In March I previewed my friend Andy Neill’s upcoming book about Ready Steady Go!, the UK TV show broadcast between August 1963 and December 1966, that remains the benchmark by which TV rock and pop is judged. This was based on the manuscript, which Andy had asked me to read, but it no way prepared me for the real thing, the actual book, which arrived in the mail yesterday.
Well, it’s “smashing” as Cathy McGowan would have told Mick or Brian as the Stones geared up to play their latest single on the RSG! set, or John and Paul as they larked around and made funny faces to camera, or Pete and Keith as she admired their mod gear. Ready Steady Go! The Weekend Starts Here – The Definitive Story Of the Show That Changed Pop TV – to give it its full title – belongs in that category of Rolls Royce rock books reserved for those Mark Lewisohn writes about The Beatles or other labours of love by music writers who’ve spent years on a project, in Andy’s case a mere 17, on and off.
Which is to say that it’s big (about 12.5 inches square) and weighty (6 lbs), with about 70,000 words and hundreds of pictures spread over 268 high-end art paper pages. There are forewords by Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Vicki Wickham, the production pair who more than anyone else brought RSG! to your screens, and contributions from Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Ray Davies and many more. (The only notable absentee among those newly interviewed is McGowan herself, now a grandmother, who “resolutely refuses any attempt to drag her back into her past”.) The price on the cover is £39.99 but Amazon charge £28.67.
Although it’s a chronological account, beginning in pre-RSG! days and closing with a review of what happened next to its staff and presenters, the chapters are cunningly arranged backwards – 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – and included within them are spreads dealing with appearances by RSG!’s most favoured acts and other aspects of the show like Mod fashion, art and excursions onto the Continent. At the back you’ll find an episode guide with details of who appeared on all 178 programmes, the RSG! spin-off Ready Steady Win and even audience ratings. The text lovingly chronicles its tentative beginnings, its seat-of-the-pants production style, its impeccable musical values and, most of all, its absolute refusal ever to abide by the traditional rules of shows televised before live audiences.
The production style is best summed up by Jagger. “RSG! wasn’t safe,” he says. “It took risks, and waded right into the wonderful chaos of the times.” Watching it, you often got the feeling the producers were cramming as much as they could into their miserly half hour slot, and that’s the same feeling I get from the book. Andy Neill and his designer Phil Smee have crammed as much as they can into it, from the RSG! memorabilia on the front and back end papers to a wealth of previously unseen (or seldom seen) shots from the set inside, Beatles and Stones galore, Dusty waiting for her cue and Cathy interviewing the stars in her customarily effusive style.
It’s in the detail where much of the magic lies. To cite just two examples, in the Episode Guide for show number 122 we are informed that Keith Moon was banned from compering RSG! because of something he ‘unintentionally’ said to Cathy – oh my! – while in the guide to show 89, which featured amongst others The Everly Brothers, we learn from Manfred Mann’s Tom McGuinness that Don and Phil stayed behind after rehearsals, playing their acoustic guitars to no one in particular. “They started singing old country and folk songs, staring into each other’s faces to get those harmonies spot on. They seemed unaware that the studio was slowly filling up with the other artists, cameramen and technicians. When the song ended there was silence from the growing crowd. Eventually, when it was evident they had finished, the place erupted with cheering. Don and Phil looked around as if they’d only just noticed us, and smiled. It was spine tingling to hear them singing just for themselves.”
That’s just two tiny, almost microscopic details in this spectacular book about the show with the unforgettable catchphrase ‘The Weekend Starts Here’. That was the cue for every pop fan in the land to switch on the family TV early Friday evening and shoo their mums and dads out of the room for half an hour while this most exciting and trend-setting of pop shows was broadcast. This book does it justice in spades.
Finally, nice but not quite as impressive, there’s a limited edition box set of 10 7” singles released as a companion to the book, featuring songs by Manfred Mann, The Kinks, Dusty Springfield, Wilson Pickett, Marvin Gaye, The Walker Brothers, The Supremes, Donovan, Cilla Black and The Searchers. Naturally it kicks off with the Manfred’s ‘5-4-3-2-1’ and the set include a 24-page booklet written by Andy.
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