50 Years Ago Today

[SiamSam]

It was twenty FIFTY years ago today,
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play,
They've been going in and out of style
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile...

Hard to believe but fifty years ago today on June 01st, 1967 the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band world wide. 

[TEXASMAC]

I know I am in the minority but have never been an Elvis Fan or Beatles fan. To each their own.  But I am not a big music guy either.

[Pdoggg]

Perhaps the most iconic album cover of all time and also played hundreds of times by me.

Fast moving cultural shifts in 1967 and that was even before social media. In '64 the Beatles with their mop top haircuts were relatively clean cut singi g extremely well done and catchy pop tunes. In just 3 years they were glorifying drugs and revolution.

Just a few days before Sgt Pepper was released, Muhammed Ali refused to be inducted into the army. Ali said “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America,”  

“And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

That summer was called the Summer of Love. Young people flocked San Francisco and the still yet ungentrified East Village in New York to practice Free Love and do drugs. Back then Fucking For Fun was considered subversive.

In early 1968 the mainstream media started to realize the futility of what the Vietnamese call the American War and Walter Cronkite declared that the war was unwinnable.

Music was a huge part of the hippie counterculture. It's really quite easy today to start a movement with the aid of social media but young people had a strong motivation in not wanting to go to Vietnam so the counterculture grew

Album covers were a part of this countrrculture. Btw, Sonny Liston is one of the people on the Sgt Pepper cover. Any of you know half the people?

Sgt Pepper is not the only iconic Beatles cover. Abbey Road is also quite recognizable as well as those of other bands. Any favorites you have?

 

[SiamSam]

Apparently the cost of producing the album cover for Sgt. Pepper's cost more than producing the entire album itself. Here's some interesting tidbits:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainment/entertainmentmusic/the-beatles-sgt-pepper-turns-50-revisiting-the-iconic-album/ss-BBBJkFb?li=AAggNb9#image=21

 

[globetrotter]

it still stands the test  of time, a true classic

[CheekyCharlie]

Theres a documentary on BBC 2 this weekend. For those in foreign climes I'm not sure if you can get it on iPlayer. It will be an amazing insight. The real Beatle with the fairy dust sounds and techniques was George Martin. Who sadly passed away a year ago. I'm sure it was a collaboration but he got the best out of them. 

Anybody off to Glastonbury this year. I am ............ fingers for the weather. 

 

Also check out Frank Zappa's cover too we're only in it for the money. 

 

[Jimslim]

The documentary was pretty good 

What no one mentioned however was the album was influenced massively by The Beach Boys  - Pet Sounds from the year before even the band themselves admit it was an attempt to match it .... Still we'll not quibble over that as we got 2 classics then .

I still prefer Revolver and Abbey Road though .