Released:<\/strong> 26 May 1967 (EMI).<\/p>\n Best chart performance:<\/strong> No. 1 in the US, UK, West Germany, Australia, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden.<\/p>\n Sales:<\/strong> Over 32,000,000 certified sales.<\/p>\n Fascinating fact:<\/strong> There is some dispute over exactly who shot the cover, with Cooper\u2019s assistant on the day, Nigel Hartnup, telling the music magazine MOJO he had released the shutter. The stage set\u2019s images of famous people were created by shooting pictures from image libraries and enlarging them to life-size on 20x16in paper. They were then sent off to be professionally mounted.<\/p>\n The creation of arguably the most iconic album cover ever produced involved a misheard request for salt and pepper, Indian gurus, an art dealer nicknamed \u2018Groovy Bob\u2019, Day-Glo satin uniforms, specially made props, pop art legend Peter Blake and a young photographer who died tragically within six years of shooting the cover; it can only be Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/strong>.<\/p>\n At the heart of the idea was that The Beatles just didn\u2019t want to be The Beatles any more and the \u2018glue\u2019 that brought that idea to fruition was London art dealer Robert Fraser (aka Groovy Bob). It was Fraser who commissioned pop artist Peter Blake, and his then wife Jann Haworth, for the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s cover concept.<\/p>\n\n\t\t The Beatles album cover Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n In the 2017 Sky Arts documentary, Peter Blake: Pop Art Life, Blake explained, \u2018It was a concept. They didn\u2019t want to be The Beatles any more; they wanted to do something different and Robert Fraser said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we use a proper artist and do something different?\u201d They\u2019d had the uniforms made, but the idea of the crowd was my idea. I\u2019d used crowds a lot until then. I\u2019d done a whole series of collages of circus using the crowds as a motif.\u2019<\/p>\n In a 2017 interview, Paul McCartney revealed, \u2018I was coming back from a trip abroad with our roadie, Mal Evans. We were eating and he mumbled to me to pass the salt and pepper. I misheard him. I thought he said, \u201cSergeant Pepper\u201d. I went, \u201cOh! Wait a minute, that\u2019s a great idea!\u201d We had a laugh about it, then I started thinking about Sergeant Pepper as a character. I thought it would be a very interesting idea for us to assume alter egos for this album we were about to make.\u2019<\/p>\n McCartney added, \u2018I started doing drawings of how the band might look. I sort of got this military look thing going and one of my ideas was that they were being presented by the Lord Mayor of some northern town in a park. In the old days they used to have floral clocks \u2013 a clock made of flowers. I did drawings of the floral clock and then, \u201cSgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band\u201d, aka The Beatles, getting some sort of award from the town.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\t\t The inner-gatefold photograph of The Beatles<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n Blake recalled, \u2018I offered the idea that if they had just played a concert in the park, the cover could be a photograph of the group just after the concert with the crowd who had just watched the concert. If we did this by using cardboard cut-outs, it could be a magical crowd of anyone they wanted from history. The Beatles each made a list of people. Paul and John chose a lot \u2013 both really interesting lists. George only chose Indian gurus and Ringo said, \u201cOh, leave it to the lads.\u201d He didn\u2019t choose anybody.\u2019<\/p>\n At first glance, many think the cover of Sgt. Pepper\u2019s is a collage, but it was in fact a photograph by Michael Cooper. Blake recalled, \u2018It was like a stage set. So, the figures were life-size and most of them were plywood cut-outs. The Beatles arrived with their entourage with Robert [Fraser] and took the pictures.\u2019<\/p>\n The centre of the cover depicts the Beatles standing behind a bass drum on which fairground artist Joe Ephgrave had painted the words of the album\u2019s title as SGT: PEPPERS LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND. Two drum skins were painted and the one chosen used a colon below the GT in \u2018SGT\u2019 and left out an apostrophe after the R in PEPPERS.<\/p>\n\t\t The Beatles pictured in their Sgt. Pepper\u2019s satin band uniforms with Michael Cooper\u2019s son, Adam<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n Jann Haworth made props for the stage set, including a doll of Shirley Temple that appears on the LP. In a 2017 BBC interview she said, \u2018My vision was to do it as a set and that is supported by my work at the time. The crowd really is Peter\u2019s [Blake\u2019s] idea.\u2019 She was also responsible for the idea of spelling out BEATLES in flowers. \u2018The idea of doing lettering like that, I just loved, so I suggested that as another form of lettering, besides the drum, that would keep the integrity of the cover.\u2019<\/p>\n The Beatles\u2019 colourful satin, military-style uniforms were specially made by the London theatrical costumer, M Berman Ltd. There was no specific reason behind who wore what colour, as McCartney revealed in 2017, \u2018We just chose a material. Said, \u201cI\u2019ll have that, he\u2019ll have that\u201d. It was just whoever wanted what colour.\u2019 Next to the real-life Beatles were waxworks of the band from the Beatlemania era, which had been borrowed from Madame Tussauds.<\/p>\n In total, the stage set included 57 photos and nine waxworks. The group included the deities Buddha and Lakshmi; singers Bob Dylan and Bobby Breen; film stars Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis and Marlene Dietrich; comedians Laurel and Hardy; boxer Sonny Liston; writers HG Wells, Oscar Wilde and Dylan Thomas, and the scientists and philosophers Albert Einstein and Carl Jung. EMI, the record company, rejected John Lennon\u2019s requests for images of Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ and George Harrison\u2019s for Mahatma Gandhi.<\/p>\n\t\t John Lennon (left) and Ringo Starr (right) inspect the stage set before the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s photo shoot<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n The 30 March 1967 photo session with Michael Cooper \u2013 shot on a Sinar 5x4in camera \u2013 also produced the back cover and the inside gatefold image of the band. McCartney recalled the inner-gatefold image, \u2018We all said, \u201cNow look into this camera and really say I love you! Really give love through this!\u201d If you look at it you\u2019ll see the big effort from the eyes.\u2019 But according to John Lennon, Cooper\u2019s photos of the band showed, \u2018two people who are flying [high on drugs], and two who aren\u2019t.\u2019<\/p>\n The final cost for the cover art was nearly \u00a33,000 (equivalent to just over \u00a349,000 today), which was a very extravagant sum for a time when album covers would typically cost around \u00a350 (\u00a3820 today).<\/p>\n\t\t The back cover had all the album\u2019s lyrics printed on it<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n The album\u2019s lyrics were printed in full on the back cover \u2013 the first time this had ever been done on a rock LP. The inner sleeve featured artwork by Dutch design team the Fool \u2013 artist Marijke Koger and her partner Simon Posthuma \u2013 which eschewed, for the first time, the standard white paper in favour of an abstract pattern of waves of maroon, red, pink and white. Only the first pressing of the LP included this element, and it\u2019s no longer available today.<\/p>\n Included as a bonus gift was a sheet of cardboard cut-outs designed by Blake and Haworth. These consisted of a postcard-sized portrait of Sgt. Pepper, based on a statue from Lennon\u2019s house that was used on the front cover, a fake moustache, two sets of sergeant stripes, two lapel badges and a stand-up cut-out of the Beatles in their satin uniforms.<\/p>\n\t\t Preparing for the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band shoot (foreground, from left to right, faces visible): Mal Evans, Paul McCartney and photographer Michael Cooper<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n Some time after the photo shoot, the head of EMI, Sir Joseph Lockwood, visited McCartney\u2019s house and demanded that letters be sent to seek permission to use the likenesses of the people in the stage set. According to McCartney, all of them agreed bar \u2018one of the Bowery Boys who wanted to cut a deal.\u2019<\/p>\n Peter Blake said of the album cover, \u2018I feel enormous pride in having done it. If I\u2019m in a cab I know that the instant I admit I did Sgt. Pepper\u2019s, then we\u2019ve communicated. There\u2019s only ever been one black cabbie who said, \u201cNah, I\u2019ve never heard of that mate,\u201d and I think he might have been winding me up. But if people bought it, and it introduced them into a world of other art and fine art, I\u2019m very happy about that.\u2019<\/p>\n Michael Cooper (1941-73) was a British photographer who is remembered for his images of leading rock musicians of the 1960s and early 1970s. His best-known work is the cover photography for Sgt. Pepper\u2019s, but he also created the cover lenticular for the Rolling Stones\u2019 LP Their Satanic Majesties Request. He died by suicide, after becoming caught in a spiral of depression and heroin addiction.<\/p>\n Christie Goodwin<\/strong><\/p>\n There had been a gradual evolution with what artists did on their album covers, pushing creativity always a tiny bit further. With the cover of The Beatles\u2019 Sgt. Pepper\u2019s LP, Peter Blake broke all boundaries and expanded our notion of creative possibilities. It was a visual gamechanger.<\/p>\n Aubrey Powell<\/strong><\/p>\n The Beatles had taken a step forward in making the LP cover an important art form. It was an intentional design. There were decisions on the day of flowers and plants to fill spaces, and how The Beatles should be arranged within the staging, but by and large the geometry and design remained as conceived. Genius.<\/p>\n Rankin<\/strong><\/p>\n Possibly the greatest album cover of all time. It\u2019s conceptual, it has two versions of the band, every celebrity that was important, plus it represents the music perfectly. Add to this that it is realistically photographed, with photography at its heart. Finally, it\u2019s made by one of the greatest British pop artists, Peter Blake.<\/p>\n Some of the finest names in music, design and photography chose their favourite album covers for this series \u2013 they are:<\/p>\n Janette Beckmann Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n Greatest album photography: Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones<\/a><\/p>\n Greatest album photography: Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd<\/a><\/p>\n Follow AP on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, and YouTube<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Steve Fairclough reveals the intricate tale of the major players involved in creating the classic The Beatles album cover Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":167193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[2078,3187,3190,3189,3192,3191,3188,2493],"product-category":[],"class_list":["post-167172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iconic-images","tag-album-photography","tag-greatest-album-photography","tag-john-lennon","tag-michael-cooper","tag-paul-mccartney","tag-ringo-starr","tag-sgt-peppers","tag-the-beatles"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/001.jpg\")
<\/a>\t\t\tSalt and pepper<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\t\t\tStage set<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\t\t\tSatin uniforms<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t\tLyrics on back cover<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\t\t\t
\nMichael Cooper<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\n
\nThe panel on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\n<\/a>\n<\/a>\nOur panel of judges<\/h3>\n
\nJason Bell
\nHarry Borden
\nEd Caraeff
\nAndy Cowles
\nKevin Cummins
\nDr Andy Earl
\nJill Furmanovsky
\nChristie Goodwin
\nPeter Hook
\nSimon Larbalestier
\nGered Mankowitz
\nDennis Morris
\nPeter Neill
\nAubrey \u2018Po\u2019 Powell
\nRankin
\nJamel Shabazz
\nMat Snow
\nHoward Wakefield
\nKirk Weddle
\nRachael Wright<\/p>\n
\n