All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music
| All You Need Is Love | |
|---|---|
 2008 DVD release cover | |
| Directed by | Tony Palmer |
| Produced by | Richard Pilbrow Neville C. Thompson |
| Starring | The Beatles Elvis Presley Jerry Lee Lewis Bo Diddley Pete Seeger Bob Dylan Leonard Cohen |
| Edited by | Tony Palmer Xavier Russell |
| Music by | John Lundsten (music recordist) |
| Distributed by | Zeit Media Limited |
Release dates | 1976—1980 May 13, 2008 (DVD release) |
Running time | 1005 minutes |
| Countries | United States UK |
| Language | English |
All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music is the name of a 17-part television documentary series on the history of modern pop music directed by Tony Palmer, originally broadcast worldwide between 1976 and 1980. The series covers the many different genres that have fallen under the "pop" label between the mid-1800s and 1976, including folk, ragtime, country, swing, jazz, blues, R&B, rock 'n' roll and others. The film was largely funded by EMI executive Bernie Delfont.[1] Although punk rock had entered the pop music scene while the series was being constructed, Palmer was refused the funding and time to include the genre into All You Need Is Love.[1]
The fifteen-hour-long documentary features interviews and performances (both archived and original footage) involving such notable acts as Bing Crosby, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Leonard Cohen, Ike & Tina Turner and many others. The series also features a rare interview with the notoriously reclusive 1960s record producer Phil Spector. During his piece in the film, a visibly intoxicated Spector performs an imprompteu version of "Then I Kissed Her" solo and acoustic in his mansion home, a song which he originally wrote and produced for The Crystals in 1963. Palmer would later reveal that he had been coaxed into playing Russian roulette with Spector during the course of the evening.[1]
The series features the only interview ever given by the mother of Beatles manager, Brian Epstein.[1] It also features a tour of Harlem given by John Hammond, the record executive who was instrumental in furthering the careers of Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and countless others.[1]
A five disc DVD of the series was released on May 13, 2008.
Reviews
The film's DVD release's cover cited reviews from a handful of noteworthy musicians: John Lennon called the film "A monumental achievement" and thanked Palmer for creating the series; Bing Crosby hailed its editing and deemed is a "priceless archive"; and Pete Seeger said that "its colossal emotional, intellectual and history range is breathtaking."
All You Need Is Love was given an "A" rating by Entertainment Weekly, [2] called "a musical education in a box" by Blender,[3] and Q Magazine reviewed it as "an impressive achievement, scholarly, opinionated and entertaining, seamlessly blending archive and fresh footage with an impressive cast of talking heads."[3]
References
- ^ a b c d e Times Online article on All You Need Is Love by series creator Tony Palmer.
- ^ Entertainment Weekly: All You Need Is Love DVD review.
- ^ a b Tony Palmer: All You Need Is Love reviews.
External links
- All You Need Is Love at IMDb
- All You Need Is Love official site
- Guardian.co.uk review of All You Need Is Love