The Beatles and Black Music: Post-Colonial Theory, Musicology and Remix Culture

The Beatles and Black Music discusses the influence that Black music and culture has had over the Beatles throughout their collective and solo careers.

Tracing the history of Black musical and cultural influence on popular music from the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1795 to the nascent Mersey Beat scene in the early 1960s, this book is the first to explore the Beatles from this important cultural lens. The Beatles and Black Music discusses the influence that Black music and culture has had over the Beatles throughout their collective and solo careers. Richard Mills adopts a musicological and historiographic account to demonstrate the extent to which Liverpool’s colonial history influenced the Beatles’ music.

Beginning with the grand narrative of British colonial history pre-Beatles, it covers the influence of Black music and culture on the Beatles’ teenage years in the 1950s, their association with Lord Woodbine, their love of American Rhythm and Blues in the mid-1960s, and extends to a discussion of post-colonial British identity and the lasting effect Black music has had on the Beatles’ legacy and continues to have on the solo careers of Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney.

Richard Mills is Programme Director and Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies and Screen Media at the School of Arts and Humanities at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, UK. He is the author of The Beatles and Fandom (Bloomsbury 2019) and co-editor with Lee Brooks and Mark Donnelly of Mad Dogs and Englishness (Bloomsbury 2017).