Richard Crouse

All You Need is Love is an epic 14 hour look at the history of popular music from BBC director Tony Palmer. Spread over 5 discs the documentary series originally aired on the BBC between 1976 and 1980 and pieces together the history of rock and roll from its roots through to the end of the drug fuelled seventies. It stops just short of covering punk rock, so there’s no Sid Vicious, but it does a definitive job of covering the years leading up to and including classic rock’s golden age. That means there’’s lots of footage of bands destroying their instruments on stage, most notably The Who and Keith Emerson who undertakes to turn a Hammond Organ into matchsticks in front of an audience.

Palmer shot over 1000 hours of interviews and concert footage to create this series, and presents a scholarly, yet vibrant and complete look at the birth of rock and roll.