Making of Sgt Pepper

It's an old (from 1992) BBC documentary, but I'd not seen this until a friend emailed me the link. At the time it was the 25th anniversary of the record, and there had been very, very few records that had maintained their appeal for so long. There still aren't a lot of them, but in 1992 it was almost unheard of.
 
All of the surviving (at the time) Beatles are interviewed, as well as George Martin (who contributes the most interesting comments) and various other contributors, even Brian Wilson. Curiously, Geoff Emerick is missing.
 
The film includes a bit of a largely-unheard early recording of "Strawberry Fields", the first song recorded for Sgt. Pepper but wasn't included on the album. Martin is playing the original 4-track and best of all, soloing individual tracks. Good stuff. The song had been nixed by Brian Eppstein, showing his predilection for bad choices (he's the reason the Rolling Stones became millionaires before the Beatles did).
 
There's some good trivia sprinkled in: the crowd noise at the start was recorded at a Dudley Moore performance. 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZdTtOLoPsQ&feature=youtu.be
 
The BBC revisited the subject a couple decades later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-tMEFLgxso This one's interesting because it documents the making of a Sgt. Pepper tribute album, engineered by Geoff Emerick and recorded through the original 4-track board to the original 4-track decks. Interesting seeing guys who are accustomed to the digital process being forced to get back to the basics. "It took us 20 takes! We'd never done that before."
 
My friend also sent me a link to a making-of video for Abbey Road, but I haven't watched it in its entirety yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or0aEmkqlCI&feature=youtu.be
 
 

Hi,
 
I'll watch these ... should be fun. I like hearing George Martin, and always thought that without his musical acumen, I do not think that the Beatles could have become as good as they did. By comparison, the RS were richer, but they did not have a musical direction, and neither were they interested in making sure their music was "better" and it just became a string of hits and nothing else, and all albums had 3 cuts and the rest (so to speak!) ... kinda paled in comparison. I thought, the Beatles were far superior to that!
 
I don't dislike the RS, there is room for both anyway, and I do think that the attitude that Mick and Keith provide is an important factor for the life of Rock music that developed during their time, considering how quaint and not exactly exciting, it had been for some time, until Elvis came around, and even then, his stuff was cut up senseless, including in movies and TV, to the point, you never met the person behind the star.
 
It all counts, I guess, you could say! But my appreciation for the Beatles is probably more to do with the cleverness and clarity of the wording, and how the music exemplified that, which to me makes them the Shelley, to the RS's Byron ...

Nice one, watching it now.

There will never be enough Beatle stuff to watch! The last video on Abbey Road was mainly taken from Anthology which I own and have watched a hundred times. Now to the others. Thanks Dave!

The making of Sgt Pepper I have never seen. It's very cool to see the 3 remaining Beatles participating in it. That was a very, very rare thing.
 

Man I love that second video. Very cool to see those guys recording with analog, tape and 4 tracks. I think they were a bit freaked out about the whole thing.

As it happens, the "South Bank Show" wasn't BBC, but London Weekend Television, one of the (private sector) independent tv companies that were generally lumped together as ITV. Different companies covered different parts of the country, but with largely interchangeable programming. A more recent version of the programme ran on Sky Arts.

The South Bank Show was mostly a very "dry as dust serious high culture" arts programme. The name comes from the region of the Thames in London where the 1951 Great Exhibition was held and then re-developed into a cultural zone including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, National Theatre and Royal Festival Hall. Not the kind of place pop music often found a ready home back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Or that really attracted a broad spread of clientele either, tickets tending to be expensive and evening dress the costume.

So it's a significant reflection on both the Beatle's importance, and the social changes between 1968 and the 1990s. What was once regarded as the Beatles, purveyors of three minute pop songs to the world, going all weird and hippy becoming recognised as just as much "art" as Stravinsky, Cage and other modern composers.

Melvyn Bragg's a bit of a national treasure in the same way as David Attenborough. If you can access the BBC radio website and iplayer there's dozens of episodes of a Radio 4 programme he's presented for years called "In Our Time". Discussions about science, history, art, philosphy and pretty much everything else where he comperes usually three or four academics who really know their stuff and can present it in a way that's understandable to non-specialists. The BBC decided to make the complete archive publicly (and hopefully permanently) available, which they've never done for anything else in the same way.

It's the kind of thing that makes the BBC stand out from the commercial channels amd is well worth a browse.

OK, diversion over, back to the Beatles.

Rain
I had recorded the Pepper one on VHS back then - The Beatles were practically all I listened to back then and every little bit of info, clip or photo I could find was precious. 
 
Haven't seen the Abbey Road one though - this should be interesting! Thanks for sharing!

It's probably hard to find, but "Let It Be" (the film) is as open and clear about them as you will ever find, and if you listen to the 7 Christmas Shows that the Beatles had for their fan club, you pretty much get a good sense of their personalities and where a lot of their ideas came from.
 
The harder part, was one other side thing ... Spike Milligan saying that they had created a film about running jumping and standing still, and later the cameraman for that directed the Beatles doing the same thing, and that film went huge ... and the Goons forgotten! And rock audiences, have a tendency to not care about history, either.

craigb
Yeah, the Beatles were OK, but what have they put out recently?  Huh? 

Weird ... I've been wondering what Stravinsky, Beethoven and Albinoni have done lately. Even the CHB ... but, I've been told they are long dead, Craig! Something is wrong ... the music still lives, dude!

And they did that over a mere 6-year career. Compare to, say, the Eagles, who sold ~150 million over 40 years.

tlw
As it happens, the "South Bank Show" wasn't BBC, but London Weekend Television, one of the (private sector) independent tv companies that were generally lumped together as ITV. Different companies covered different parts of the country, but with largely interchangeable programming. A more recent version of the programme ran on Sky Arts.

Here's another South Bank show with Mr Martin, recording on 2 x 32 track digital mitsubishi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mxubd0K0CQ
 
 

 
 
I set up the mics and the cans, and made coffee... and my back was in the doc for about 4 seconds (woo! ):


 

That's BS, Craig. Where's the prune juice?

bitflipper
That's BS, Craig. Where's the prune juice?

Hehe...  I must admit, I was wondering the same thing!  I always heard it was carbonated prune juice...

Hi,
 
I'm not a Rolling Stone fan by any stretch of the imagination, but on their website they have a list of some 40 or 50 rock music specials ... and some of them listed in there are actually very good and worth the watching.
 
That list is nowhere near complete or clean, but it has some good stuff ... and I was thinking we should tell Miley to go watch "The Dandy Warhols", and then tell her to grow up and stop playing with .... (oooppppsss we're supposed to be G rated!) ... as some of those specials are quite hardcore. And sometimes, more interesting than the "fame" aspect of it all.
 
I think that if I see/find another special on the Beatles or Rolling Stones, I wanna quit ... so sick of it! I can't even blame Keith Richards for trashing it!