He was interviewed on stage about the updated ‘Folio Society’ edition of his 1981 best-selling Shout! The Beatles and Their Generation.
The title came from The Beatles’ 1963 chart-topping EP Twist and Shout, released on the EMI Parlophone label.
The 82-year-old author, from Belsize Park, was interviewed at the Images Gallery off Pall Mall by journalist Will Hodgkinson from The Times.
Norman gave an insight into how he came to write the book during the 1970s. It was eventually published shortly after John Lennon was murdered in New York in December 1980.
The Images Gallery interview had Beatles aficionados in the audience like Patti Harrison, former wife of the late George Harrison who played lead-guitar in the legendary band, and fellow Beatles author David Star.
Star lives round the corner from Philip in Belsize Park and just a stroll away from the iconic zebra crossing outside the EMI studios in St John’s Wood made famous on the cover of the 1969 Abbey Road LP.
Norman has also written personal biographies about The Beatles, on John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney.
But he is no ‘one band’ follower. Philip has also published a definitive book on the Rolling Stones — north London’s answer to The Beatles back in the Swinging Sixties.
