With a little help from Geldof and friends
Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
For millions of music lovers, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band remains rock’s landmark achievement. But can Kaiser Chiefs and the Killers improve on the orginal when they lead an all-star remake?
Some of the biggest names in the business have signed up for a unique challenge: to record tracks from the Beatles’ classic album using the original analogue equipment rescued from Abbey Road.
Bob Geldof dreamt up the idea of producing a 21st-cent-ury Sgt Pepper to mark the 40th anniversary of the album’s release in June. After a little arm-twisting by the persuasive charity campaigner, the acts agreed to take part and the results will be broadcast in a BBC Radio 2 special.
The lineup will equal Geldof’s all-star Band Aid record. The Times has learnt that Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight will take a song, as well as Oasis and the Killers. Oasis, avowed admirers of the Beatles, were one of the first on board, along with Travis. The Brit Award winners James Morrison and the Fratellis will also give it their best shot.
The organisers hope that U2, who performed the title track at Live8 with Paul McCartney, will join the party and have not ruled out a special appearance from Sir Paul.
Today’s stars, however, must contend with the analogue equipment that the Beatles pushed to the limit in 1967, rather than the computer-controlled digital recording studios that they are used to. They will record their songs with Geoff Emerick, the Beatles’ engineer who won a Grammy for his groundbreaking work on Sgt Pepper.
Mr Emerick said: “We are going to use the original 1in four-track equipment. We had a mixing desk with eight inputs and the drums were recorded in mono. We have borrowed the original mixing desk from Mark Knopfler’s studio and we will complete the recordings at Abbey Road.”
With so many musical egos involved, the question of who gets to perform which classic composition is still a matter of delicate negotiation.
“ A Day in the Life is a plum track,” Mr Emerick said, adding that Within You Without You, George Harrison’s East-ern-tinged contribution, was also a key influence on many modern rock acts.
With a Little Help from My Friends, written for Ringo Starr, has since proved a chart-topper for Joe Cocker, Wet Wet Wet and Sam and Mark.
Mr Emerick said that the aim would not be to replicate the originals but to produce a worthy tribute fusing the attitude of today’s stars with the much-loved songs.
Noel Gallagher, of Oasis, and other participants will discuss their interpretation of the songs before a two-hour Radio 2 special on June 2 that will examine the continued impact of Sgt Pepper.
Although the programme will be given a global website broadcast, record company politics mean that the 12-track “album” might not gain a commercial release. It is hoped that tracks will be made available to download for charity.
Lesley Douglas, the Radio 2 controller, said: “This will be not only a unique radio event but a very special musical moment. The range and quality of artists involved ensure that this will be a fitting tribute to one of the great albums of all time.” Additional reporting: Claire Daly ]
IMusic news, reviews and previews timesonline.co.uk/music
It was 40 years ago, but it’s still a big favourite
The tracks
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 Fixing a Hole
6 She’s Leaving Home
7 Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite
8 Within You Without You
9 When I’m Sixty-Four
10 Lovely Rita
11 Good Morning Good Morning
12 Day in the Life.
The facts
— Recorded between December 6, 1966, and April 21, 1967, at Abbey Road Studios in St John’s Wood, London. Released on June 1, 1967
— Hailed by the critic Kenneth Tynan as “a decisive moment in the history of Western civilisation”
— The composite cover was designed by Peter Blake
— No 1 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time poll in 2003. Voted the nation’s favourite No 1 album in BBC poll last year and Album of the Millennium in HMV/Channel 4 poll
— The 1978 Sgt Pepper feature film starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton was a critical flop and described as one of worst films ever made
‘It’s a sort of pop music masterclass’
Extracts from the review by William Mann, music critic, published in The Times on May 29, 1967
Psychedelia can be diagnosed in the fanciful lyric and intriguing asymetrical music of Lucy in the Sky. . .
A Day in the Life . . . has been banned by the BBC for its ambivalent references to drug-taking — though if anything on the record is going to encourage dope it is surely the “tangerine trees and marmalade skies” and the “girl with kaleidoscope eyes” in Lucy in the Sky. . .
Any of these songs is more genuinely creative than anything currently to be heard on pop radio stations, but in relationship to what other groups have been doing lately Sergeant Pepper is chiefly significant as constructive criticism, a sort of pop music masterclass examining trends and correcting or tidying up inconsistencies and undisciplined work. The one new exploration is the showband manner of the title-song, its reprise, and its interval song, Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite.
These give a certain shape and integrity to the two sides, and if the unity is slightly specious the idea is, I think, new to pop song LPs, which are usually unconnected anthologies, and it is worth pursuing. Sooner or later some group will take the next logical step and produce an LP which is a pop song cycle, a Tin Pan Alley Dichterliebe. Whether or not the remains of Schumann and Heine turn in their graves at this description depends on the artistry of the compiler.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 620498.ece