Revolt into Style

'The first serious attempt to analyse pop culture by someone who was part of it.' Julian Mitchell, Guardian The redoubtable George Melly (1926-2007): flamboyant jazz singer, sexually ambiguous raconteur, prodigiously gifted critic. In the early sixties, at the birth of what we now recognise as the pop revolution, Melly began work as a broadsheet journalist, commenting upon this new cultural phenomenon. Revolt into Style (1970) is his first-hand account of those turbulent and exciting years when all things creative - whether music, fashion, film, art or literature - were changed utterly. Central to the book are The Beatles - the epitome of the swinging sixties - who charted the decade's changes and about whose significance the Liverpudlian Melly had a special feel and insight. Alongside the Fab Four is a large cast of movers and shakers, of wannabes and taste-makers, all dissected by Melly's surgical mind.

George Melly (1926-2007) was born in Liverpool and educated at Stowe School. He was called up in 1944, where he joined the navy, primarily on account of his preferring the uniform to those of the other services. After the war, he established himself variously as a critic, surrealist, jazz musician, writer and raconteur, all to great success. The world is a little less colourful without him.