by Kevin Courrier (Author)

There is an epigram in this book from the Phil Ochs song, "Crucifixion", about the Kennedy assassination, that states: I fear to contemplate that beneath the greatest love, lies a hurricane of hate. On February 11th 1963, the Beatles recorded "There's a Place", a dazzling, unheralded tune which was included on their electrifying debut album, Please Please Me. This song firmly laid the foundation on which a huge utopian dream of the sixties would be built. Within that dream, however, also lay the seeds of a darker vision that would emerge out of the very counterculture that the Beatles and their music helped create. Thus, even as their music attracted adoring fans, it also enticed the murderous ambitions of Charles Manson; and though the Beatles may have inspired others to form bands, their own failed hopes ultimately led to their breakup.

Author Biography

KEVIN COURRIER is a writer/broadcaster and film critic at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He worked for eight years as co-host of the interview program On the Arts for CJRT-FM in Toronto, and also contributed movie reviews to Boxoffice Magazine in Los Angeles until 2007. He has written about film and popular culture for The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Sta. Courrier is the author of four other published books, Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion, with Susan Green (1997), which is now in its second edition, Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa (2002), which won the Finalist Prize for Best Biography at the 2003 Independent Publisher's Awards, Randy Newman's American Dreams, which also won Finalist Prize for Best Biography at the 2006 Independent Publisher's Awards, and Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica (2007). Courrier teaches part-time film courses through the LIFE Institute at Ryerson University in Toronto.

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