Happy birthday Sgt Pepper!

bob32116

New member
The Beatles' album that is often claimed to have changed popular music forever is 50 years old on June 1, so I don't think the day should pass without a mention on this forum.

Interestingly, it actually sounds fresher than most of what I hear on pop radio stations today.
 

John Watt

Member
It was more than acid light years away,
when Sergeant Pepper taught the band how to play,
they all dropped or just lost their way, and some weren't survivors.

Having the BBC orchestra and many other uncredited, international musicians,
as one last gasp for British Invasion musical domination in other countries,
can make for a more generic, suburban album, that could be heard to be fresh in the new millennium.

I have to stress, it was Electric Ladyland that brought us the effects and production,
that influenced all musical transmissions ever since.
And I like to add,
when the Beatles as the band were reduced to filming a BBC performance on a concert stage,
and letting "The Smothers' Brothers" TV show play a song on their season debut show,
with a song for the second show, that was the only pre-Fab Four performance of any St. Peppers' song.
It was Jimi Hendrix, with-in three days of that albums' release,
who performed onstage a creditable live, guitar trio version of "Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band".
Somehow, hearing Jimi sing "it was twenty years ago today", made it seem old fashioned back then.
Hearing the BBC players who did the Indian raggae for previous Peter Sellers' movies, made it old for me.

I'm not trying to get into a dialogue with you here, bob32116, because I could say I'm in transit,
or on the road, but saying I'm homeless should explain it all.
It's good for me, overall, so no sympathy for any devil is required.

Did you see the Rolling Stone anniversary issue, the laser-etched 3D one,
where they did a take-off of the Sgt. Peppers' album cover,
only with modern rock stars? I saved the cover, but for sure, it doesn't scan well,
or I'd include one.
 
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John Watt

Member
Maybe my new millennium, adult rock attitude is harshing out the late sixties, the British Invasion.
What was my Beatle experience, other than not telling the difference, on radio or turntables,
between the Beatles and other Carnaby Street or London-Mersey-Gerrytown-beat bands.
That's not counting those exiles on Main Street and Fifth Avenue.

It seems everyone had "The Golden Beatles Songbook", part one, the first half, or part two, the second half.
Grade school classes, young teenagers with acoustic guitars, older teens with electric guitars,
to grandmothers with home entertainment organs, had a Golden Beatles Songbook and played Beatles songs.
Only the homeless and chronically infirm weren't playing and singing a Beatles song.
Whenever they appeared in public it was news, and they were on TV or in the newspapers all the time.
People got married and buried to Beatles music.
John Lennons' "Jealous Guy" became the plaintive lament for so many misdirected musicians,
who all thought they could sing and play the song better than he did.
I still think I play "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" better than George and Eric together.

yeah... I guess more than any other band of musicians in human history,
The Beatles got us listening to devices and looking at screens as a source of entertainment,
owning their merchandise, with absolutely no hope of ever seeing them perform live again.
Hey! Izziss deja view? I think I said this exact same thing in 1970.
Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, for tomorrow I'll miss you...
Dark are the skies above, blue are the seas, I know this love of mine, will never die,
because I love her.
I once had a girl, and she once had me, wasn't it good, Norwegian wood.
goo-goo-ja-goo-goo, goo-goo-ja-goo.
 
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