The Steel Guitar Forum

It was 40 years ago today... (June 1967). Somebody pinch me. I can't believe it!

Damn you are old.. Doug !! Isn't that you next to Tom Mix on the second row?

Wasn't there a dog in that picture?

I remember going over to my friends house. He had just come back from the record shop with this new offering from the Beatles. We all sat down and he put it on the stereo.

We just sat there and looked at the the console stereo in total disbelief and wonderful musical shock. We just played it over and over.

I still listen to this record every so often. It is still quite a musical feat for four scruffy moptops from Liverpool. If you listen to a bootleg of their rehearsal tapes from only 7 years before Pepper was made you would think it would be impossible for this recording to be made by them. They were the perfect storm of a band.

When this recording came out there were all sorts of big name recording pop groups who took their projects they were working on and threw the tapes in the trash and started over. This record changed so much in pop music.

40 years did go by very fast.

b0b, Is that dog "still" haunting you?

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Respectfully,
db

Ugh. The day I was born, the Beatles were recording the basic tracks for "Within You and Without You"...oddly enough, one of my favorite George tunes.
The older I get, the more I like the George tunes. Why is that, I wonder?

I also wonder if that record feels as crappy about turning 40 as I do.

Damn you are old.. Doug !! Isn't that you next to Tom Mix on the second row?

Yes! …and I’m in denial

A lot of us remember hearing this album for the first time. Like many others, I listened to this record every day, two or three times a day when it first came out. I had never heard anything like it. Groundbreaking all the way... from the opening theme to the final orchestral crescendo and the crashing piano chord that sustains for nearly one minute ("A Day in the Life").

One of my memories... summer 1967, cruising around town in my 1960 Chevy Impala... hearing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” coming through my car radio! That’s back when AM radio was worth listening to!



...b0b, Yes, I remember seeing the RCA dog on the bottom left of the cover in front of Ringo. Evidently Capital was not happy about that and took it off.

Trivia: Sgt Pepper was recorded on 8-tracks... Two 4-track machines running in synch.

Have you heard the Hip-Hop version?

I was in Nam at the time (June 67) and we had heard about this album, but not heard it yet...Rubber Soul & Revolver has only just arrived there.

I came home in September 67 and our plane landed at Hamilton Air base in Navato, California...
They put us on a green bus to Oakland Army base and as we entered the freeway on HWY 101 that was all that was playing on the radio. One song after another from that record....
A red Corvette raced by us with a beautiful babe in a bakini...
Wow, back in "The Real World".

I had also just gotten my first instrument, a no name bass and someone had shown me how to do House of the rising sun on it.

I think I will never forget it.

summer 1967, cruising around town in my 1960 Chevy Impala and hearing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” coming through through my car radio!

In mono and likely through a small single speaker of dubious quality no less. - and sounding great!

Hat’s off to George Martin and Geoff Emerick for realizing the vision with supreme studio craftsmanship.

(and just around the corner, “I Am The Walrus”…...whoa!)

Patrick G., --40 trips around the sun is just getting warmed up.
Don’t start taking Fairley Holden’s “Papa’s Getting Old” to heart just yet.

Doug.

I had the 1960 4 door Bel-Air model. I drove that car up into the 70s. Cool ride.

For me that was about the last straw. I think that was the last rock/pop record I ever bought. Hated it and have been into Buck and Merle ever since.

I bought a copy the day it came out.

BTW They are showing the movie they made of it with the Bee Gees on the cable, and I must say, it's a lot better than everybody initially said.

We all expected the film to be as revolutionary as the record, and instead it just a silly children's film. But it's really well done and in it's own way very charming, and in some cases the music is even better than the original recording.

As a children's movie, I found it utterly charming and delightful.

Some of the best electric guitar sounds I've ever heard are on that album. I would kill to figure out how McCartney got that tone on the guitar solo in "Fixing a Hole". If anybody has any leads whatsoever, I'd really appreciate it!

(BTW, it was McCartney playing that guitar solo, not George....at least I know that much. I own the book Revolution in the Head, which lists the musicians on every track of every album the Beatles released. Yes, they even credit the horns and strings )

Wow Chris, that book really sounds interesting! I'll certainly try and track that book down for a good read!
Thanks for sharing
Michael

Doug Beaumier wrote:Trivia: Sgt Pepper was recorded on 8-tracks... Two 4-track machines running in synch.

and mixed and first pressed in mono on EMI LPs.
Capital remixed it in stereo for the US market.

Some folks claim that the original Beatles mono mix is far superior to the Capital re-mix.

I think Frank Zappa was inspired by the album too.

Chris,

I have a few books on the Beatles.

According to "With a Little Help From My Friends, The Making of Sgt. Pepper" book by George Martin, The guitar solo was played by George. Hardcover, page 86 bottom: "Track 2 carried lead guitar, a lengthy and very good solo from George. George had his guitar volume and both bass and top tone controls up very high."

From "The Beatles, Recording Sessions" book by Mark Lewisohn, Hardcover page 95 bottom: "There is no such query over the identity of the lead guitarist however, George playing his familiar instrument and letting rip on what, for a Beatles song, was an unusually long solo in the midle eight."

Jon

Hi Jon,

Revolution In The Head credits both George and Paul with lead guitar on "Fixing A Hole". Ha-ha.....go figure. Harrison doesn't even play guitar at all on:

When I'm 64
A Day In The Life
Mr. Kite
She's Leaving Home (no guitar on it at all, actually.....just orchestra)

McCartney is solely credited with lead guitar on the title track, is the only guitarist credited on "Mr. Kite", and shares a lead guitar credit on "Getting Better" and "Good Morning" as well. Seeing he was a control freak, it's no surprise. In fact, Harrison is relegated to rhythm on the title track.

The lead part in "Fixing a Hole" strongly resembles a McCartney bass line to me. Revolution In The Head states it was done on a Stratocaster "with treble-heavy settings similar to the solo on Nowhere Man." It doesn't say which guitarist performed it. Seeing that George Martin was actually there, I stand corrected; he would know best. But I don't know why Mark L. would say the solo was over the middle eight. It's over a verse progression, actually.

There is an interesting quote from the "Good Morning, Good Morning" description, that probably led me astray in my presumptions about "Fixing a Hole"::

"Starr contributes a fine performance, superbly recorded, and the track is whipped to a climax by a coruscating pseudo-Italian guitar solo by McCartney."

Harrison must have been busy meditating.

Ahh The summer of love..........I remember it well (I think). Lying on the floor in various hippie chicks' apartments,crash pads and band houses with bead curtains,incense,walls full of music posters,black lights and lava lamps - high on blue cheer,orange wedge,sunshine,blotter and whatever came down the pike - listening over and over and over to Sgt Pepper,Surrealistic Pillow,Buffalo Springfield,Fresh Cream,The Doors,East-West(Butterfield),Ravi Shankar,Blonde on Blonde,Stones and a bunch of other stuff I can't quite remember now that I've finally got my brain cells down to a managable number.....

" The Doors"...now we're talkin!
JP

I just heard the digital remaster the other day. If Pepper wasn't THE musical statement of the 60's I don't know what was. Shear genius on all audio levels. Then there's Madonna. I don't care what some book says. Thats typical Mcartney guitar playing on "Fixing A Hole". It doesn't sound like Harrison at all.

The summer of love..........I remember it well (I think).

Me too... I think. summer of '67

Yes, Kevin, especially when you recall later McCartney lead playing like the intro to "Helen Wheels" and the guitar tone on "Let Me Roll It".