Pressing News – British Music as It Happened 1962–1972
A Monumental Chronicle of a Decade That Changed Everything
Book by Richard Morton Jack – Published by Lansdowne Books
There are big music books… and then there is Pressing News.
In this latest book review for Now Spinning Magazine, I’ve spent time with one of the most extraordinary, oversized, weight-of-a-small-moon publications you will ever encounter. If you thought Richard Morton Jack’s colossal Led Zeppelin: The Only Way to Fly was large, Pressing News takes things into a completely different stratosphere. It’s not just a book—it’s a feature, a piece of furniture, and a portal into one of the most transformative periods in British musical history.
This 1962–1972 chronicle is absolutely enormous in every sense. It is tall, long, heavy, and demands its own architectural considerations. Forget standard bookshelves—this is a coffee-table dominator. Wherever you put it, it becomes the décor. But once you open it, once you fall into its pages, none of that matters because you instantly realise: this is a masterpiece of musical archaeology.
A Decade of British Music, Told Through What the World Actually Saw at the Time
Richard Morton Jack—already celebrated for his astonishing forensic detail on Led Zeppelin—has assembled something unique: a curated, chronological avalanche of press cuttings, adverts, clippings, press releases, publicity photos, gig posters, reviews, and teen-mag ephemera that charts the evolving landscape of British music as it happened.
Not just the big names.
Not the obvious choices.
But everything.
Richard hasn’t simply focused on the obvious stars—though you’ll naturally find The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, Cream, The Who, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Fairport Convention, Fleetwood Mac, ELO, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and so on.
The magic of Pressing News is how it shines a bright, unfiltered light on bands and artists who briefly flickered across the cultural radar before disappearing forever. Band names you might vaguely recall… or never have heard at all. Groups who released one single, or nearly made it, or found themselves appearing in a teenage magazine next to features asking their favourite colour or food.
This is the era when everything was new, innocent, and evolving at breakneck speed. A decade where a 15-year-old with a guitar might find themselves on a label within weeks. A decade of pure, explosive musical possibility.
Inside the Book – A Whirlwind Through Ten Breathless Years
The book progresses year by year, immersing you in the actual print material that shaped public perception in real time:
Early ’60s beat-boom ephemera, Merseybeat and the dawning of The Beatles
Mid-decade mod culture, R&B explosions and the rise of bands like The Who, The Yardbirds and The Small Faces
Psychedelia and counterculture, featuring Marc Bolan, Julie Driscoll, Procol Harum, early Pink Floyd, and Arthur Brown
Proto-prog and the first progressive wave – Family, Jethro Tull, The Incredible String Band, King Crimson
Heavy rock and hard-hitting innovations – Cream, Tony McPhee’s Groundhogs, Black Sabbath’s arrival, Deep Purple connections (via Ian Gillan’s work with Jerusalem and John Lord’s early Artwoods material)
Singer-songwriters and folk innovators, including Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Mellow Candle, and Roy Harper
And dozens, even hundreds, of forgotten gems – Wimple Winch, The Deviants, The Open Mind, Blossom Toes, Mighty Baby… the list goes on!
You turn page after page thinking:
“I’ve never heard of them… but now I need to!”
And this is where the real delight lies. This book doesn’t just document the decade—it expands it, revealing all the threads, side roads, false starts, and parallel universes that fed into what became the British musical explosion.
A Book That Sends You Down Musical Rabbit Holes
One of the joys—and dangers—of a publication like this is how many rabbit holes it opens. You may start by searching for familiar names (as I did, looking for Deep Purple), but the real thrill comes from discovering:
obscure bands who released just one single
press releases for proto-prog groups who deserved more
vanished psychedelic outfits with wild photos
regional acts who almost broke nationally
musicians who quietly moved between bands you do know
It’s not just nostalgia—it’s detective work. This is musical archaeology, exactly the kind of detailed contextual material that inspires collectors, historians, and enthusiasts to explore further.
The period from 1962 to 1972 is arguably the most explosive, transformative, and creatively unbounded decade in the history of popular music. Everything that happens later—punk, metal, prog, art rock, experimental electronica, glam, singer-songwriter movements—has its seeds in this era.
Richard Morton Jack gives us the primary sources—the physical paper record of how the music world processed this evolution at the time:
- How artists were marketed
- How albums were launched
- How scenes emerged and vanished
- How press reactions shaped careers
- How quickly everything changed
- This is history you can feel.
A Book for the Now Spinning Community
For those of us who love:
- pressing details
- adverts and posters
- memorabilia
- obscure bands and forgotten labels
- the thrill of discovery
- the joy of context
- and physical media in all its tactile glory…
…Pressing News is just fabulous.
I absolutely loved exploring this. It will stay on my table (because there’s nowhere else it will fit!) and I will dip into it again and again. It enriches your understanding not only of the era, but of how interconnected everything was.
For anyone who loves music history, British rock, or the golden era of physical media, this is an essential purchase.
Pressing News is immersive, surprising, inspiring, and beautifully produced. It is both a celebration and an education. You’ll learn a huge amount, discover countless forgotten artists, and appreciate even more how extraordinary this decade truly was.
Phil Aston | Now Spinning Magazine
