BBC4 TV - Sgt Pepper's Musical Revolution with Howard Goodall

[Serial_Apologist]

Heroin is trickier. Do you have a view on the cultural outlook towards it then? My instinct is that its darkness was well-known and on the avant-garde fringes sought in a nihilist way.

LSD was not seen as hard, i.e. addictive, whereas heroin was. Its consequences were well known about, seen as a resort of down-and-outs, a phrase one doesn't hear much nowadays , and most sensible folks kept well away from it.

[vinteuil]

...of down-and-outs, a phrase one doesn't hear much nowadays .

... yes, whatever happened to 'down-and outs'?

And indeed, 'waifs and strays', for whom I remember a collecting-box in the Devizes branch of Lloyds Bank in the 1950s...


.

[waldo]

Interesting, Lat, but I just don't know what you would drop.......

I think there are several candidates........I count myself as a pretty serious Beatles fan, but I've always thought Sgt Pepper was one of their weaker efforts. I appreciate the impact it had and the innovative production etc, but I don't think the underlying song-writing is very strong.

Sgt Pepper, even more than Revolver, marks a shift in the songwriting balance to Paul, and I think the album suffers as a result. John, for various reasons, was never that keen on the project and was (by his standards) finding it hard to write good songs at the time. (He talked about this in interviews: after dominating their album writing, he suffered a difficult period in the mid sixties, then recovered with the White Album, which was largely written in India). Anyway, I think this album just has too many plodding McCartney efforts - Lovely Rita, Getting Better, Fixing a Hole - none of them really great, though they are decent enough. John's Good Morning has to be among his very worst songs, too.

Anyway, I don't think it compares well to Revolver, which is stacked to the brim with amazing compositions, and features a stronger Lennon (and Harrison) presence. I even prefer the Magical Mystery Tour (if we call that an album, which it almost is) - far better songs all around. From then on, it is all great for me - the White Album, followed by Abbey Road. (Ignoring Let it Be, for various reasons.......)

[cloughie]

LSD was not seen as hard, i.e. addictive, whereas heroin was. Its consequences were well known about, seen as a resort of down-and-outs, a phrase one doesn't hear much nowadays , and most sensible folks kept well away from it.

I don't think that LSD did Peter Green or Syd Barratt a lot of good long term, but then I suppose there were different grades of acid around. What do I know I settled for beer back then

[Lat-Literal]

LSD was not seen as hard, i.e. addictive, whereas heroin was. Its consequences were well known about, seen as a resort of down-and-outs, a phrase one doesn't hear much nowadays , and most sensible folks kept well away from it.

Yes - and I see that you have successfully managed in two posts on heroin not to mention the word jazz.

"Down-and-outs" is an excellent phrase.

I used it myself only yesterday on this very forum to describe what the people in Glastonbury town look like.

Those who walk their dogs past the crystal shops owned by toffs and posh bohemians.

I think there are several candidates........I count myself as a pretty serious Beatles fan, but I've always thought Sgt Pepper was one of their weaker efforts. I appreciate the impact it had and the innovative production etc, but I don't think the underlying song-writing is very strong.

Sgt Pepper, even more than Revolver, marks a shift in the songwriting balance to Paul, and I think the album suffers as a result. John, for various reasons, was never that keen on the project and was (by his standards) finding it hard to write good songs at the time. (He talked about this in interviews: after dominating their album writing, he suffered a difficult period in the mid sixties, then recovered with the White Album, which was largely written in India). Anyway, I think this album just has too many plodding McCartney efforts - Lovely Rita, Getting Better, Fixing a Hole - none of them really great, though they are decent enough. John's Good Morning has to be among his very worst songs, too.

Anyway, I don't think it compares well to Revolver, which is stacked to the brim with amazing compositions, and features a stronger Lennon (and Harrison) presence. I even prefer the Magical Mystery Tour (if we call that an album, which it almost is) - far better songs all around. From then on, it is all great for me - the White Album, followed by Abbey Road. (Ignoring Let it Be, for various reasons.......)

A good post for which many thanks.

When it comes to "Revolver" and/or innovation, it would be hard not to mention "Tomorrow Never Knows"

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes - and I see that you have successfully managed in two posts on heroin not to mention the word jazz.

I could have mentioned the English jazz pianist Mike Taylor, considered by many a genius, autistic in my view, who besides charting a distinctive direction in jazz in the 1960s that was never quite fulfilled owing to his early death by drowning in the sea in 1969, composed some idiosyncratic songs for Cream (two of which are on the studio sides of the silver-covered "Wheels of Fire" double LP), and was also a victim of LSD.

[Conchis]

I think there are several candidates........I count myself as a pretty serious Beatles fan, but I've always thought Sgt Pepper was one of their weaker efforts. I appreciate the impact it had and the innovative production etc, but I don't think the underlying song-writing is very strong.

Sgt Pepper, even more than Revolver, marks a shift in the songwriting balance to Paul, and I think the album suffers as a result. John, for various reasons, was never that keen on the project and was (by his standards) finding it hard to write good songs at the time. (He talked about this in interviews: after dominating their album writing, he suffered a difficult period in the mid sixties, then recovered with the White Album, which was largely written in India). Anyway, I think this album just has too many plodding McCartney efforts - Lovely Rita, Getting Better, Fixing a Hole - none of them really great, though they are decent enough. John's Good Morning has to be among his very worst songs, too.

Anyway, I don't think it compares well to Revolver, which is stacked to the brim with amazing compositions, and features a stronger Lennon (and Harrison) presence. I even prefer the Magical Mystery Tour (if we call that an album, which it almost is) - far better songs all around. From then on, it is all great for me - the White Album, followed by Abbey Road. (Ignoring Let it Be, for various reasons.......)

It contains some average songs, some of which you name, but I think it works very well as a TOTAL EXPERIENCE, because it's so confidently put across. George Martin's production helps to camouflage some of the weaknesses of the lesser songs.

I think Revolver is over-praised. No album containing a track like Yellow Submarine can be anything other than seriously compromised (it should have been left off the LP and just been a single). Imo, the Beatles never released a perfect album becuase of their insistence on giving their non-singing drummer a vocal spot each time, the only exception being Hard Days' Night (one of their stronger albums, but a bit too short at only 30 minutes).

[waldo]

It contains some average songs, some of which you name, but I think it works very well as a TOTAL EXPERIENCE, because it's so confidently put across. George Martin's production helps to camouflage some of the weaknesses of the lesser songs.

I think Revolver is over-praised. No album containing a track like Yellow Submarine can be anything other than seriously compromised.......

Well, I agree about Hard Days' Night - an amazing album and easily their strongest from the early ones. And almost all John - hardly any Paul songs at all.

I suppose we'll have to disagree about Revolver. I can't think of many better albums. Yellow Submarine is a kid's song, certainly, but it is one of the best kid's song ever written, so you have to tip your hat to it as a composition, even if you don't want to hear it on a rock album. I also prefer the production, which is a little more "raw" and has a meaty thrust to it (partly to do with the recording studio, apparently, which they changed for Sgt Pepper.). Beatles guitars have never sounded rich and I really like their vocal harmonies - the last time they would ever sound "live" and natural again (with the exception of the Ballad of John and Yoko). After Revolver, the harmonies were all done in a booth, with headphones, layered over a pre-existing recording.

I wonder how much George Martin really contributed to all this. The Beatles themselves, though not generally mean-spirited, were never that keen to share the credits with him - even when pressed in interview. He seems to have had the closest relationship with McCartney and was always a little wary of John; Harrison seemed to resent him, at least some of the time. I am not suggesting that he didn't have a significant impact on their musical development - obviously, he did. I just think it is often overstated. The Beatles were moving much faster than he was: I would credit him with being an open-minded and very knowledgeable facilitator.

Personally, I would place Geoff Emerick on the same level as George Martin - he was the chief recording engineer from Revolver to Abbey Road. He as really the hands-on-man who was there every day and who worked out all the technical stuff and who made countless suggestions about how this or that sound could be made. The records clearly bare his stamp; without him, they would sound very different indeed. George Martin was in such demand by the mid sixties that he was often away and was busy dealing with other artists. Though he had a major impact on the Abbey Road Medley, he was often only the "producer" in the sense that he had overall managerial authority over the project.

[Lat-Literal]

Well, I agree about Hard Days' Night - an amazing album and easily their strongest from the early ones. And almost all John - hardly any Paul songs at all.

I suppose we'll have to disagree about Revolver. I can't think of many better albums. Yellow Submarine is a kid's song, certainly, but it is one of the best kid's song ever written, so you have to tip your hat to it as a composition, even if you don't want to hear it on a rock album. I also prefer the production, which is a little more "raw" and has a meaty thrust to it (partly to do with the recording studio, apparently, which they changed for Sgt Pepper.). Beatles guitars have never sounded rich and I really like their vocal harmonies - the last time they would ever sound "live" and natural again (with the exception of the Ballad of John and Yoko). After Revolver, the harmonies were all done in a booth, with headphones, layered over a pre-existing recording.

I wonder how much George Martin really contributed to all this. The Beatles themselves, though not generally mean-spirited, were never that keen to share the credits with him - even when pressed in interview. He seems to have had the closest relationship with McCartney and was always a little wary of John; Harrison seemed to resent him, at least some of the time. I am not suggesting that he didn't have a significant impact on their musical development - obviously, he did. I just think it is often overstated. The Beatles were moving much faster than he was: I would credit him with being an open-minded and very knowledgeable facilitator.

Personally, I would place Geoff Emerick on the same level as George Martin - he was the chief recording engineer from Revolver to Abbey Road. He as really the hands-on-man who was there every day and who worked out all the technical stuff and who made countless suggestions about how this or that sound could be made. The records clearly bare his stamp; without him, they would sound very different indeed. George Martin was in such demand by the mid sixties that he was often away and was busy dealing with other artists. Though he had a major impact on the Abbey Road Medley, he was often only the "producer" in the sense that he had overall managerial authority over the project.

I don't want to accept this interpretation of George Martin's role but it has an element of truth about it. When you look at his involvement in productions of artists other than the Beatles, it is a curious and not a wholly impressive mixed bag. Emerick's was too but it was possibly more coherent. Mostly, though, I am inclined to the view that Lennon would hardly have been expected to be gushing in his praise of anyone, Harrison was often ploughing his own furrow on the sidelines and frequently disillusioned with the group thing, and Martin and the Beatles just happened to be a marriage made in heaven. It was one of those magical meetings in music that occurs very rarely (while not at all in the same league, I was recently reminded of just how extraordinarily complimentary Morrissey and Marr were in a totally unexpected way and how when apart they have seldom reached any great heights).

Martin also works symbolically which is to say that his class background, age and experience were well-placed in enabling a melding of the old and the new at a pivotal time socially. This was tolerant, enlightened, innovative and steadying establishment facilitating the ability, imagination and personal progress of the new breed - younger, in some respects naive, and from what might best be termed ordinary backgrounds. The Beatles without Martin could well have been less harnessed, less layered, more adolescent and more snotty nosed.

As an aside, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Maddalena Fagandini had been allowed in on one of the Beatles' more whimsical tracks, let alone Derbyshire and Oram:

Ray Cathode - Time Beat + Waltz In Orbit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhVYEgMrxOg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/the-women-who-invented-electro-inside-the-bbc-radiophonic-worksh/

I could have mentioned the English jazz pianist Mike Taylor, considered by many a genius, autistic in my view, who besides charting a distinctive direction in jazz in the 1960s that was never quite fulfilled owing to his early death by drowning in the sea in 1969, composed some idiosyncratic songs for Cream (two of which are on the studio sides of the silver-covered "Wheels of Fire" double LP), and was also a victim of LSD.

That is sad.

I wasn't defending LSD but supporting your view that it was in 1967 "still viewed as.....possibly liberating".

It seemed to me when I wrote my comment that heroin had had a worse impact on jazz musicians overall.

My comparative relaxation on the former ties in with the historical perspectives - ie the spirit of the times.

[waldo]

It was one of those magical meetings in music that occurs very rarely (while not at all in the same league, I was recently reminded of just how extraordinarily complimentary Morrissey and Marr were in a totally unexpected way and how when apart they have seldom reached any great heights).........

Well, I'd certainly place Morrissey and Marr among the great pop songwriters of the 20th Century - hardly a weak song in the whole lot and much of it highly original. I am still not convinced about the importance of Martin, however. He didn't write any songs, he didn't sing and he didn't play on any Beatles songs (apart from the odd cameo on harpsichord etc). Without his guidance and approach, the Beatles may well have turned into a different group, but I think Lennon and McCartney were both such powerful talents, it is hard to believe they wouldn't have been great with just about any producer. Initially, as you surely know, Martin tried to push them into cover songs - the usual EMI convention. (He also kept Ringo off the first single and brought in a session drummer - as per the usual convention.) Lennon and McCartney already knew that they were going to be different and insisted on writing their own stuff, so one can already see the direction they were taking - even in 1962 and even against the pressure from EMI.

If there was one factor that truly mattered in their career, I would be tempted to point to the decision to stop touring in 66. Without that, we may well have had a rag-tag series of lesser albums, and not the great ones we do have. If only there hadn't been that awful mess with Phil Spector and Let it Be........

Interestingly - though a bit off topic - I've been rooting about in old family things recently and came across my uncle's stash of Beatles Monthlies. He was a Beatles nut, a teenager in the sixties. He had Beatles wallpaper, Beatles bedding and Beatles pyjamas. Anyway, these Beatles Monthlies are terrific - surprisingly insightful and filled with excellent photos you probably can't find anywhere else. Some of the stuff is obviously PR pap for adolescents, but there are some decent interviews and (I discovered the other day) a particularly good set of accounts of their time in India ("Mal Evans' Diary")..........

[johncorrigan]

Side One

1. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
2. "With a Little Help from My Friends"
3. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
4. "Getting Better"
5. "Penny Lane" instead of "Fixing a Hole"
6. "She's Leaving Home"
7. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"



Side Two

1. "Within You Without You"
2. "Good Morning Good Morning" or "Fixing a Hole" instead of "When I'm Sixty-Four"
3. "Lovely Rita"
4. "Strawberry Fields Forever" instead of "Good Morning Good Morning"
5. "When I'm Sixty-Four" instead of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"
6. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" instead of "A Day in the Life"
7. "A Day in the Life" becomes the 7th and not the 6th track.

Thanks Lat...I'm going to stick this together on Spotty and report back on what it sounds like. I'll try with 'Fixing a Hole' and then with 'Good Morning, Good Morning' - I'd probably rather the former, but then side 2 would really lack a bit of tempo, which, if I have any criticism of Sgt P, is that it is a bit one-paced at times.

[Lat-Literal]

Thanks Lat...I'm going to stick this together on Spotty and report back on what it sounds like. I'll try with 'Fixing a Hole' and then with 'Good Morning, Good Morning' - I'd probably rather the former, but then side 2 would really lack a bit of tempo, which, if I have any criticism of Sgt P, is that it is a bit one-paced at times.

Awaiting the verdict with interest.

I'm going to do one with these in it to see if it works:

Boo Radleys:

Martin Doom etc - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v03rAPfnHlY
Wilder - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5NYhL8dE2Q
Joel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sWstpsq8jg
Wake Up, Boo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJXPTnPmm78

As the 1990s went, a very underrated effort in my humble opinon.

This, though, is the lost Abbey Road album (from 1969):

The Aerovons:

Everything's Alright - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAwkye07BQY
World of You - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN-LkeJzXak
Song For Jane - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awTOaoev5Rg
Words From a Song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRMjC0O5N4s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aerovons

And we haven't even got on to Klaatu.

[cloughie]

In praise of some the Beatles earlier albums ' I saw her standing there' (Please please me) was played on Radio Cornwall this morning what a great track that is, as is also 'All my loving' from With the Beatles.

[waldo]

In praise of some the Beatles earlier albums ' I saw her standing there' (Please please me) was played on Radio Cornwall this morning what a great track that is, as is also 'All my loving' from With the Beatles.

Agreed. All my Loving is an absolute corker. Also one of the few Paul songs John later praised, saying he wished he had written it.

Incidentally, John's rhythm guitar work on All My Loving - very fast triplets - is incredible. Very, very hard to do even for a highly accomplished guitarist.

[johncorrigan]

Agreed. All my Loving is an absolute corker. Also one of the few Paul songs John later praised, saying he wished he had written it.

The way 'All My Loving' kicks in with no intro...stunning!