DAVID DUNNICO / POP ART: THE COVER OF SGT. PEPPER
www.dunni.co.uk
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• Uncropped version of the photograph used for the cover of Sgt. Pepper
Work of Art HALF A CENTURY after it was first released, the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is undoubtedly the most famous album cover ever. If we consider it separately from the music, it might also be the world’s best known piece of pop art – as recognisable as Andy Warhol’s soup cans, more so than his Velvet Underground ‘banana’ album cover. Sgt. Pepper – the record and its packaging are a cultural icon, they mark the moment when art, commodity and celebrity collided and colluded – pretty much at the spot where the art world stayed.
Physical Culture Sgt. Pepper had one of the ealiest gatefold album sleeves; it included a printed inner sleeve and came with a ‘free gift’ [see page 20] – a cardboard cutout moustache, Sergeant Stripes, medal and Sgt. Pepper himself. It was the first modern LP to come with printed lyrics (which worried the Beatle’s publishing company about the effect it might have on sales of sheet music).
The cover image has been part of our culture for so long, we assume we know it, even if we have never looked closely at its detail, or considered its layers of confusing and contradictory meaning. Much of this is due to its physical form. It is both art AND packaging. We experience it not on a gallery wall, but in our homes. It is tactile: We hold it in our hands. It is auditory: We spend 40 minutes listening to the product the cover was created to protect. Or we did. Sgt. Pepper still sells, but formats such as Compact Disc or digital download with their small or non-existent cover, deny the listener the 12 inch square picture that invites us to scan from face to face, asking who are these people and why are they here? And digital formats tempt us to pick and miss–rather than listen to the album from beginning to end in order, as the artists intended us to.
More Conceit Than Concept
Please Please Me
Less than a week after McCartney’s return to England they would begin recording the next Beatles’ record in Studio 2 at Abbey Road. It would be shaped by the idea of this alter-ego band performing a concert in a park. But that was really as far as the concept went. In an interview, John Lennon said: “Sgt. Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn’t go anywhere. All my contributions to the album have absolutely nothing to do with this idea of Sgt. Pepper and his band, but it works, because we said it worked, and that’s how the album appeared. But it was not put together as it sounds, except for Sgt. Pepper introducing Billy Shears, and the so-called reprise. Every other song could have been on any other album.”
If not a true concept album, Sgt. Pepper does seem a ‘whole’, rather than just a collection of individual songs – its sum really is greater than its parts. Two things contribute to this. For the first time on any album, there are no gaps between the songs – one runs without a pause into the next, or sound effects fill the silence. In the case of the applause
between the reprise of Sgt. Pepper and the last track, ‘A Day In The Life’, it also serves to remind listeners they are at a concert given by Sgt. Pepper and the Lonely Hearts Club Band. But most of all it is the cover design that gives the album its unity. The cover appears to tell a story and is quite different from Beatles covers that preceded it. It is a critical part of a package that invites listeners into an alternate world for the forty minutes the album lasts. The album would turn the Beatles from musicians into artists. And the Beatles turned to artists to design its cover – but not to who you might be thinking. Peter Blake was not the first artist invited. • Inside and outside cover – a total package
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The Fools on the Hill John Dunbar, a friend of Paul McCartney suggested a completely abstract image without any text, but this was too radical. Psychedelia was the word and look of 1966 and 67 and in its vanguard was the Dutch design collective, The Fool. Founder members Simon Posthuma and Marijke Koger encompassed art, fashion, film and music. They had produced stage clothes, posters and album covers for the likes of Cream, The Incredible String Band and The Move. They had painted John Lennon’s piano and George Harrison’s fireplace. When the Beatles opened their Apple clothes boutique at the end of 1967, The Fool would paint the three storey tall mural on the outside (and design many of the clothes offered for sale on the inside).
They were asked to come up with a cover for Sgt. Pepper. They produced a psychedelic landscape to which a portrait of the band was to be added. It didn’t actually fit the cover’s dimensions and despite the Beatles loving it, was not used. They did however use a red and white wavy inner sleeve from The Fool on the first pressing of the album. John Lennon kept the psychedelic landscape. • TOP: The Fool’s painting intended for the inside cover would have featured a portraits of the band. ABOVE: Inner sleeve (autographed by the Beatles).
Enter Groovy Bob (where the group portrait on a yellow background now is). Fraser suggested he should art direct and they should get something from a fine artist, specifically Peter Blake (who his gallery represented). Blake was already a well-known figure in British pop art. He had never done a record cover, but loved music especially modern jazz and rock n’ roll. In fact, he had already met the Beatles, and they had even featured in one of his works, ‘The Beatles, 1962’ [• ABOVE LEFT] based on a picture from a magazine. Fraser and McCa“Groovy Bob” Robert Fraser was an old rtney met Blake at his house in West London, Etonian, a gallery owner, and a pivotal figure in the Swinging London art scene. where McCartney showed him some ideas he had sketched [• ABOVE MIDDLE]. These had He was a friend of both the Beatles and started as the Beatles standing in front of the Rolling Stones. He thought The Fool’s a wall of framed photographs of their hecover was rubbish – badly executed and roes and developed into Sgt. Pepper’s band liable to quickly look dated. For a time McCartney resisted, suggesting their de- being presented to the town’s Lord Mayor, having finished a concert in the park. sign be used on the inside of the gatefold • TOP LEFT: Robert Fraser in his gallery in 1966, on his left is Peter Blake’s ‘Drum Majorette’ (1959) on his right is Jann Haworth’s ‘Cowboy’ (1964) this was taken to the cover shoot, but was left out of shot.
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Cover Story Peter Blake with the American artist Jann Haworth (his then wife) took McCartney’s scenario and crucially commented that if they used pictures, they could have who ever they liked in the audience. Who they eventually included are usually collectively known as “people we like” – and been pored over for meaning, but the choices were actually pretty random. McCartney gave Blake a list of names (complete with misspellings) and asked the other band members for suggestions. Ringo Starr is usually reported as not suggesting anyone, saying, “Who ever the others choose is okay with me.” However, Jann Haworth contradicts this and recalls Starr suggesting a couple, including comedian Issy Bonn who is on the cover. George Harrison suggested six yogis. He later said of the list making, “I still have no idea who chose some of these people... I only wanted people that I admired. I didn’t put anybody on it that I didn’t like, in contrast to some other people”. A clear reference to Lennon, who provocatively suggest-
ed Adolf Hitler, who made it to the cover shoot, but was left out of the final shot. Lennon continued being provocative by adding Gandhi who made it on to the cover, only to be airbrushed out after Sir Joseph Lockwood, head of their record label EMI, worried about reactions in India. Jesus completed Lennon’s hat trick of controversial choices. His suggestion may have been prompted by the protests and burning of Beatles records in America after Lennon had said the band were “bigger than Jesus”. In the end, Peter Blake reckoned 60% of the final names came from him and Haworth, rather than the band.
A number of those included came from Fraser who suggested artists he admired and even some he represented. The mixture of highbrow and popular figures reflects the age’s eroding of traditional barriers. Jazz performer and fan of surrealism George Melly described the selection as a “microcosm of the underground world”. Jann Haworth noted that the band had not suggested a single woman (although McCartney is sometimes mentioned as suggesting Bridgette Bardot)
and regrets not suggesting more herself. There were other omissions too. Whilst Bob Dylan, who the Beatles admired, is there, Elvis Presley, who was a pivotal influence for them, is not. McCartney later said he was left out because: “Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention... so we didn’t put him on the list because he was more than merely a... pop singer, he was Elvis the King.”
• Setting up the cover shoot. Adolf Hiter figure (2nd from left) was removed. Bett Davies as Elizabeth I can be seen, but was obscured by George Harrison in the final shot. Gandhi (Far Right 3 figures up) was airbrushed out.
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Record company EMI were concerned about putting real people on the cover – especially real people who were still alive, might object and had lawyers. McCartney assured them everyone would be happy to appear, but EMI insisted they got permission. This made the band’s manager Brian Epstein hate the whole idea all the more. At one stage he (maybe) joked that they should have a brown paper bag for a cover. His assistant, Wendy Hanson (later to marry and become Wendy Moger) spent a week and a fortune on trans-Atlantic phone calls seeking everyone’s permission. Shirley Temple wanted to hear the album first, Mae West wanted to know what she would be doing in a Lonely Hearts Club? Leo Gorcey one of the ‘Dead End Kids’, an American film youth gang, wanted a $400 fee. His comedy partner Huntz Hall didn’t ask for a fee. Gorcey was airbrushed out of the final image, Hall is still on the cover.
Indeed many people assume this to be how the cover art was produced. But Jann Haworth, who’s part in the cover’s eventual form is usually overlooked, conceived the idea of making the piece as a life-sized tableaux, or more correctly a mis-en-scène. This French term meaning literally “placing on stage” is used in theatre and cinema to describe everything in the frame; actors, lighting, décor, props, costume and how it is arranged to make a visual theme or tell a story.
Her idea was to have the front row “… three-dimensional, leading into a two-dimensional flat frame [which] was very much the territory of my work.” Indeed Haworth was perhaps best known for her full size “dolls” – sewn soft sculptures, a couple of which are on the cover. Blake too had made three-dimensional works. However, Haworth could also draw on the experience of her father, Ted, who was a Hollywood film set builder. By chance he Blake intended to make the cover as a col- was in London at the time, working on lage; a technique much used in pop art, the set of the Tommy Steele musical film which involved cutting out photographs “Half a Sixpence”. Haworth asked him for and sticking them together on a flat board. advice on how to construct what Blake
would later describe as “almost a piece of theatre design”. But Haworth Senior’s ideas were too “Hollywood” and too expensive, so Jann resorted to a blue sky paper background and photographs stuck on to hardboard, mounted on wooden stands.
ics on the back cover. He would go on to design the famous green apple centre label for the Beatle’s Apple Corps releases. Blake and Haworth spent over a week constructing the set at Chelsea Manor Photo Studios, the London studio of photographer Michael Cooper. It included Graphic designer Gene Mahon was hired 57 headshot photographic enlargements, as co-ordinator for the project. He took nine wax dummies loaned from Madame the list of names, selected photographs Tussaud’s, including the Beatles in their from libraries and magazines and super- ‘mop top days’. The other waxworks used vised the printing of life-sized enlarge- were in part chosen because they were ments, which were hand coloured by not on display in the museum at the time. Haworth. Mahon has been cited as being the one who suggested printing the lyr• ABOVE LEFT: Haworth stood on chair, photographer Michael Cooper stood behind drum, Blake lifting head up. • ABOVE RIGHT: Lenny Bruce gets a lick of paint.
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assortment of bits and pieces, including statuettes, a cardboard garden gnome, a stone bust, hookah pipe and a Sony portable TV. In the middle of it all stood the four living, breathing Beatles themselves. They were dressed in silk Day-Glo Edwardian-styled military uniforms, designed especially for the cover shoot by Manuel Cuevas and made by theatrical outfitters M. Berman Ltd. McCartney and Harrison wore their M.B.E. medals.
Other three dimensional objects were a Shirley Temple doll wearing a sweater carrying the legend “Welcome The Rolling Stones”, a bass drum painted by fairground artist Joe Ephgrave, musical instruments, flower arrangements, and an • LEFT: Cooper and Blake with Lawrence of Arabia’s waxwork head. RIGHT: Picking material for the Sgt. Pepper outfits.
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Pictures Over about three hours during the late afternoon of 30 March 1967, Cooper took the pictures that would become a key cultural icon of the period. The Beatles left the photographic studio in the evening and went on to EMI’s Abbey Road Recording Studio, where from 11pm to 7:30 am the next day they continued work on the soundtrack to the cover, finishing recording ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’. The sleeve ended up costing £2,868 5s 3d – an unheard of amount at a time when a cover shoot might typically cost £50. About half of the fee went to photographer Michael Cooper. After 129 days of recording and £40,000, Sgt. Pepper was finished. It was officially released on 1 June 1967 and sold 250,000 copies in the first week and went to number one, where it would spend 27 weeks. It’s initial release stayed in the charts for 148 weeks. To date, it has sold 32 million copies. In 1968, the album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Album, Best Engineered
Recording (non-classical) and Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts. Haworth still has the Grammy, but her kids knocked the trumpet off and her dog chewed it. • Press launch of Sgt. Pepper
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• Some of the unused shots from the photo session.
• The chosen photo as cropped for the cover (See page 2 for the same shot uncropped)
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It Was 50 Years Ago Today Peter Blake is (sometimes) credited with inspiring the very term ‘pop art’. He told critic Lawrence Alloway, “I wanted to make art that a teenage girl would appreciate in the same way she enjoyed an Elvis record”. Alloway retorted, “You mean a sort of pop art? ” The Beatles and Blake did much to bring art to the attention of a new, young, working class audience. And ever since, art has informed much of the best British music. Even without Sgt. Pepper, Blake would still be a major figure in British art. He was knighted in 2002. Now in his 80s, Blake is as prolific and in demand as ever. He sometimes bemoans being paid just £200 for the cover and remains understandably critical of Robert Fraser, who signed away the image rights. But Blake acknowledges the status of the image and from time to time playfully references it in other works. In 2012, to celebrate his 80th birthday, he produced ‘Vintage Blake’, a collage of people he saw as important figures in contemporary British popular culture. • TOP: Madness cover (Blake as Old Father Time) MIDDLE: Blake today BOTTOM: Blake and Haworth behind target
In 2014, he was commissioned to create a mural for the Royal Albert Hall, which had an obvious inspiration, as the commissioners had obviously hoped it would have. Sgt. Pepper was Blake’s first album cover, it changed the way covers were perceived and doubtless influenced the band who were recording their first album in the studio next door to The Beatles. Pink Floyd and the designers from Hipgnosis would produce some of the most memorable covers of the next decade. Peter Blake went on to design some more for The Who, Paul Weller and Oasis (all fans of the Beatles). Such is Blake’s status today that after designing the cover of the Madness album ‘Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da, Da’ – he appeared on the cover of the limited edition release.
Blake and Haworth went their separate personal ways in 1979. Haworth returned to her native USA, where in 2004 she began a civic wall mural in Salt Lake City. SLC PEPPER, an update of the album cover she created with Blake for the Beatles, “it is, is an icon ready for the iconoclast. We will be turning the original inside out... ethnic and gender balancing, and evaluating for contemporary relevance.” Photographer Michael Cooper carried on creating memorable photographs including the cover to the Rolling Stone’s answer to Sgt. Pepper, the somewhat derivative ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’. However Cooper was a troubled man, who committed suicide in 1973. Robert Fraser had long term alcohol and heroin dependency. In the 1980s he opened a new gallery and promoted the work of artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Groovy Bob died of AIDS in 1986.
• TOP RIGHT: Jann Haworth’s ‘Work In Progress’ (2016) ABOVE LEFT: In front of her ‘SLC Pepper mural’.
• A card insert of cut-outs by Peter Blake was included with the album. The original 30x30cm (12x12 inch) collage sold for £55,250 in 2012. It had been given by Blake to the wife of architect Colin St John Wilson.