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Joe Boyd

White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s Paperback – April 1, 2007

by Joe Boyd (Author)

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White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s (Serpent's Tail Classics)
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“This is the best book about music I’ve read in years, and a gripping piece of social history.”—Brian Eno

When Muddy Waters came to London at the start of the 1960s, a kid from Boston called Joe Boyd was his tour manager; when Dylan went electric at the Newport Festival, Joe Boyd was plugging in his guitar; when the summer of love got going, Joe Boyd was running UFO, the coolest club in London; when a bunch of club regulars called Pink Floyd recorded their first single, Joe Boyd was the producer; when a young songwriter named Nick Drake wanted to give his demo tape to someone, he chose Joe Boyd.

More than any previous sixties music autobiography, Joe Boyd’s White Bicycles offers the real story of what it was like to be there at the time. As well as the sixties heavy-hitters, this book also offers wonderfully vivid portraits of a whole host of other musicians: everyone from the great jazzman Coleman Hawkins to the folk diva Sandy Denny, Lonnie Johnson to Eric Clapton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Fairport Convention.

Record and film producer Joe Boyd was born in Boston in 1942 and graduated from Harvard in 1964. He went on to produce Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, R.E.M., and many others. He produced the documentary Jimi Hendrix and the film Scandal. In 1980 he started Hannibal Records and ran it for twenty years. He lives in London.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Serpent's Tail
Publication date

April 1, 2007
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
ISBN-10

1852429100
ISBN-13

978-1852429102
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Record and film producer Joe Boyd was born in Boston in 1942, and was the producer of Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, REM and many others. He produced the documentary 'Jimi Hendrix' and the film 'Scandal'. In 1980 he started Hannibal Records and ran it for 20 years. Boyd lives in London.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Serpent's Tail; 1st edition (April 1, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1852429100
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1852429102
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,980,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,386 in Rock Band Biographies
- #9,973 in Rock Music (Books)
- #10,329 in Music History & Criticism (Books)

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Record and film producer Joe Boyd was born in Boston in 1942 and graduated from Harvard in 1964. He went on to produce Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, REM and many others. He produced the documentary Jimi Hendrix' and the film Scandal'. In 1980 he started Hannibal Records and ran it for 20 years. Boyd lives in London where he writes for the Guardian and Independent.

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4.5 out of 5

379 global ratings

5 star		65%
4 star		21%
3 star		10%
2 star		3%
1 star		1%

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Junglies

The great man, the great man, historians his memory, Artists his senses, thinkers his brain

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 22, 2009

Verified Purchase

This is a terrific read, the sixties remembered and recounted from the inside looking out. For all it is the story of Joe Boyd, musical entrepreneur, it is also the story of musicians who taught us that the music mattered.

The story of the sixties is also the story of how music broke free from the bonds of Tin Pan Alley, transcending the purely entertainment media for the masses into a sociology and histiography all of it's own. The music of the sixties yearned for earlier years and lifetimes when music reflected harshness, and suffering, of lost love and other emotions, traditions of bygones and also music passed down through generations and from different cultures. At the same time the music of the past transformed the present. What would the Grateful Dead have been like if the mainstays of the band had not searched into the past and brought it into the light of day? Where would we be without the music and development of Bob Dyland.

Boyd can be credited with discovering the hidden talents of British artists who came to be known and loved in Britain and the world over. having been fortunate enough to see Fairport Convention (in many incarnations) John Martyn, the Incredible String band, Robin Williamson and others besides, it is interesting to see another facet of these people who happen to perform for their livliehood. The stories that filled the pages of the New Musical Express, Melody Maker and others besides take on a different perspective in the light of Boyd's expose.

Yet, to be fair, the author details some of their exploits but he does not assassinate their characters. Clearly these were people who he loved and lost yet who carved niches in his heart. This is not a work of triumphalism but a sad refrain reflecting many of the songs the artists wrote and performed. I could hardly put this book down but it has a degree of authenticity unmatched by many of the ghosted accounts of others. It reminds me a lot of Geoff Doherty's book, A Promoters Tale: Rock at the Sharp End in that regard.

Whether Brian Eno's resounding endorsement of the book is accurate or not is debateable, but for myself, I must admit, it has resonated deeply within me and I unreservedly recommend it to anyone interested in the music of the time.

6 people found this helpful

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Media Minded

Glib but interesting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 26, 2022

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It took me a while to get used to the offers tone, but it did pull me in with his many interesting antidote. He strangely goes on at enormous length about Nick Drake while giving somewhat short shift to Fairport convention. I found that odd, because all I knew about Joe Boyd when I started reading was that he was the producer of the original Fairport. So mixed feelings about the book, but I am glad that I read it.

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Mark Twang

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2011

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As a window into the music business during the 1960s, "White Bicycles" is pretty good. Boyd was a tour manager, promoter, record and film producer, an American ex-pat in swinging London who founded the seminal UFO nightclub. He name drops relentlessly, but his brushes with A-listers -- Miles, Dylan, Pink Floyd -- are brief. He is mostly notable for managing and producing British folk rock acts like Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and the Incredible String Band. I'm a Richard Thompson fan, so I felt compelled to read this.

His writing is intelligent, if inelegant. Perhaps Boyd remembers too much. The book scurries from anecdote to anecdote, offering too much information on people we don't care about and not enough on the people we do. It's often hard to see the forest for the trees. Timeframes shift without warning and noun-pronoun agreement goes fuzzy. He doesn't have much to say about the process of producing records, but then he was not a producer of creative significance. (His biggest hit was "Dueling Banjos".) He did go on to produce the Thompson's pivotal "Shoot Out the Lights" in the '80s, but I suspect it was because Richard knew his old pal wouldn't get too creative behind the console.

Boyd is also a white suburban Princeton/Harvard guy who starts out rescuing old blues legends from obscurity by introducing them to a white audience he condescendingly knows cannot appreciate them. He's an opportunist who abandons his entire stable of clients for a Hollywood studio job. He blows deals with Pink Floyd and Abba. He is neither a star nor a villain, but something of a mediocrity who was more lucky than savvy, more managerial than creative. He ends the book with a harangue about how important the 60s were and how the youth of today should be so lucky. He comes off like some bitter, cranky uncle who was hardly the big deal he seems to think he was.

6 people found this helpful

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limner

The best written, most honest, evocative account of the 60s music scene I have read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 11, 2021

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I am thrilled to have finally got a new copy of this book at a reasonable price. It is excellent. I have always loved Boyd's immaculate productions from his early days right up to the current world music ones he is involved with. He also writes very well.
Whether you want to know about the nuts and bolts of his recording process or the weird mixture of altruists,idealists,hustlers and heavies that characterised the music and counterculture of the 60s Boyd has captured it perfectly. He is also surprisingly funny and willing to tell a tale against himself.
He had the good taste - and misfortune -to produce artists then who were commercially unsuccessful who have since achieved iconic status. If you were about at the time you will be fascinated by this honest autobiography and its insights, if you weren't Boyd is one of the few reliable chroniclers of the 60s who was there and captures how it was. Do read it.

3 people found this helpful

Jeremy Walton

The music man

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 23, 2022

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I first read and enjoyed a friend's copy of this many years ago, and recently bought it to re-read. Joe Boyd tells the story of his musical life in the sixties - a period when he seemed to be in all the right places at the right times. He was the tour manager for Muddy Waters when he came to the UK; he was responsible for the sound desk at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Dylan went electric; in the following year he started London's UFO club and produced "Arnold Layne" for Pink Floyd; he recorded the first efforts by John Martyn, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention (and Richard Thompson) and the Incredible String Band. He was less prolific in later decades, but still found time to produce the 1973 documentary "Jimi Hendrix" and set up the Hannibal record label, which was one of the first in the World Music genre.

As if all that wasn't enough, he's also a good writer with an eye for detail - whether describing Picasso "holding court at a table with six beautiful women [...] His shirt was off, he looked powerful and bronzed and the women never took their eyes off him" [p47] or the hands of Nick Drake: "huge and stained with nicotine, the fingers strong and articulate, with long, evenly trimmed nails caked with grime" [p192].

There are some great stories here as well, particularly that of a nervous Linda Ronstadt joining Fairport Convention onstage on their US debut at the Troubador: "I don't know any English songs," she said. "That's OK, we know all of yours," replied Simon Nicol, before the band fell in perfectly with her tentative rendition of 'Silver Threads And Golden Needles'. Boyd is also very good on the differing personalities of early US folk music collectors Harry Smith and Alan Lomax, and the way in which the New York folk scene was more aligned with the earnestness of Lomax's field recordings whilst that of Boston was more attracted to the vivid personalities recorded on the commercial 78s that Smith produced.

A great book, which repays re-reading. Highly recommended.

gARThIbiza

Riding down Arnold Lane !

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 4, 2017

Verified Purchase

What a great book, especially if you lived through the sixties and recall the headlines of the time. This gives you true insight into those great days, and the lowdown of some of the music and musicians whose music has stood the test of time.
Joe Boyd was in the right place at the right time, and manages to capture some wonderful moments, with a good turn of phrase.
He recorded the first Pink Floyd single, before losing the band to some smart operators, was with Dylan at Newport, opened UFO with Hoppy Hopkins, and did his best to promote Nick Drake, which was no easy task, as you discover in this book, why he was so hard to promote !
I would love to meet Joe, but as it's most unlikely, this must be the next best thing.

6 people found this helpful

1966er

Amazing music biography

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 8, 2022

Verified Purchase

This was my book of the year in 2020 and I've since bought it for a few friends. Joe Boyd's incredible life behind the scenes of the soundtrack to so many decades is told beautifully. He has a wonderful descriptive style and anyone with an interest in '50s or '60s music culture will absolutely love this.

One person found this helpful

Juniorboogie

Hey Joe!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

I had heard of Joe Boyd through his production work with Fairport Convention and associated artists. It was interesting to read of the early 60’s jazz and blues tours he was associated with. Joe also seems to have had a number of near misses with-soon to be- major artists such as Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd where somehow the deals didn’t quite work out. Joe discourses very perceptively about the 60’s and the artists and managers he came in contact with. This is a great read. I’ve docked one star because the narrative jumps back and forth in time here and then which occasionally makes it hard to follow.

2 people found this helpful

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