White Bicycles

"The sixties," writes Joe Boyd, "began in the summer of 1956, ended in October of 1973 and peaked before dawn on 1 July, 1967 during a set by Tomorrow at the UFO Club in London." This opener disqualifies Boyd from Paul Kanter's famous dictum:"If you can remember anything about the Sixties, you weren't really there." Joe Boyd was there and White Bicycles offers a retrospective groove for those still suffering memory loss or worse with birth tags that meant the '60s happened without them.

Boyd had a clear trajectory towards the '67 Summer of Love. A white Bostonian middle-class kid, he had a revelation while watching black R&B and Jazz artistes erupting from mid-fifties TV programmes. By 1960, Boyd was watching the blues and jazz singer/guitarist Lonnie Johnson live in a neighbours' living room. It was the first entrepreneurial deal for the would be music producer.

From there, a right place, right time vibe found Boyd working with the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and Richard Thompson. He formed production company, Witchseason, and with John Hopkins co-founded the UFO, a club psychedelia, hosting Pink Floyd and the Soft Machine. He also lost a few gigs. Despite producing the Floyd's first momentous single, Arnold Layne, a contract with EMI severed the Boyd bond. And Scientology sneaked the String Band away.

There's no hint of resentment. Boyd is dispassionate, even about bedtime tales although there are few. There's one long night on a sofa when a girl he's just moved in with offers Bob Dylan the bed, with her in it. Boyd, generous then and now, says: "What, in the spring of 1964, when his Bobness was king of the folk world, could I say?" He's equally compassionate when writing of those who hit the casualty list; Jimi Hendrix, Nick Drake, and Syd Barrett.

But Boyd stays sharp on sixties zeitgeist, his words zipping up the times and the way they were 'a-changin'. "The tide of history was with us" says Boyd "and music was the key."

Good book if you're interested in the music of the sixties. Well written and not ghosted. Boyd comes across as rather full of himself and I wonder if the reader gets his truth or the truth others would recognise. He did manage to fall out with many of the musicians I respect. Also his take on British culture is sometimes a little wobbly.