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It was 40 years ago today.......


WhiteDove
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It was 40 years ago today Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released . It took 129 days and over 700 hours of recording to complete.

It is often cited the most influential album of all time by prominent critics and publications, ranking number 1 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was created by art director Robert Fraser, mostly in collaboration with McCartney, designed by Peter Blake, his wife Jann Haworth, and photographed by Michael Cooper. It featured a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover; and, as a bow to the interest that Beatles songs now inspired, the lyrics were printed on the back cover, the first time this had been done on a pop LP

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Edited by WhiteDove
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If you have the cd version (blasphemy, heheh), it has a really neat folder that explains the people on the cover. At least one of the blank spots was a radical Indian guru, who was painted out of the picture by request of somebody in British government..

In one of the photos you can see a cardboard Hitler on the sidelines that they chose not to include at the last minute.. apparently they didn't want too much more controversy after Lennon's "popular as Jesus" remark.

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Cover - who are these people?

Album cover

See also: List of images on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was created by art director Robert Fraser, mostly in collaboration with McCartney, designed by Peter Blake, his wife Jann Haworth, and photographed by Michael Cooper. It featured a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover; and, as a bow to the interest that Beatles songs now inspired, the lyrics were printed on the back cover, the first time this had been done on a pop LP. The Beatles themselves, in the guise of the Sgt. Pepper band, were dressed in eye-catching custom-made military-style outfits made of satin dyed in day-glo colours. The suits were designed by Manuel Cuevas.[4] Among the insignia on their uniforms are:

MBE medals on McCartney's and Harrison's jackets, which were given to them by the queen of Britain

The Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom, on Lennon's right sleeve

Ontario Provincial Police flash on McCartney's sleeve

Art director Robert Fraser was a prominent London art dealer who ran the Indica Gallery. He had become a close friend of McCartney's and it was only at his strong urging that the group abandoned their original cover design, a psychedelic painting by The Fool.

Fraser was one of the leading champions of modern art in Britain in the 1960s and beyond. He argued strongly that the Fool artwork was not well-executed and that the design would soon be dated. He convinced McCartney to abandon it, and offered to art-direct the cover; it was Fraser's suggestion to use an established fine artist and he introduced the band to a client, noted British 'pop' artist Peter Blake, who, in collaboration with his wife, created the famous cover collage, known as "People We Like".

The couch gag for The Simpsons episode "Bart After Dark", which is a parody of the album cover.[5]According to Blake, the original concept was to create a scene that showed the Sgt. Pepper band performing in a park; this gradually evolved into its final form, which shows the Beatles, as the Sgt. Pepper band, surrounded by a large group of their heroes, rendered as lifesized cut-out figures. Also included were wax-work figures of the Beatles as they appeared in the early '60s, borrowed from Madame Tussauds. The wax figures appear to be looking down on the word "Beatles" spelled out in flowers as if it were a grave, and it has been speculated that this symbolises that the innocent mop-tops of yesteryear were now dead and gone. At their feet were several affectations from the Beatles' homes including small statues belonging to Lennon and Harrison, a small portable TV set and a trophy. A young delivery boy who provided the flowers for the photo session was allowed to contribute a guitar made of yellow hyacinths. Although it has long been rumoured that some of the plants in the arrangement were cannabis plants, this is untrue. Also included is a doll wearing a sweater in homage to the Rolling Stones (who would return the favour by having the Beatles hidden in the cover of their own Their Satanic Majesties Request LP later that year).

The collage depicted more than 70 famous people, including writers, musicians, film stars and (at Harrison's request) a number of Indian gurus. Starr reportedly made no contribution to the design. The final grouping included Marlene Dietrich, W.C. Fields, Diana Dors, Bob Dylan, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sigmund Freud, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Marlon Brando, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and controversial comedian Lenny Bruce. Also included was the image of the original Beatles bass player, the late Stuart Sutcliffe. Pete Best said in a later NPR interview that Lennon borrowed family medals from his mother Mona for the shoot, on condition he not lose them. Adolf Hitler was requested by Lennon, but the cardboard printout of Hitler was placed behind the Beatles themselves and cannot be seen in the final photograph. It can, however, be seen in place as well as leaning against the wall in several photographs taken of the photoshoot. A photo also exists of a rejected cardboard printout with a cloth draped over its head; its identity is unknown, but may possibly be Elvis Presley. Even now, co-creator Jann Haworth regrets that so few women were included [1]. The entire list of people on the cover can be found at List of images on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The package was also one of the first 'gatefold' album covers, that is, the album could be opened like a book, to reveal a large picture of the Fab Four in costume against a yellow background. The reason for the gatefold was that The Beatles planned to fill two LPs for the release. The designs had already been approved and sent to be printed when they realized they would only have enough material for one LP.

Originally the group wanted the album to include a package with pins, pencils and other small Sgt. Pepper goodies but this proved far too cost-prohibitive. Instead, the album came with a page of cut-outs, with a description in the top left corner:

SGT. PEPPER

CUT-OUTS

Moustache

Picture card of Sgt. Pepper

Stripes

Badges

Stand-up of the band

The special inner sleeve, included in the early pressings of the LP, featured a multi-coloured psychedelic pattern designed by the Fool.

The collage created legal worries for EMI's legal department, which had to contact the people who were still living to obtain their permission. Mae West initially refused — famously asking "What would I be doing in a lonely heart's club?" — but she relented after the Beatles sent her a personal letter. Actor Leo Gorcey requested payment for inclusion on the cover, so his image was removed. An image of Mohandas Gandhi was also removed at the request of EMI (it was actually just obscured by a palm tree), who had a branch in India and were fearful that it might cause offence there. Lennon had, perhaps facetiously, asked to include images of Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler, but these were rejected because they would almost certainly have generated enormous controversy. Most of the suggestions for names to be included came from McCartney, Lennon and Harrison, with additional suggestions from Blake and Fraser (Starr demurred and let the others choose). Beatles manager Brian Epstein (who died just after the album's release) had serious misgivings, stemming from the scandalous U.S. Butcher Cover controversy the previous year, going so far as to give a note reading “Brown paper bags for Sgt. Pepper” to Nat Weiss as his last wish.

The collage was assembled by Blake and his wife during the last two weeks of March 1967 at the London studio of photographer Michael Cooper, who took the cover shots on March 30, 1967 in a three-hour evening session. The final bill for the cover was £2,868 5s/3d, a staggering sum for the time — it has been estimated that this was 100 times the average cost for an album cover in those days

Edited by WhiteDove
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The Beatles official site has put up a special section

http://www.thebeatles.com/sgtpepper/

(Officially it premiered on June 2nd in the US)

It would be the first Beatles' Album that I owned. I had gotten my first record player that previous Christmas. This was the beginning of a lifelong interest. I bought it at Ann and Hope in Lincoln and I paid, I believe, $2.88 for the mono version (The stereo version was a dollar more) I would buy the Stereo version about 4 years later in Ireland.

Edited by pawtucket
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One of my teenage kids came up to me a few years ago and asked me if I had ever heard of a group called the beatles.

I said nope never heard of them. LOL

Polar Bear -- (I didn't hear it personally) -- but I did hear a friend of mine tell about it.

He and his wife are popular folk musicians here.

They were playing a gig, and while taking a break after one of their sets,

they overheard a coupla teen-agers talking about Paul McCartney, and the Beatles.

When one of the teen-agers heard the two names connected,

she said "Aren't the Beatles the group Paul was in before Wings???"

:asdf: :asdf: :asdf:

(edited for speeling --- grrrrrr!)

Edited by dmiller
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That album was a crash test dummy...of sorts. Let me explain.

One of my favorite rock bands from that era was Jefferson Airplane. Teens and college kids started doing LSD as early as fall of '64. Authorities were worried about this. Jefferson Airplane's first album was released in Sept. of 1966. It was supposed to include a song called 'Runnin' round the world' but that song was dropped because the lyrics included one line that said, trips, trips, trips". It wasn't even referring to drugs according to the band members, just trips, stuff people get into, THAT definition of the word, but the suits at RCA said no! Family values, ya know. We can't have you guys admitting that you do drugs. Gosh, no.

So time goes on and JAs second album 'Surrealistic Pillow' was released in Feb. of 1967. The album had 2 hit singles, Somebody to Love and White Rabbit, but still no drug references. Usually, when a band has an album with hit singles on it they tour to promote it, which the Airplane did pretty much that whole calendar year. We'll think about a third album later...or will we?

As already stated, the Sgt. Pepper album was released June 1st of 1967, CHOCK FULL of drug references. The suits must have been keeping their fingers crossed, at least some of them. And it sold like crazy. No more need to worry, suits, because sex sells and drugs do too.

Jefferson Airplane's 3rd album, After bathing at Baxter's, was released Dec 23rd of 1967. The last date of recording for it was halloween. The songs recorded that day were a 9 minute jam called Spare chaynge and a just under 2 minute goofy song by the drummer and 2 of the engineers. Translation: come on guys, you need to fill this album up if we're going to release it by Christmas!!!! PUT SOMETHING TOGETHER!!! The last song recorded before halloween was a week before. Arguably the best song on the album, Won't you try Saturday Afternoon, was basically thrown together. Paul Kantner got all the lyrics to that song from a newspaper column about a trips festival in Golden Gate park not long before.

Like I said, they were on the road the whole calendar year; they didn't have quality studio time. Marty Balin said it was the hardest thing the band had to do up to that point. The first recording done on the album was June 26th, not even one month after Sgt Pepper proved that drugs sell. The song was 'The ballad of you and me and Pooneil, which had multiple drug references. Other groups followed suit. The Stones did 'Their satanic majesties request' complete with a 3D cover also photographed by Michael Cooper, also released before Christmas. The Beach Boys did 'Smiley smiles' even the Monkees music got a little psychadelic. The Cowsills released their first single 'The rain the park and other things' in fall of '67 which had drug words in it. What a great matter a little fire kindleth, eh?

Once the Sgt. Pepper album sold well, all bets were off. I'm not trying to imply that this is all evil. I still like that music. It was just suits being suits. They thought they'd be condemned by the record buying public if they allowed "drug music" even though the young people had been experimenting with drugs for more than 2 years already. Then Sgt. Pepper blazed the trail and let's get on the band wagon; we don't know how long this will last.

One reason I find this all interesting is that in the advanced class we were all told that the artists themselves were the evil sold out serpent people in all this. NO! The artists used the drugs they sang about. I can respect that more than I can some heroin dealer who doesn't use the stuff himself, yet knowingly sells it to those it will hurt and kill. If anybody was "evil" it was the suits, the execs, the money people, and they were commonplace. Hindsight is 20/20, eh?

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Just read a piece in the S.F. Chronicle where George Martin is quoted as saying that the mono version of the album is the one to hear. That original recording, which does exist but I guess isn't in release, has the best representation of how they recorded and mixed it in 4 track. The stereo release was done by engineers. That use of 4 track is probably the biggest achievement of the recording he felt. There was something about how 500 bucks worth of digital recording equipment today on a PC could do 100 times more than what they had. Guess you gotta have the skills to go with it, mad skills. :biglaugh:

J-Iams, you gotta go into your Wayback machine to remember that all the Airplane had to do was show up and you had drug references. :biglaugh: :biglaugh:

In a way, not to digress, the Airplane and the Dead and some of the other west coast bands of that era were more like studio products than others, like the Beatles, who were actually a gig-ready band with a solid rock rhythm section, reasonable chops, vocal strength and ideas based on a history of learning and performing music of many different styles. So they were able to put tunes together with arrangments they could perform, at least for a few years.

The Airplane on the other hand....well, they did sound okay on their recordings but live? Only saw them twice, once their first year or so, and once later on a bill with some others bands I wanted to hear. While it was clear they had some decent musicianship and Slick was a babe, they had trouble playing at the same time, it seemed. Basically, a trainwreck.

They did represent the ideal of the San Francisco hippie drug mentality though along with the Dead who, despite having two drummers couldn't keep steady time for more than 2 minutes. If Hart would have taken up castanets and left the percussion to Kreutzman they would have sounded a 100 per cent better, IMO. But...

40 years????!!! Seems so long ago...just like it was Yesterday!

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The Beatles did Sgt Peppers?? I thought it was the Bee Gees!

Belle Belle Belle :blink: what am I going to do with you, looks like someone needs to sit through music 101 again.

Beatles....Bee Gees, well at least you got the B part right and didn't think it was the Simpsons

simps.jpg

You did know it was not the Simpsons didn't you? Right?..............Hello?............Tell me you did.............Belle? ..............

Edited by WhiteDove
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Wow great links – thanks, Paw! Cool Simpsons re-do, White Dove. And here’s a parody of the Sgt. Pepper’s Album cover that only a Mother could love [and one of my favorites to listen to as well]:

initforthemoney.jpg

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That album was a crash test dummy...

gee, johniam, you sure say a lot for someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.

first of all, you can find "drug references" in beatle songs before pepper. revolver is loaded with them. ("tomorrow never knows," anyone?) sgt. pepper, on the other hand, has very few. it has a psychedelic feel, absolutely. but other than "i get high with a little help...," "lucy in the sky with diamonds" (which lennon swore wasn't about LSD) and "i'd love to turn you on," there ain't much else that would qualify as a "drug reference."

and you're giving the "suits" way more credit than they deserve. especially as early as '66/'67--they had no clue what was going on.

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