A ‘smashing’* new book featuring ITV’s ground-breaking music show Ready Steady Go! has just been published and it’s receiving universally rave reviews. RSG! is rightly revered as the TV’s greatest Pop programme of all time – running from August ’63 to Dec ’66 and chalking up an impressive 173 episodes; the Beatles featured three times. The Fabs first RSG! appearance was on the show’s ninth edition, aired live on 4 October 1963, just nine days before their debut on Sunday Night at the London Palladium and exactly one month before the Beatles’ Royal Command Show performance. With ‘Beatlemania’ just around the corner, it’s hard to imagine that there were only eighteen Beatles tunes available on the Parlophone label up to that point! That Friday night the Beatles, wearing their famous collarless suits, mimed to I’ll Get You, She Loves You and Twist and Shout.

As part of the episode Paul judged an audience-based competition to find the best Brenda Lee impersonator from four teenage hopefuls and without much hesitation he picked out 14-year-old Melanie Coe as the winner. The RSG! book reveals that in February 1967, Melanie ran away from her north London home; the Daily Mail duly covered the story, interviewing her confused parents under the headline ‘The Girl Who Has Everything’. Coincidentally, Paul McCartney saw the article and his song-writer’s imagination was stirred. The result was She’s Leaving Home on the Sgt Pepper LP!

This large format 270-page book, written by 60s authority Andy Neill, is superbly researched with dozens of unseen photographs, revealing interviews and a fascinating narrative that makes the Beeb’s Top of The Pops seem dull as ditch water. Ready Steady Go! The Weekend Starts Here is published by BMG books and is currently on Amazon at a reduced price. Don’t be slow!

*Presenter Cathy Magowan’s trademark description for any groovy discs, groups or clothes.