“Little fuckers” The Beatles with Cassius Clay at the5thStreet Gym, Miami, February 1964
HOW do you solve a problem like The Beatles? When everything is known and understood, what can you do to recapture the moment of impact, that blinding flash where novelty and inevitability collide to make history? On the face of it, Florida seems a strange place to look. However, in Good Day Sunshine State, Emmy-winning broadcast journalist Bob Kealing – who previously explored the Southern roots of Gram Parsons in his 2015 book Calling Me Home – has identified a few weeks in 1964 as a transition point, both for the band and for pop culture as a whole.