ghosted a biography of Brian Epstein, then joined him as press officer and wrote publicity for the Beatles, then swam off to America and served the Beach Boys and The Byrds, then helped to produce the Monterey Pop Festival, then came back to Blighty to do PR work for the Beatles’ Apple Corps. Still, the story-teller has to be invisible to make the stories work, so Derek was able to stay in the shadows. Now Andrew Darlington has dragged him into the limelight to demonstrate his view that if anybody can be called The Fifth Beatle (a much sought-after title) it was Derek. Racily written, lovingly documented (78 references in the index) this is a must-read book for any pop fan of a certain age; and for anybody else who loves great music.

What a poor book. Derek Taylor was the Beatles press officer went to California, came back to work at Apple, and then Warner Bros. A colourful character to say the least. But the author has simply written a very detailed history of the Beatles with Derek almost reduced to a cameo. Too much irrelevant information. Not enough emphasis on Derek.

This is the book I have waited for for years - and wish I could have written myself. The book gives you a very fine introduction to Derek Taylor, perhaps the most important man - after Brian Epstein - in the history of The Beatles and Apple - and American pop music in the "flower pot" period and after 1970. In addition it gives a lot of information about the history of popular music, from pre-rock until the seventies, an introduction to other bid bands (to may to name!) and artists Derek Taylor promoted/discovered .. It helps reading the book if you have some knowledge og the sixties before you read it as the book contains a lot of references that for "newcomers" can be a little hard to "digest". Higly recommended!

A major disappointment. I must have read in excess of a hundred rock biographies and this is probably the worst. Mr Darlington's research seems to be primarily from other books , the Beatles 'story' doesn't need to be retold yet again when others have done it so much better, the Byrds stuff has been well covered in the past by the likes of Johnny Rogan , everywhere you go the text seems to have been borrowed from other sources Mr Taylor it seems is merely the thread which carries the narrative but there's really precious little about him . If this is what rock writing has fallen to , i might as well have a go !Seriously save your money and i suggest the author sticks to writing album reviews which i am aware he does quite well-leave works like this to those who are prepared to properly research and not regurgitate others legwork. It made actually made me angry that someone published this , a complete con.