The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper': It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...

The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper': It Was Twenty Years Ago Today... The story behind the making of the landmark album

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' wasn't the Beatles' best album. It wasn't even the best album of 1967 – the year of astonishing debuts by Jimi Hendrix and the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones' Between the Buttons. As concept albums go, Sgt. Pepper seems thin compared with The Who Sell Out and altogether dubious when set next to Absolutely Free or We're Only in It for the Money, the two Mothers of Invention LPs released in 1967. And as a piece of psychedelia, put up against Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the Beatles' eighth album is pure tea and biscuits.

Nevertheless, twenty years later Sgt. Pepper still encapsulates its age – the good, the bad and the dopey – more evocatively than any other cultural dingus of the period. Flip it on the box (or the CD player now), and phantom pot smoke fills the air, lava lamps gurgle and burp in forgotten back rooms of the brain, and the synapses sizzle with imprinted memories of hallucinogenic ingestion. It may be dated, this soundtrack of the Summer of Love – surely more dated than any other Beatles album. But its very quaintness is a poignant reminder of the vanished pop values it embodies – values of love, community and musical progressivism – and the once young and adventurous pop audience that rushed to embrace them.

By 1967 the Beatles were perfectly positioned to make a Major Statement. In the four years since their arrival on the scene, they had evolved into the world's most charismatically creative pop group. Even their earliest singles had introduced new chords and song structures into rock, and they were so prolific – and so endlessly inventive – that by 1965 the album had become their key artifact. Help! – released in August 1965 – was still essentially a collection of very good songs, but Rubber Soul, which appeared at the end of the year, offered a new refinement, a mood of reflective maturity that seemed to link many of its tracks. It also signaled a new sophistication in the studio, and by the time of the Beatles' next LP, that sophistication had become incorporated into the fabric of their brilliance.

With its backward guitar tracks and tape-loop extravaganzas, Revolver, released in the summer of 1966, was a more adventurous pop record than anyone had previously attempted. It also confirmed the Beatles as recording-studio auteurs: they were unable (or unwilling) to perform any of the Revolver songs on their subsequent American tour, and when that tour ended, they decided never to play concerts again.

With the distraction of live performance eliminated from their lives, the Beatles were now free to really stretch out in the studio, to go in whatever creative directions their talents took them. Who knew, as 1966 wound toward a close, what wonders they might bring back?

The Sgt. Pepper sessions began on Friday, November 28th, 1966, when the Beatles assembled at the EMI recording complex at number 3, Abbey Road, in the London borough of St. John's Wood, with their producer, George Martin, and their new engineer, Geoff Emerick. Martin had produced the Beatles from the beginning and by now had some claim, if anyone did, to being "the fifth Beatle." Emerick, although only nineteen, had been on staff at EMI since 1962, the year the Beatles had been signed to the company's Parlophone label. He had worked as Martin's "tape op" (or second engineer) and had even engineered one previous Beatles song, "Tomorrow Never Knows" – the prophetically psychedelic final track on Revolver. Now – with Martin's regular engineer, Norman Smith, departed to produce Pink Floyd – Emerick had been recruited to fill the engineering gap.

In the few weeks that remained before Christmas, the Beatles and their team recorded three new songs: "When I'm Sixty-four," "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane." The first of these was a characteristic piece of McCartneyesque music-hall pop, tarted up with a reed section comprising two clarinets and a bass clarinet. The latter two numbers, however, were something new. Both were inspired by childhood reminiscences of Liverpool, but each reflected the distinct personality of its composer. McCartney's "Penny Lane," which recalled the suburban street life around a Liverpool traffic intersection, was jaunty and affectionate, instantly appealing. "Strawberry Fields," written by Lennon and alluding to a castlelike orphanage called Strawberry Field, was drearnier, trippier (it marked the Beatles' first use of a Mellotron) and rather more remote in commercial appeal than "Penny Lane." But both songs revealed wondrous new depths in the Beatles' music.

"I was so knocked out with both 'Strawberry Fields' and 'Penny Lane,'" Martin says now, "that I knew the Beatles were on a new wave. They'd shed a lot of the simplicity of even Revolver, which had been a bit more complicated than Rubber Soul. Now they were on a new plane."

For Geoff Emerick, the two tracks "seemed to be one vast, giant step toward something that was better than we'd ever heard … into a new generation and a new time."

By mid-january the monkees were topping the British charts with "I'm a Believer," a new guitar sensation from America called Jimi Hendrix had erupted out of nowhere with a single called "Hey Joe," and the Beatles, refreshed by a Christmas break, were back in the Abbey Road studios. By this point, EMI was anxious for a new Beatles single, and so it was decided to give the company "Strawberry Fields" and "Penny Lane." Both songs had been intended for the album, but as Martin recalls, he and Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, "had a campaign to make sure singles weren't duplicated on albums. In those days people were very conscious of value for money. Of course, today that seems completely w...

https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=2404

В журнале "Ровесник" (март, 1988) был напечатан перевод этой статьи:
Это было двадцать лет назад сегодня
Курт Лодер
Перевод с английского С. Кастальский
https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=180

Я помню с каким интересом я читал переводные статьи о Битлз и рок-музыке в Ровеснике в 80-ых годах. Только из-за последних 4-5 страниц в журнале и покупался журнал...
В то время, то что читалось в детстве, многое прочитанное принималось как аксиома, как догма...
Но вот только сегодня я обнаружил что эти переводы иногда были неточны или не полными, а порой не верны и даже включали в себя отсебятину переводчика...

Некоторые отрывки:
...As the month of may drew toward a close, Sgt. Pepper was unveiled at a listening party for the press at Brian Epstein's luxurious London town house, at 13 Chapel Street, near Buckingham Palace. Buoyed by a small sea of champagne, the assembled scribes soaked up the Beatles' fabulous new sounds as best they could and wondered aloud how Lennon and McCartney, who were also on hand, felt about the BBC's startling response to the album – it had just announced that "A Day in the Life" would be banned from the air because of the song's purported "drug references." McCartney was unconcerned. "We don't care if they ban our songs," he said. "It might help the LP."...
...В конце мая "Битлз" пригласили журналистов на прослушивание новой работы. Все выдающиеся перья музыкальной Англии собрались в квартире Брайана Эпштейна, и пока контрольный экземпляр пластинки доводили до кондиции — оказалось, что его отштамповали без центрального отверстия, — терзали Пола вопросами относительно того, что он думает по поводу запрещения радиотрансляции "Одного дня из жизни". (Еще до выхода пластинки в свет радиостанция Би–би–си наложила запрет на песню: она якобы была написана под воздействием наркотиков. Прим пер.) Пол засмеялся: С тем же успехом можно запретить Моцарта: они с Сальери, говорят, пьянствовали...
___ Не было в оригинале упоминания о центральном отверстии, и о Моцарте с Сальери.

...С третьей попытки съемка удалась сфотографировали обе стороны конверта и разворот, однако случилось непредвиденное: один из реально существовавших героев толпы потребовал вознаграждение за воспроизведение своей тощей фигуры. Ему вежливо отказали и заменили картонку... живым Кассиусом Клеем — знаменитый боксер, путешествовавший в то время в Англии, обрадовался как ребенок и сам был готов приплатить за возможность сняться с "битлами"...
___ Кассиус Клей (он же, Мохаммед Али) в оригинальной статье не упомянут вообще! Там был другой американский боксер Сонни Листон (как раз-таки, непримиримый соперник Кассиуса Клея), точнее, его восковая статуя.

...Когда игла оторвалась от пластмассы, я увидел, что Голдли, музыкальный обозреватель "Мелоди мейкер", плачет...
___ Этой фразы тоже нет в оригинальной статье.

...От редакции: Курт Лодер называет пластинку "Клуб одиноких сердец сержанта Пеппера", хотя, конечно, правильное название — "Оркестр клуба...."...
___ Чаще всего в статье автор вместо длинного названия альбома пишет просто Sgt. Pepper.

Трудности перевода. Очень серьёзные трудности...

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum was asked to lend its figures of the mop–top–era Beatles and of Sonny Liston, and arrangements were made with Clifton Nurseries, in west London, to deliver, at a specified date and time, a consignment of ornamental flowers to fill up the garden plot at the front of the set. McCartney rented horns for the Beatles to hold. A bass drum was acquired, and its two heads custom–painted with the Sgt. Pepper logo by a friend of Blake's, an Australian artist named Joe Ephgrave. Finally the Beatles were called in to pose.
Unfortunately the result of all this meticulous preparation was, in the estimation of Blake and Haworth, something of a fiasco. First, the flowers – which had been forced in a hothouse to achieve peak bloom on the day scheduled for the photo session — had to be packed into refrigerators when the Beatles put the session back one day to allow them to finish some recording. And when the flowers did arrive, they weren't at all the sort that Haworth had originally had in mind.
"They were dreadful hyacinths," she says. "What we wanted were little tight rock plants, for solid color. What we got was forest hyacinths scattered all about and these funny little azaleas strung all around the edge."

Музей восковых фигур мадам Тюссо любезно предоставил копии самих битлов и восковую фигуру американского боксера Сонни Листона. Потом договорились о доставке цветов, которые должны были устилать весь передний план. В самый последний момент Пол решил вручить каждому по духовому инструменту. "Оркестранты должны быть с трубами", — приговаривал он. В музыкальном магазине едва удалось избежать скандала — денег хватило только на три трубы, и Пол в отчаянии пытался стянуть рожок. Слава богу, владелец лавки оказался фанатичным поклонником "Битлз", и дело не получило широкой огласки. Потом раздобыли басовый барабан, и можно было приступать к съемке.
Первая попытка закончилась полным фиаско: на Ринго напал приступ смеха и его долго не могли успокоить, когда же он наконец угомонился, выяснилось, что у него усы разной длины. Это открытие так развеселило Пола, что он упал на Мерилин Монро и переломил ее в талии. Взбешенный фотограф, им был знаменитый мастер Майкл Купер, сказал, что он впервые встречает таких чокнутых клиентов. Потом оказалось, что прибыли не те цветы: Джейн договорилась о полевых ромашках, они получаются на фотографиях очень яркими и практически не требуют ретуши, кроме того, ромашки долго не вянут. Вместо этого прибыли блеклые лесные гиацинты, и всю партию пришлось забраковать. Наконец привезли ромашки, но их оказалось слишком мало, чтобы выложить передний план. Один из ассистентов предложил разложить их в виде гитары, и "получился предмет, немного напоминающий кость", — до сих пор негодует Джейн.

Только сейчас заметил, что на обратной стороне конверта Сержанта Пеппера Битлз изображены зеркально! Что это- случайность или намек какой (типа Paul is dеad)? А ведь я столько лет...даже десятилетий уже, рассматривал все эти картинки битловского шедевра и не замечал этого!

2Pavil:

Интересно!