Do you remember the first time you heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles, no matter what year you first listened? At the time, it was the most radical musical experience imaginable and it was as if a nuclear explosion had been dropped, and everything before it's release had been obliterated, and nothing was left standing except your new view of the entire world. Over and over, playing it for literally hours and hours, mind-blowing was the oft expressed description. It still stands today as a masterpiece, and most probably still the most influential musical album of the century. The Summer of Love....hold onto your hearts and minds.....and dance. - MS
June 01,2007 LONDON --
The Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, the Fray and other popular rock groups have joined to record songs from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in honor of Friday's 40th anniversary of the Beatles' epochal album.
During the special recording session, which airs on BBC Radio 2 on Saturday, musicians and audio engineer Geoff Emerick will work with the same equipment the Beatles used for their album."From a recording point of view, people have forgotten how groundbreaking it was given the recording technology at the time," said Jo Phillips, director of 10 Alps, the company commissioned to create the documentary. "Production capabilities were so limited. So much was up to the imagination of the producers."
It was the first British album done with eight-track recording, running a pair of four-track machines in synch.
"Sgt. Pepper" was recorded at the Abbey Road studio in London over more than 400 hours spanning 129 days, and was released on June 1, 1967.
Arriving on a wave of psychedelia in the so-called Summer of Love, the album was meant to be played and experienced from start to finish.
One music critic called the album "a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization."
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was treated as a real band, and the album cover art, designed by Peter Blake, shows the group presiding over the funeral of the Beatles surrounded by a congregation of pictures of famous figures such as Marlon Brando, Aldous Huxley, Oscar Wilde, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan and Karl Marx.
In 1968, "Sgt. Pepper" was the first pop album to win the Grammy award for album of the year. It also won best contemporary album.
Rolling Stone magazine placed the album in the No. 1 slot on their list of the 500 best albums of all time. Within weeks of its release, Jimi Hendrix was performing the title track in concert.
Want to know who they are on the album cover?
