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Friday, March 29, 2024

‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ to mark its 50th anniversary

Tony Violanti
Tony Violanti

Music has a way of capturing its time.
The Beatles, with “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” captured a moment in time for all time.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr turned the spirit, love, tragedy, experimentation and chaos of 1967 into a timeless, universal artistic statement.
June 1 marks the 50th anniversary of “Sgt. Pepper’s” release. “The ‘60s was a very important period,” the late George Harrison once told the BBC in a special on the album. “It’s good to revisit that period and think about people being able to grow and accept change.”
It was a time of peace and love, but also war, racism and violence. “Pepper” was “all part of the retaliation against the evil taking place,” Harrison said.
It also brought creative freedom for the Beatles. Instead of the Fab Mop Tops, they became Sgt. Pepper’s band.
“It was like, let’s pretend we’re not the Beatles,” McCartney told the BBC.  “It was liberating.”
The 50th Pepper anniversary, as with most Beatles’ events, comes with a huge publicity and commercial blitz.
Baby Boomers will have to pay up to $120 to remember Pepper’s good old days.  “Sgt. Pepper” represents the most elaborate reissue yet of an individual Beatles album,” the Los Angeles Times reported, adding:
It’s being offered in several configurations: on CD, digital and on vinyl — the last in a half-speed mastered pressing that ups the audio fidelity one more notch and is accompanied by a second LP containing alternate mixes of all 13 “Sgt. Pepper” songs as selected by Giles Martin, son of the late George Martin, who produced the Beatles albums.
Also available, the Times reported:

A six-disc deluxe set includes the new stereo mix and the mono mix of the album on CD with two more CDs containing dozens of outtakes, alternate versions and studio chatter, plus a Blu-ray and DVD including a 1992 documentary on “The Making of Sgt. Pepper” created for the album’s 25th anniversary but never released commercially.

It comes with a 145-page book with artwork, handwritten lyric sheets, essays, photos and detailed session information on each of the “Sgt. Pepper” songs.
The deluxe edition can set you back around $120.
Regardless of the cost, the memories are priceless for ‘60s survivors.
“Sgt. Pepper was special; it changed everything,” said Bob Cowsill, who sang with his family band The Cowsills, who play Savannah Center on Saturday at 5 and 8 p.m. The Cowsills hit the Top Ten in 1967, with “The Rain The Park and Other Things.”

The Beatles in Sgt. Pepper as they appeared in the foldout of the album.
The Beatles in Sgt. Pepper as they appeared in the foldout of the album.

But that was nothing compared to “Pepper.”
“That was music to be listened to; not danced to,” Cowsill said in a telephone interview. “Everything about it was different. The cover. The lyrics printed on the back of the album. The way it opened up into a picture of the four Beatles dressed as Sgt. Pepper.
“It was all so amazing. We fell in love with it. We listened and started playing the music on the album. And you know what? Here we are 50 years later and we still love the music.
“I think the people in The Villages understand why. They, like a lot of us who grew up in the ‘60s, know how special the music was. It’s a part of our lives and it’s still with us. It’s something we all share.”
The album cover was designed by artist Peter Blake. It featured dozens of famous people, including Bob Dylan, Mae West, Fred Astaire, Edgar Allen Poe, Stan Laurel, Tony Curtis, Lewis Carrol, Shirley Temple and Marilyn Monroe.
“In my mind I was making a piece of art rather than an album cover,” Blake once said. “It was almost a piece of theater design.”

They were all gathered around a grave site, with the grieving Beatle mop tops standing next to Sgt. Pepper’s Band. A flowered guitar and the word “Beatles” sits on the gravesite and nearby is a doll with a blouse that reads “long live the Rolling Stones.”
The cover offered a tantalizing invitation to the music. The late American poet Allen Ginsberg told the BBC what he thought of each track on the album:
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

“It opens with nostalgia and a good old time. ‘It was 20 years ago today/Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.’”
With a Little Help From My Friends

“A statement of community and purpose.”

Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds

“A statement of imagination.”
Getting Better

“Making everything better.”

Fixing A Hole

“Dealing with his mind itself. Fixing a hole.”
She’s Leaving Home

“Discovering an open mind – an adolescent is leaving home.”

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
“A kind of magic show.”
Within You Without You

“Illusion and space itself – the space between peoples’ minds.”
When I’m Sixty-Four

“A look ahead to when I’m 64.”
Lovely Rita

“Appreciating the ordinary, everyday meter maid, lovely Rita.”
Good Morning, Good Morning

“Going to work, saluting the day and dealing with the everyday business of the day.”
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

“Reminding us that we’re still in the old tradition.”
A Day in the Life

“The last song, I thought it was the best poem.”
The late John Lennon talked about writing “A Day in the Life,” considered a masterpiece and the climatic work on the album.
“I was reading the paper one day and I noticed two stories,” Lennon was quoted at beatlesinterviews.org. “One was the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story. He died in London in a car crash.
“On the next page was a story about 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. In the streets, that is. They were going to fill them all. Paul’s contribution was the beautiful little lick in the song ‘I’d love to turn you on.’ I had the bulk of the song and the words, but he contributed this little lick floating around in his head that he couldn’t use for anything. I thought it was a damn good piece of work.”
The 13 songs on “Sgt. Pepper” changed the course and history of popular music.

“Sgt. Pepper pondered the mysteries of human existence and celebrated its possibilities,: Kurt Loder wrote in Rolling Stone.  “And technically it ushered in a new era of studio expressionism….it hit the pop marketplace with something akin to the force of divine revelation.”
Times change.
Today we live in a different world. But something about “Sgt. Pepper” and that magical, Summer of Love in 1967 will always be with us.
“The year didn’t die; the year lives on,” Derek Taylor, the late Beatles publicist told the BBC.
George Harrison put it another way.
“Time is a very misleading thing,” he told the BBC. “We can gain experience from the past, but there is no past and there is no future. All we have is the here and now.”
Happy 50th birthday, Sgt. Pepper. You’re still here and you’re still now.

Tony Violanti writes about entertainment for Villages-News.com

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