The cover of the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" | All Things Music Plus+
The cover of the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
March 30, 1967 - The cover of the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album was staged and photographed by Michael Cooper at Chelsea Manor Studios in London using a collage of life-sized cardboard models and figures from Madame Tussaud's wax museum.
The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was art-directed by Robert Fraser, designed by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, his wife and artistic partner, and photographed by Michael Cooper. It featured a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover and lyrics printed on the back cover, the first time this had been done on a British pop LP. The Beatles themselves, in the guise of the Sgt. Pepper band, were dressed in custom-made military-style outfits made of satin dyed in day-glo colours. The suits were designed by Manuel Cuevas. Among the insignia on their uniforms are:
MBE medals on McCartney's and Harrison's jackets. MBEs had been awarded to all four Beatles.
The Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom, on Lennon's right sleeve.
Ontario Provincial Police flash on McCartney's sleeve.
In the centre of the scene, The Beatles stand behind a drum on which are painted the words of the album's title; the drum was painted by fairground artist Joe Ephgrave.
The collage depicted more than 70 famous people, including writers, musicians, film stars, and (at Harrison's request) a number of Indian gurus. The final grouping included Marlene Dietrich, Carl Gustav Jung, W.C. Fields, Diana Dors, James Dean, Bob Dylan, Issy Bonn, Marilyn Monroe, Aldous Huxley, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sigmund Freud, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, William S. Burroughs, Marlon Brando, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and controversial comedian Lenny Bruce. Also included was the image of the original Beatles' bassist, the late Stuart Sutcliffe. Pete Best said in a later NPR interview that Lennon borrowed family medals from his (Best's) mother Mona for the shoot, on condition that he did not lose them. Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ were requested by Lennon, but ultimately they were left out. A photo also exists of a rejected cardboard printout with a cloth draped over its head; its identity is unknown. Even now, co-creator Jann Haworth regrets that so few women were included.
The final bill for the cover was £2,868 5s 3d (equivalent to £38,823 today), a staggering sum for the time. It has been estimated that this was 100 times the average cost for an album cover in those days.
IDENTIFYING THE IMAGES:
The widely-recognized album cover which depicts several dozen celebrities and other images.
This album cover was created by Jann Haworth and Peter Blake. They won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts in 1968 for their work on this cover.
The celebrities and items featured on the front cover are (by row, left to right):
Top row:
Sri Yukteswar Giri (Hindu guru)
Aleister Crowley (occultist)
Shirley Temple (child actress) - second appearance on the cover
Other objects within the group include:
Cloth grandmother-figure by Jann Haworth
Cloth doll by Haworth of Shirley Temple wearing a sweater that reads "Welcome The Rolling Stones Good Guys"
A ceramic Mexican craft known as a Tree of Life from Metepec
A 9-inch Sony television set, apparently owned by Paul McCartney - the receipt, bearing McCartney's signature, is owned by a curator of a museum dedicated to The Beatles in Japan.[2]
A stone figure of a girl
Another stone figure
A statue brought over from John Lennon's house
A trophy
A doll of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi
A drum skin, designed by fairground artist Joe Ephgrave
A hookah (water pipe)
A Fukusuke, Japanese china figure
A stone figure of Snow White
A garden gnome
A euphonium/baritone horn
People who were originally intended for the front cover but were ultimately excluded:
Leo Gorcey - was modelled and originally included to the left of Huntz Hall, but was subsequently removed when a fee of $400 was requested for the use of the actor's likeness.
Mohandas Gandhi - was modelled and originally included to the right of Lewis Carroll, but was subsequently removed. According to McCartney, "Gandhi also had to go because the head of EMI, Sir Joe Lockwood, said that in India they wouldn't allow the record to be printed".
Jesus Christ - was requested by Lennon, but not modelled because the LP would be released only a few months after Lennon's Jesus statement.
Adolf Hitler - was modelled and was visible in early photographs of the montage, positioned to the right of Larry Bell, but was eventually obscured by Johnny Weissmuller in the final image.
Germán Valdés - was considered to appear in the first row, but he declined the offer and suggested to replace his image by a Mexican craftmanship known as "Tree of Life". Ringo Starr agreed and placed it in the lower right corner of the cover.
Posted 29th March 2013 by Rick Flynn