TITLE:  THE BEATLES -SGT. PEPPERS LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

Label: Parlophone records

Catalogue number: PMC7027

The matrices: XEX  637-1 (GAO)

                      XEX 638-2 (GAL) 

"K-T" code on side 1.

Year : 1967

Details of the specific copy: This is a beautiful  Complete copy, 1st pessing copy,

condition: (VISUAL GRADING most of times)

The Sleeve : EXCELLENT PLUS

•   Front Side  : Small bends near the spine, light creasing on botom left side corners .

•                        Otherise perfect, not other crasing,   not any yellowing sign, not any writing. 

•   Back Side : Again light bends near the spine perfect, not any writing, two scrathes of the laminate 5 cm and 8 cms, or yelowing 

•   Inners Side: Just perfect, not any writing, not any wear, or yelowing or creasing.

•   Spine: Nice , no edgewear, two three bends and a tiny cuts , fully readbale.

•   Edges; only very light  edgewear on bottom left corner 

The Labels: Both  labels are perfectly clear with verylight and very few spindle marks NO writing or creasing.

The Vinyls : Both side are in great side and looks like hardly have been played a few times

                EXCELLENT PLUS (at least!) even look to me Near Mint.

                   Plays smoothly with crystal clear sound.   

         A side: EX++  Very  very few  light papers scuffs only, jet black shiny not any single scratch. 

                                

         B Side: EX+  Very  very few  light papers scuffs only, jet black shiny Only I can is see is a

                             tiny superficial scrath on "a day i life" no listenable by my ears.

 

The inner sleeve: WAVE red inner sleeve in Very good condition Edgewear and creasing.

                           Also repaired edge cut.

 

The Puzzle : perfect condition , UNCUT.

 

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by English rock band The Beatles. Released in the UK on 1 June 1967, it became a defining album in the emerging psychedelic rock style; it has since been recognised by prominent critics and publications as one of the most influential albums of all time.

Recorded over a 129-day period beginning in December 1966, Sgt. Pepper sees the band exploring further the experimentation of their previous album, 1966's Revolver. Making use of orchestras, hired musicians and innovative production techniques, the album incorporates elements of genres such as music hall, jazz, rock and roll, western classical and traditional Indian music; its lyrics deal particularly with themes of childhood and everyday life. The album is loosely based on a concept that the Beatles are performing as the fictitious band of the album's title; the cover art, depicting the band posing in front of a collage of famous individuals, has itself been widely acclaimed and imitated.

The album was a commercial success, spending a total of 27 weeks at the top of the UK Album Chart and 15 weeks at number one in the American Billboard 200. It was critically acclaimed upon release and won four Grammy awards in 1968. Sgt. Pepperfrequently ranks at or near the top of published lists of the greatest albums of all time, including the top of Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

 

Album cover

 

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

The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was art-directed by Robert Fraser, designed by Peter Blake and 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 lyrics printed on the back cover, the first time this had been done on an English pop LP.[14] The Beatles themselves, in the guise of the Sgt. Pepper band, were dressed in custom-made military-style outfits made of satin dyed in day-glocolours. The suits were designed by Manuel Cuevas.[15] Among the insignia on their uniforms are:

• MBE medals on McCartney's and Harrison's jackets. MBEs had been awarded to all four Beatles.
• 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 his own gallery and sponsored exhibitions at the Indica Gallery, through which he had become a close friend of McCartney, and it was at his strong urging that the group abandoned their original cover design, a psychedelic painting by The Fool. The Fool's design for the inner sleeve was, however, used for the first few pressings.

Fraser was one of the leading champions of modern art in Britain in the 1960s and after. 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".

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. In keeping with the park concept, the foreground of the scene is a floral display incorporating the word "Beatles" spelt out in flowers. Also present are 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. At the edge of the scene is a Shirley Temple doll wearing a sweater in homage to the Rolling Stones (who would return the tribute 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. The final grouping includedMarlene Dietrich, Carl Gustav Jung, W.C. Fields, Diana Dors, Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Aldous Huxley, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sigmund Freud, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, William S. Burroughs, 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 that he did not lose them. Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ were requested by Lennon, but ultimately they were left out, even though a cutout of Hitler was in fact made.[4]

The gatefold

A photo also exists of a rejected cardboard printout with a cloth draped over its head; its identity is unknown. Even now, co-creator Jann Haworth regrets that so few women were included.[16] 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 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 hearts 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 airbrushed out), who had a branch in India and were fearful that it might cause offence there. Lennon had asked to include images of Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler, though neither was included through fear of causing offence. Nonetheless a cutout was made of Hitler and can be clearly seen leaning against the wall in pictures of the photographic session. 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 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 30 March 1967 in a three-hour evening session. The package was a "gatefold" album cover, 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 gate fold was that the Beatles originally 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 had wanted the album to include a package with badges, pencils and other small Sgt. Pepper goodies but this proved far too costly to realise. Instead, the album came with a page of cardboard cut-outs carrying the description:

The inner sleeve SGT. PEPPER
CUT-OUTS

1. Moustache
2. Picture Card
3. Stripes
4. Badges
5. Stand Up

The special inner sleeve, included in the early pressings of the LP, featured a psychedelic pattern designed by the Fool (design collective).

The final bill for the cover was £2,868 5s 3d (equivalent to £37,531 today), 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.[17]

 

 

Concept

With Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles wanted to create a record that could, in effect, tour for them — an idea they had already explored with the promotional film-clips made over the previous years, intended to promote them in the United States when they were not touring there.

McCartney decided that he should create fictitious characters for each band member and record an album that would be a performance by that fictitious band. This "alter-ego group" gave the Beatles the freedom to experiment with songs.[1]

The Beatles' fame motivated them to grow moustaches and beards and even longer hair, and was an inspiration for the disguise of their flamboyant Sgt. Pepper costumes. McCartney was well known for going out in public in disguise and all four had used aliases for travel bookings and hotel reservations.

The album starts with the title song, which introduces Sgt. Pepper's band itself; this song segues into a sung introduction for bandleader "Billy Shears" (Starr), who performs "With a Little Help from My Friends". A reprise version of the title song was also recorded, and appears on side two of the original album (just prior to the climactic "A Day in the Life"), creating a "bookending" effect.

However, the Beatles effectively abandoned the concept after recording the first two songs and the reprise. Lennon was unequivocal in stating that the songs he wrote for the album had nothing to do with the Sgt. Pepper concept. Since the other songs on the album are actually unrelated, one might be tempted to conclude that the album does not express an overarching theme. However, the cohesive structure and careful sequencing of and transitioning between songs on the album, as well as the use of the Sgt. Pepper framing device, have led the album to be widely acknowledged as an early and ground-breaking example of the concept album.

Before beginning work on Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles had begun to work on a series of songs that were to form an album thematically linked to childhood and everyday life.[5] The first fruits of this exercise - "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" were released as a double-A single after EMI and Epstein pressured George Martin for a released single.[6] Once the singles were released the concept was abandoned in favour of 'Pepper'.[5] However, traces of this initial idea survive in the lyrics to several songs on the album ("A Day in the Life", "Lovely Rita", "Good Morning, Good Morning", "She's Leaving Home", "Getting Better", and "When I'm Sixty-Four") and it could be argued provide more of a unifying theme for the album than that of the Pepper concept itself.

Track listing

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first Beatles album to be released with identical track listings in the United Kingdom and the United States. The American release did not originally contain the side two runout groove and inner groove sound effects that were restored for the worldwide CD issue, released 1 June 1987.

All songs written and composed by Lennon/McCartney except where noted. 

Side One # Title Lead vocals Length 1. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"   McCartney 2:02 2. "With a Little Help from My Friends"   Starr 2:44 3. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"   Lennon 3:28 4. "Getting Better"   McCartney 2:47 5. "Fixing a Hole"   McCartney 2:36 6. "She's Leaving Home"   McCartney with Lennon 3:35 7. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"   Lennon 2:37 Side two # Title Lead vocals Length 1. "Within You Without You" (George Harrison) Harrison 5:05 2. "When I'm Sixty-Four"   McCartney 2:37 3. "Lovely Rita"   McCartney 2:42 4. "Good Morning Good Morning"   Lennon 2:41 5. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"   McCartney, with Harrison and Lennon 1:18 6. "A Day in the Life"   Lennon with McCartney 5:33

[edit]Personnel

According to Mark Lewisohn[10] and Allan W. Pollack[32]

The Beatles

• John Lennon – lead, harmony and background vocals; lead, rhythm and acoustic guitars; Hammond organ and piano; bass guitar; handclaps, harmonica, tape loops, sound effects and kazoo; tambourine and maracas
• Paul McCartney – lead, harmony and background vocals; lead electric and acoustic guitars; bass guitar; piano and Hammond organ; handclaps, vocalizations, tape loops, sound effects and kazoo
• George Harrison – lead, rhythm, acoustic and bass guitars; sitar; lead, harmony and background vocals; tamboura; harmonica and kazoo; handclaps; maracas
• Ringo Starr – drums, congas, tambourine, maracas, handclaps and tubular bells; lead vocals; harmonica and kazoo; final piano E chord

Additional musicians and production

• Neil Aspinall – tamboura and harmonica
• Geoff Emerick – recording and mixing engineer; tape loops and sound effects
• Mal Evans – counting, alarm clock and final piano E chord
• Matthew Deyell – tambourine
• George Martin – producer and mixer; tape loops and sound effects; harpsichord (on "Fixing a Hole"), harmonium, Lowry organ and glockenspiel (on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"), Hammond organ (on "With a Little Help from My Friends"), and piano (on "Getting Better" and the solo in "Lovely Rita"); final harmonium chord.
• Session musicians – four French horns on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", (Neil Sanders, James W. Buck, John Burden, Tony Randall),[33] arranged and conducted by Martin and McCartney; string section and harp on "She's Leaving Home", arranged by Mike Leander and conducted by Martin; harmonium, tabla, sitar, dilruba, eight violins and four cellos on "Within You, Without You", arranged and conducted by Harrison and Martin; clarinet trio on "When I'm Sixty Four", as arranged and conducted by Martin and McCartney; saxophone sextet on "Good Morning, Good Morning", arranged and conducted by Martin and Lennon; and forty-piece orchestra(strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion) on "A Day in the Life", arranged by Martin, Lennon and McCartney and conducted by Martin and McCartney

[edit]

Music

 

Sgt. Pepper features elaborate arrangements — for example, the clarinet ensemble on "When I'm Sixty-Four" — and extensive use of studio effects including echo, reverberation and reverse tape effects. Many of these effects were devised in collaboration with producer George Martin and his team of engineers.

By the time the Beatles recorded the album their musical interests had grown from their simple R&B, pop, and rock and roll beginnings to incorporate a variety of new influences. They had become familiar with a wide range of instruments such as the Hammond organ and electric piano; their instrumentation now covered a wider range including strings, brass, woodwind, percussion, and even some exotic instruments such as the sitar. McCartney, although unable to read music, had scored a recent British film The Family Way (see The Family Way soundtrack) with the assistance of producer/arranger George Martin, which earned him a prestigious Ivor Novello award. McCartney came to be greatly influenced by the avant garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, whom he wanted to include on the cover.

Another example of the album's unusual production is John Lennon's song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!", which closes side 1 of the album. The lyrics were adapted almost word for word from an old circus poster which Lennon had bought at an antique shop in Kent the day the Beatles had been filming the promotional clip for Strawberry Fields Forever there. The flowing sound collage that gives the song its distinctive character was created by Martin and his engineers, who collected recordings of calliopes and fairground organs, which were then cut into strips of various lengths, thrown into a box, mixed up and edited together in random order, creating a long loop which was mixed in during final production.

The opening track of side two, "Within You Without You", is unusually long for a 'pop' recording of the day, and features only George Harrison, on vocals, sitar and acoustic guitar, with all other instruments being played by a group of London-based Indian musicians. These deviations from the traditional rock and roll band formula were facilitated by the Beatles' decision not to tour, by their ability to hire top-rate session musicians, and by Harrison's burgeoning interest in India and Indian music, which led him to take lessons from sitar master Ravi Shankar. Harrison's fascination with Indian music is further evidenced by the use of a tambura on several tracks, including "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" as well as "Getting Better".

This album also makes heavy use of keyboard instruments. Grand piano is used on tracks such as "A Day in the Life", along with Lowrey organ on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". A harpsichord can be heard on "Fixing a Hole", and a harmonium was played by George Martin on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite". Electric piano, upright piano, Hammond organ, glockenspiel and Mellotron are all heard on the record.

The thunderous piano chord that dramatically concludes "A Day in the Life", and the album, was produced by assembling three grand pianos in the studio and playing an E chord on each simultaneously. Together on cue Lennon, Starr, George Martin and assistant Mal Evans hammered the keys on the assembled pianos and held the chord. The sound from the pianos was then mixed up with compression and increasing gain on the volume to draw out the sound to maximum sustain.[10]

[edit]Possible drug references

Concerns that lyrics in Sgt. Pepper referred to recreational drug use led to several songs from the album being banned by the BBC and criticised in other quarters.

The album's closing track, "A Day in the Life", includes the phrase "I'd love to turn you on". The BBC banned the song from airplay on the basis of this line, claiming it could "encourage a permissive attitude toward drug-taking". Both Lennon and McCartney denied any drug-related interpretation of the song.[11]

The song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" also became the subject of speculation regarding its meaning, as many believed that the words of the chorus were code for LSD. The BBC used this as their basis for banning the song from British radio. Again, John Lennon consistently denied this interpretation of the song, maintaining that the song describes a surreal dream scape inspired by a picture drawn by his son Julian.[12] However, during a newspaper interview in 2004, McCartney was quoted as saying:

“ "Lucy in the Sky", that's pretty obvious. There's others that make subtle hints about drugs, but, you know, it's easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles' music. Just about everyone was doing drugs in one form or another and we were no different, but the writing was too important for us to mess it up by getting off our heads all the time.[13]

 

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