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Posted on 2007 by MG

June 1, 1967

cover Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band turns 40. The album was released in Britain on June 1, 1967, and in America the following day, after a recording period lasting 129 days in EMI's Studio 2 equipped with two Studer 4-track recorders, remarkable equipment for the time, but which seems absolutely ridiculous today..

In addition to an incredible amount of artistic and stylistic innovations, the Beatles (but also producer George Martin and sound engineer Geoff Emerick) introduced many technical innovations with this album. These included the use of a wah-wah and fuzzbox, new to the Beatles but not entirely, to vocals and instruments routed through a Leslie speaker, the direct input of the bass, connected directly to the mixer instead of an amplifier and microphone, and the use of Dolby during recording to reduce the background noise generated by bouncing (the pre-mixing of the four tracks of one recorder onto one of the other to increase the number of overdubs).

Other effects used for the first time on this album are automatic double tracking (ADT), a system invented in 1965 by EMI engineer Ken Townshend, which automatically produces a doubling of the sound with a delay of a few milliseconds, and varispeed, which consists of recording various tracks at slightly different speeds (you can hear it clearly on the backing vocal of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds).

Finally, the original album (i.e., not the American edition) ends with a few seconds of a 15-kilohertz tone, suggested by Lennon and, in his words, "especially intended to annoy your dog," which led people to wonder why the dog always barked at the end of the album, followed by an endless loop of voices, laughter, and various noises that was often interpreted as a secret message. In fact, even upon careful analysis, the only line that stands out is that of a sped-up voice saying "never could see any other way."

The cover collage was conceived by art director Robert Fraser, an English artist of some prominence in the 1960s, and designed by pop artist Sir Peter Thomas Blake (for just £200). From the original list of 65 characters (+ 2 * 4 Beatles), the following were later removed: Christ (Lennon's declaration that the Beatles were more popular than Christ had already caused enough trouble), Gandhi, so as not to have problems with the Indian market, and comedian Leo Gorcey, who had asked £500 for the use of his image. Adolf Hitler was also present in some images, but was obscured in the final photo by moving him behind the images of the Beatles. The complete list of characters, taken from wikipedia, is (from top to bottom)

Top row:

  1. Sri Yukteswar Giri (guru)
  2. Aleister Crowley (occultist)
  3. Mae West (actress)
  4. Lenny Bruce (comedian)
  5. Karlheinz Stockhausen (composer)
  6. W. C. Fields (comedian/actor)
  7. Carl Gustav Jung (psychologist)
  8. Edgar Allan Poe (writer)
  9. Fred Astaire (actor/dancer)
  10. Richard Merkin (artist)
  11. The Vargas Girl (by artist Alberto Vargas)
  12. Leo Gorcey (actor) (removed)
  13. Huntz Hall (actor)
  14. Simon Rodia (designer and builder of the Watts Towers)
  15. Bob Dylan (singer/songwriter)

Second row:

  1. Aubrey Beardsley (illustrator)
  2. Sir Robert Peel (British Prime Minister)
  3. Aldous Huxley (writer)
  4. Dylan Thomas (poet)
  5. Terry Southern (writer)
  6. Dion (singer)
  7. Tony Curtis (actor)
  8. Wallace Berman (artist)
  9. Tommy Handley (comic)
  10. Marilyn Monroe (actress)
  11. William S. Burroughs (writer)
  12. Sri Mahavatar Babaji (guru)
  13. Stan Laurel (comedian/actor)
  14. Richard Lindner (artist)
  15. Oliver Hardy (comedian/actor)
  16. Karl Marx (political philosopher)
  17. H.G. Wells (writer)
  18. Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (guru)
  19. Sigmund Freud (psychologist) – barely visible below Bob Dylan
  20. Anonymous (wax hairdresser’s dummy)

Third row:

  1. Stuart Sutcliffe (artist/former Beatle)
  2. Anonymous (wax hairdresser’s dummy)
  3. Max Miller (comedian)
  4. The Petty Girl (by Artist George Petty)
  5. Marlon Brando (actor)
  6. Tom Mix (actor)
  7. Oscar Wilde (writer)
  8. Tyrone Power (actor)
  9. Larry Bell (artist)
  10. Dr. David Livingstone (missionary/explorer)
  11. Johnny Weissmuller (swimmer/actor)
  12. Stephen Crane (writer) – barely visible between the hand above Paul McCartney’s head, and the next head to the right
  13. James Dean (actor) – right above the wax Mccartney’s head
  14. Issy Bonn (comedian) – his hand is above McCartney’s head
  15. George Bernard Shaw (playwright)
  16. H.C. Westermann (sculptor)
  17. Albert Stubbins (soccer Player)
  18. Sri Lahiri Mahasaya (guru)
  19. Lewis Carroll (writer)
  20. T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia“)

Front row:

  1. Wax model – Sonny Liston (boxer)
  2. The Petty Girl (by George Petty)
  3. Wax model – George Harrison
  4. Wax model- John Lennon
  5. Shirley Temple (actress and diplomat)
  6. Wax model – Ringo Starr
  7. Wax model – Paul McCartney
  8. Albert Einstein (physicist)
  9. John Lennon
  10. Ringo Starr
  11. Paul McCartney
  12. George Harrison
  13. Bobby Breen (singer)
  14. Marlene Dietrich (actress/singer)
  15. Gandhi (Indian Leader) (removed)
  16. Tin Tan (Mexican Actor) (Changed )
  17. Legionnaire from the Order of the Buffalos
  18. Diana Dors (actress)

Click here for a larger image, while here you find a numbered image.

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