Wednesday, June 06, 2007
The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper record is 40 years old
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
This week’s column was getting shaped on an entirely different topic, when the radio news announced through that The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band record would be 40 years old come June 1, 2007. All other thoughts set aside; I marched to an old Strand bag, untouched for years, and reached in. I could have done it blindfolded, the signals were so strong. And indeed, the top three vinyl LPs that came out were Revolver, the White Record, and Beatles’ Second Album, and after 10 seconds of frantic search, the aforementioned.
I had not touched the LPs in years; in fact, I reacquired a working player only some months ago. All my infrequent Beatlemania needs were served by a CD. But the memories persisted, and the tunes started vibrating through my mind, while reading the titles.
Sgt. Pepper is one of the three really memorable LPs in the Beatles’ repertory of some 80 remembered tunes, recorded on 12 discs, near the top, in my recall. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds – often accused of being the LSD battle hymn, also a haunting melody, comes to mind. I remember a slight street boy singing and dancing to it at the Bethesda Fountain, in the heady summer of 1967, when the Photographers of Washington Square, my irregular weekend affiliation of slide-takers and equipment traders, tired of the guitars, folksongs, rock and roll and crowds of that weekend music paradise, decided to expand to Central Park. It was a less raucous environment, the Bethesda Fountain weekend squatters were bicycle people and pop music fans; there were tennis courts nearby, and the Easter Sunday Sunrise brought in strange religionists, with Ralph Ginsberg reciting mantras.
Lucy, and, A Little Help from My Friends (Do I need anybody? I need somebody to love – the tunes for these phrases just jump out) were singled out as drug culture–evoking tunes in the Pepper opus. It was not a collection of tunes alone, each of the 13 songs told life stories, reminding me of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Richard Cory and Miniver Cheevy. She’s Leaving Home is a tear-evoking melody (Wednesday morning she silently closes the door…Daddy, our baby’s gone , cries the mother); Lovely Rita is a meter maid; fellow carnival workers give Mr. Kite a benefit; Billy Shears’s (Ringo Star’s) Lonely Hearts Band is just that.
The cover of the record was another proclamation, with over 70 portraits of people, well-known and obscure. Easily recognizable are Marlene Dietrich, W. C. Fields, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy; there were also Bob Dylan, E. A. Poe, Lenny Bruce; the less known KarlHeinz Stockhausen and Aleister Crowley, the British mystic, probably a George Harrison choice, along with various Indian gurus, and a splendid Marilyn Monroe.. The Fab Four appeared three times, as colorfully uniformed and hatted members of the Pepper brass band, next to their suit-and-tie wearing younger images, and, as themselves, in the centerfold. The imagery, still happy, was not indicative of the breakup that was to occur soon, after the accidental death of their manager Brian Epstein in 1969.
In June 1967 the triumphant Beatles were just 10 years old. John Lennon had assembled a Liverpool grammar-school kids’ group, The Quarrymen, in 1957, Paul McCartney and George Harrison joining soon. The drummers kept changing, until they settled on Pete Best. They found an audience in Hamburg, with the first romantic songs recorded abroad, but neither Decca nor EMI, the music giants in England, wanted to risk any money on them. Finally George Martin, a producer at EMI, gave them a recording (the quirky Best was fired and reliable Ringo Starr took over the drums), radio play and concerts followed and soon the attractive musicians found a huge following of young girls. The music crossed the Atlantic, not too easily; there were skeptics until in 1964 Ed Sullivan gave them a spot on his Sunday TV show. The early British invaders, with their schoolboy suits, quaint accents and inoffensive music with quality tunes drew instant attention. No question, they were outstanding tunesmiths (McCartney, despite not reading music, could orchestrate, with George Martin’s aid) , and good popular poets, particularly Lennon. They utilized unusual instruments and classical groups in such standouts as Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, after giving up touring and creating recordings in studio.
The breakup commenced soon after The Four went to India in 1968, for transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Nevertheless, they continued to create more LPs, including the successful White Record and Abbey Road, often working separately and depending on technology to blend their music. Some factors were Ringo’s feeling of being disrespected, a thieving manager, and Lennon’s infatuation with Yoko Ono, who wanted him out. In 1969 each of them started producing individual recordings, none matching the quality that the group’s synergy had created. Lennon and McCartney, working together, had created some 200 songs, a quality oeuvre that assured the Beatles’ fame forever.
This week’s column was getting shaped on an entirely different topic, when the radio news announced through that The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band record would be 40 years old come June 1, 2007. All other thoughts set aside; I marched to an old Strand bag, untouched for years, and reached in. I could have done it blindfolded, the signals were so strong. And indeed, the top three vinyl LPs that came out were Revolver, the White Record, and Beatles’ Second Album, and after 10 seconds of frantic search, the aforementioned.
I had not touched the LPs in years; in fact, I reacquired a working player only some months ago. All my infrequent Beatlemania needs were served by a CD. But the memories persisted, and the tunes started vibrating through my mind, while reading the titles.
Sgt. Pepper is one of the three really memorable LPs in the Beatles’ repertory of some 80 remembered tunes, recorded on 12 discs, near the top, in my recall. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds – often accused of being the LSD battle hymn, also a haunting melody, comes to mind. I remember a slight street boy singing and dancing to it at the Bethesda Fountain, in the heady summer of 1967, when the Photographers of Washington Square, my irregular weekend affiliation of slide-takers and equipment traders, tired of the guitars, folksongs, rock and roll and crowds of that weekend music paradise, decided to expand to Central Park. It was a less raucous environment, the Bethesda Fountain weekend squatters were bicycle people and pop music fans; there were tennis courts nearby, and the Easter Sunday Sunrise brought in strange religionists, with Ralph Ginsberg reciting mantras.
Lucy, and, A Little Help from My Friends (Do I need anybody? I need somebody to love – the tunes for these phrases just jump out) were singled out as drug culture–evoking tunes in the Pepper opus. It was not a collection of tunes alone, each of the 13 songs told life stories, reminding me of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Richard Cory and Miniver Cheevy. She’s Leaving Home is a tear-evoking melody (Wednesday morning she silently closes the door…Daddy, our baby’s gone , cries the mother); Lovely Rita is a meter maid; fellow carnival workers give Mr. Kite a benefit; Billy Shears’s (Ringo Star’s) Lonely Hearts Band is just that.
The cover of the record was another proclamation, with over 70 portraits of people, well-known and obscure. Easily recognizable are Marlene Dietrich, W. C. Fields, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy; there were also Bob Dylan, E. A. Poe, Lenny Bruce; the less known KarlHeinz Stockhausen and Aleister Crowley, the British mystic, probably a George Harrison choice, along with various Indian gurus, and a splendid Marilyn Monroe.. The Fab Four appeared three times, as colorfully uniformed and hatted members of the Pepper brass band, next to their suit-and-tie wearing younger images, and, as themselves, in the centerfold. The imagery, still happy, was not indicative of the breakup that was to occur soon, after the accidental death of their manager Brian Epstein in 1969.
In June 1967 the triumphant Beatles were just 10 years old. John Lennon had assembled a Liverpool grammar-school kids’ group, The Quarrymen, in 1957, Paul McCartney and George Harrison joining soon. The drummers kept changing, until they settled on Pete Best. They found an audience in Hamburg, with the first romantic songs recorded abroad, but neither Decca nor EMI, the music giants in England, wanted to risk any money on them. Finally George Martin, a producer at EMI, gave them a recording (the quirky Best was fired and reliable Ringo Starr took over the drums), radio play and concerts followed and soon the attractive musicians found a huge following of young girls. The music crossed the Atlantic, not too easily; there were skeptics until in 1964 Ed Sullivan gave them a spot on his Sunday TV show. The early British invaders, with their schoolboy suits, quaint accents and inoffensive music with quality tunes drew instant attention. No question, they were outstanding tunesmiths (McCartney, despite not reading music, could orchestrate, with George Martin’s aid) , and good popular poets, particularly Lennon. They utilized unusual instruments and classical groups in such standouts as Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, after giving up touring and creating recordings in studio.
The breakup commenced soon after The Four went to India in 1968, for transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Nevertheless, they continued to create more LPs, including the successful White Record and Abbey Road, often working separately and depending on technology to blend their music. Some factors were Ringo’s feeling of being disrespected, a thieving manager, and Lennon’s infatuation with Yoko Ono, who wanted him out. In 1969 each of them started producing individual recordings, none matching the quality that the group’s synergy had created. Lennon and McCartney, working together, had created some 200 songs, a quality oeuvre that assured the Beatles’ fame forever.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:15 AM 
