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With A Little Help From My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper

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On 1 June 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love, the Beatles made "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". In this book the band's producer George Martin tells his story of the nine months it took to make the recording, featuring songs such as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to "A Day in the Life" and "She's Leaving Home". 1966 had seen a crossroads in the Beatles career, with the band under strain from the pressures of live performances. They decided to make an album that was like a show. Martin follows through the creation of the album's songs and offers an insight into the recording process itself.

176 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1994

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
Profile Image for Dave.
983 reviews20 followers
January 25, 2021
Sir George Martin's first hand recollection of The Beatles monumental and groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's album.
Martin devotes each chapter to the chronological order that each single and song was created by the band so after setting up where the band was at after touring he relates the making of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" and remarks that his major regret in decision making was to offer up those two songs as a single for Capital to release as opposed to putting those songs on the actual album.
I even learned a few things by reading this book in that had Martin been able to incorporate those two songs onto the album he would have most likely ditched "Within You Without You" and "When I'm 64" because in his mind they didn't fit best on the album overall. The album was also at one point going to be a double album, but there wasn't enough material for that. And that Shirley Temple appears three times on the album cover.
The album is extraordinary, but in my mind and most fans minds it isn't their best. But for that period of the summer of love in 1967 it was perfect and often imitated, but never duplicated.
Profile Image for Stven.
1,475 reviews27 followers
December 20, 2011
I'm giving George Martin's reminiscences about the making of this pivotal Beatles album five stars on the grounds that it fulfills and exceeds every possible expectation. The technical stuff about how this marvelously complex music was recorded working with a mere four tracks of tape is handled in an easy conversational style, and there are anecdotes and personalities aplenty as well. Although focused on Sgt. Pepper, there's a lot of looking back and looking forward -- the book was published in 1994 -- and we get an excellent feeling for the entire story of the Beatles from their producer-collaborator's point of view.
Profile Image for Lucia Caporalini.
91 reviews32 followers
December 23, 2015
The great George Martin shares the secrets of his experience with the greatest band ever and how they created the record that changed music history. Nothing to add, really. That's greatness to the core. Martin's stories makes you think you know the boys personally, as he did. He shares some interesting stories about the band (for example, the first time Paul took LSD in order to stay with John, who was having a bad trip during the recording of Getting Better), he (constantly) talks about Paul's incredible musical talent, and he truly confesses which songs he liked best (or not). Great book. Every Beatles fan should give it a read!
Profile Image for Bill.
516 reviews
September 11, 2020
An excellent book for Beatles fans filled with their producer's insights and memories about recording one of the most important albums recorded in the last century. The author does not just confine himself to event around making Sgt. Pepper; he digresses in interesting and informative ways. He even includes a chapter on how the cover of the album came together.

I highly recommend this for anyone who is a Beatles fan, or those who think Sgt. Pepper is one of the seminal albums of the twentieth century.
Profile Image for David Rickert.
508 reviews5 followers
January 17, 2020
A fascinating look at a groundbreaking album from the ultimate man on the inside. It's remarkable to read about what they were able to accomplish with four tracks and wild imaginations. I love reading about the process behind the creation of things, and this was right up my alley.
Profile Image for Randall Wallace.
683 reviews657 followers
December 29, 2019
John’s vocals on Day in the Life have a 90-millisecond delay on it. Geoff fed John’s vocal to a mono tape machine which then had separate record and playback heads and then fed it back. John said when the tape echo was right, it helped him to keep time. Lyrics drove the composition of John’s songs. Did you know the first verse of “Good Morning” has only 10 bars? Notice the horns begin a new phrase “under the last beat of the second verse.” The horn players had to “count like mad” to play their horn stabs “bang on” together. George cleverly turns a chicken sound into a guitar tuning up at the beginning of the Reprise of SPLHCB (few “rockers” have French horns). Also on the Reprise, Paul’s used a D.I. on his bass for the first time. In the beginning, the Beatles sang about fantasy relationships. But when John sang “I once had a girl, or should I say she once had me” that was about finding Cynthia pregnant. When George Martin met Paul, he said Paul could not play the piano at all! Wow, I play Martha My Dear, Lady Madonna, and Live and Let Die on piano and (maybe) I’m amazed at how Paul came up fast with ANY of those progressions on piano. Paul played every instrument better than the others and so he was relegated to the instrument hardest to sound original on, the bass. When it came to what they wanted musically, Paul was more articulate, and John was more vague. Paul heard that in the US were “meter maids”, and at first he thought we shouldn’t like her, but then realized it would be better for the song if we do like Rita. George Martin told the Beatles to speed up Please Please Me, and to start Can’t Buy me Love with a line from the middle. John wrote the Day Tripper riff and the harmonica Love Me Do line. John’s Weybridge was “a ghetto for rich people.” Look how Paul makes the verse hit the chorus in Fool on the Hill; who else wrote like that? John couldn’t understand Ravel’s insanely beautiful Daphnis and Chloe Suite 2 and said to George, “where’s the tune?” Said George, “If you didn’t hook John’s attention within a few seconds, you lost him.”

George said they could not have done Lucy in the Sky with a Hammond organ, they used the elusive Lowrey (the DSO-1, one of which I bought for $600 from a guy in Kansas – they are super hard to find). The Lowry gave the them needed decay and the slight “quavering” for Lucy’s intro (and in mandolin repeat mode, on the Lowrey you also can get the intro to Baba O’Reilly). Few listeners notice the time signature jump on Lucy from 3/4 to 4/4. Imagine Lucy was your song – how would you have made a smooth transition to the middle section? Paul came up with the “cellophane flowers” and “newspaper taxis”. The vocals on Lucy’s vocals were raised a half-step which thinned and brightened them. In the end, without needing extra instruments, Lucy was one of the quickest songs to record on St. Pepper.

On Within You Without You, the tabla changes from 4/4 to 5/4. Several tambouras were going at the same time for better depth on the drone. That song also has ADT on the strings too! What an idea. And the celli play one octave below the dilruba which kept it from sounding too Indian. George Harrison explained why Hippie Era Beatles was so fertile: “We’ve had four years doing what everybody else wanted us to do, now we were doing what we wanted to do.” The Beatles wanted to experiment and push the envelope. Think of the vocal call and response of Help, Eleanor Rigby, and She’s Leaving Home. St. Pepper cost 25,000 pounds – a fortune at the time. George also mentions the important RAF Burtonwood influence, other books discuss new records arriving only by boat to Liverpool, but Burtonwood Airbase was called “Little America”and that is where since the war all things American really came in. The cutest girls were still flocking to Burtonwood in the 60’s and Liverpool boys got two messages 1. You’d better to every bit of that amazing new music the Yanks are bring in and 2. you’d better find something better for local girls to do than choosing those GI’s over you. Needless to say, the Beatles became experts at one and two. I adore George Martin. It was great fun to finally read this.
55 reviews2 followers
January 31, 2020
Paz, Amor e Sgt. Pepper (Summer of Love: the making of Sgt. Pepper) talvez seja a visão mais abrangente possível que uma única pessoa poderia dar às gravações do mais famoso álbum dos Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Escrito por George Martin com o auxílio de William Pearson, após participar do documentário de 25 anos do disco (e imediatamente antes do documentário Beatles Anthology), o relato bastante pessoal do produtor mostra porque Sgt. Pepper é um dos mais importantes álbuns da história do pop/rock.

Ainda que não seja para muitos (incluindo eu e Martin) o disco favorito dos Beatles, o nível de inventividade que a criatividade de John e Paul (então livres das turnês e totalmente dedicados às gravações) exigiu da equipe técnica fez com que o álbum virasse a cabeça de todos no mundo da música. O que hoje parece fácil e comum, lendo o relato de Martin fica claro o quão revolucionário foi o resultado final. Alguns comentários sobre o uso dos canais só vão interessar a entendidos, mas quanto a todo o resto, ainda que um leigo não possa compreender toda a complexidade técnica, é possível perceber o tamanho do desafio proposto.

O texto não se limita apenas aos longos meses de gravação. Martin se dá a liberdade de alguns flashbacks, como o primeiro encontro e as gravações com a banda, o fim dos shows e as gravações de Revolver, e ainda um pequeno estudo sobre as influências musicais do quarteto de Liverpool e o papel que esta cidade desempenhou no som deles.

É possível, ainda, ter pequenos vislumbres da vida cotidiana não só dos integrantes da banda, mas também de Brian Epstein. Também vemos a real admiração pela capacidade musical de Paul e uma certa preferência por John, assim como o preconceito inicial pelas músicas de George, que fez com que Only a Nothern Song ficasse de fora.

Falando muito pouco sobre dias futuros, particularmente o pouco apreço pelo clima confuso das gravações entre Magical Mystery Tour e Let it be, a narrativa tem seu ponto final com a morte de Epstein.

Infelizmente, a necessidade de lançar um single no final do ano fez com que Strawberry Fields Forever e Penny Lane ficassem de fora do álbum, fazendo com que este tenha muitas faixas tapa-buraco. Strawberry Fields Forever foi o ponto de partida de todo o processo e não deveria ter ficado de fora. Ao escutar Sgt. Pepper, sempre fico com a impressão de estar faltando alguma coisa.

Leitura obrigatória para qualquer beatlemaníaco e indicada para os fãs de música em geral.
32 reviews
July 28, 2025
I read this only a couple of weeks after finishing Ian Leslie’s ”John and Paul—A Love Story in Songs” so I must be a Beatles fan… I now realise that Leslie has sourced stuff from ”Summer of Love”. I really should have read ”Summer of Love” first.

This book was the result of a 1993 BBC programme ”Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, a South Bank Show. George Martin, legendary producer of the Beatles’ records put the book together with the help of William Pearson as a permanent memory of that programme—and to tell the story of the recording of what many critics and experts say might be the group’s magnum opus.
The book is a chronological history starting in late.1966, after the release of ”Revolver”, and detailing the recording of every song from ”Strawberry Fields Forever” to ”The End”. Martin goes into considerable detail about each recording, probably too much detail for this reader (I mean, I wasn’t helped by being told which track on each tape this or that instrument/voice or whatever was put on.) And, like the Beatles, I don’t read music, so putting in lines of notation just made me yawn.

There were proofreading misses and a jarring accrediation of the Jabberwocky to Edward Lear instead of to Lewis Carroll. Oh, and it isn’t cliché free either.

However, it was an easy read and a lot of interesting stuff about who wrote what, and how songs developed in the studio. Martin always indicates his contribution to each song, writing orchestral scores or suggesting that a track should be speeded up or slowed down.

It’s really only for diehard Beatles fans.
Profile Image for char.
30 reviews2 followers
Read
November 16, 2022
before speculating about the beatles, read about it from someone who was actually there.

as a beatles fan who only became a diehard a few years ago, there was a time i didn’t understand the sgt. pepper’s hype. i liked it alright, but it wasn’t as profound as i thought everyone else made it out to be. thanks to george martin i have reverence for every second of every song.

the book ends with a touching tribute to brian epstein that left me sobbing. who’s the honorary fifth beatle? forget that, there’s 6, a space left for the manager AND producer of the band that would not exist without the two of them.

a must read for beatles fans. very highly recommended.
Profile Image for Guilherme Tourinho.
164 reviews
August 7, 2023
Li este livro pela primeira vez em 2017, no ano em que tinha 15 anos e também o ano em que o Sgt. Pepper completou 50 anos. Nesta época que fiquei mais próximo dos garotos de Liverpool e obviamente ouvia esse álbum com uma frequência maior, e alguns anos depois, eles [Beatles] ainda despertam a mesma novidade e surpresa como se fosse a primeira vez. A leitura é fluida porque o George Martin despeja amor em suas palavras por esses gênios. Trechos emocionantes, principalmente com a trilha sonora como essa. Recomendo demais, principalmente para quem gostar de saber das inovações propostas pelo os Beatles. Aqui tem material de sobra sobre essa inovação.
Profile Image for Paul Quintana Jr..
4 reviews
July 20, 2017
Written by George Martin, producer for the Beatles, the book gives a good insight into the recording of Pepper. If you've ever seen the Beatles Anthology or any interview by Martin, you might notice some repeated information. We get a lot of the same anecdotes, like when Lennon accidentally takes LSD at a session, however there is a lot of new things I learned (Pepper was originally planned as a double LP set, Brian Epstein attempted suicide several times).

Though not technical in any way it was a very smooth read and I recommend any Beatle to fan to give it a go.
Profile Image for Dusty Evely.
18 reviews
January 18, 2024
The making of one of the greatest albums of all time - and one that changed the very nature of pop music and recording - from the man who had a major hand in making it happen. Martin was clearly not a polished writer, but I loved his various wanderings through the interpersonal relationships as he details the making of Sgt. Pepper. There are a ton of great tidbits in here: from how he created the whirling carnival music in "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" to the atmosphere around the ending to "A Day in the Life" to the thought process behind the track order, and on and on.
Profile Image for Sofia.
26 reviews
July 17, 2024
I am surprised to see that this book isn’t well known! A book about one of the best Beatles’ albums written by their very own producer is something that should be more cherished. While I think George Martin used this opportunity to say a lot of things he observed about the band in general, it still does a very good job at recreating the scenery that the album was made in, with words. A very funny narrative too! It did open my I eyes to a lot I didn’t particularly notice on the record and certainly made cherish it even more!
214 reviews
December 1, 2023
I LOVE the Beatles so was looking forward to reading this book. I had to adjust to it because I thought it would be a different style of book. However, once I did I truly enjoyed it. You learn a lot of the technical aspects of recording their songs, but you also gain insight into their relationships and how much they cared about each other. Hearing about how they helped each other and understood each others talents was wonderful. Grasping more information about Sgt. Pepper was terrific!!
Profile Image for Renata Freire.
195 reviews8 followers
July 10, 2024
We're sgt. Pepper's lonely hearts club band!!!
Incrível ver como os deuses trabalhavam e como a genialidade dos Beatles foram potencializada pelo trabalho do George Martin e do Brian Epstein. Embora os beatles tenham sido incríveis naturalmente, o trabalho em conjunto dessa equipe gigantesca transformou o Walrus, Billy Shears, Sgt. Peppers e o my sweet lord em lendas (ou divindades como eu prefiro) que viverão eternamente, ou enquanto existir música.
Profile Image for Martin Grunseit.
15 reviews
February 16, 2017
A vivid account of the making of an album that took recording techniques and creativity to a new level. George's prose is drily humorous, honest, and will also add to the listening pleasure of any Beatles fan. The technical details are never dull, but rather display the ingenious innovation used by the producer, engineer, and the band. A delightful masterclass on the creative process.
Profile Image for Virginia.
42 reviews
August 2, 2019
I just loved reading about the details of the making of Sgt. Pepper and I know that George Martin was involved with the Beatles much beyond what is detailed in this book. I was so enamored of these details that I just purchased the most recent Rolling Stone magazine, which covers the songs of all the Beatles' albums. Great for music lovers and Beatlemaniacs! I am both!
4 reviews
October 6, 2020
If anybody liked the album (like I did) would like reading about the album. The behind the scenes of the making of the album is really good. There are pictures in the book as well. I am a Beatles fan and I know that is why I enjoyed this book a lot. A person doesn't have to be a Beatles fan to like because if you like music I know you would like this book.
Profile Image for Montage Matt.
41 reviews
Read
July 14, 2021
Gives a great background history and the recording of each song in one of the greatest albums ever produced. It presents quite convincingly that George Martin and sound engineer Geoff Emerick were as much a part of the band because these two harnessed the talent of the fab four to give us an album for the ages.
Profile Image for Trace Reddell.
Author 2 books4 followers
November 17, 2019
Highly enjoyable read with an excellent balance between personal reflections and stories with fascinating technical details about the recording process. It has led to hearing to new aspects of "Sgt. Peppers."
Profile Image for Ugo Cappadonia.
44 reviews
August 31, 2024
Imperdibile descrizione dettagliata di come George Martin riuscì a produrre e registrare nel 67 uno degli album più stupefacenti dei Beatles che cambiò per sempre la storia della musica. Perfetto per chi ama tecniche di registrazione.
Profile Image for Tom Norton.
37 reviews2 followers
October 28, 2024
Mr. Martin provides some very interesting, first-person accounts of the recording of Sgt. Pepper. His dry, self-deprecating writing style belies the fact that he is the one person who could arguably claim the title of Fifth Beatle.
Profile Image for Tim Baldini.
31 reviews5 followers
August 22, 2017
A fundamental book about a fundamental album. I paid $5 for my copy when I was in high school over 10 years ago. Now I'm surprised to see this online for $75 and up. But it's worth every penny!
6 reviews
October 6, 2019
Para quem é fã da banda, é incrível saber o processo por trás da obra que é o Sgt. Pepper.
Profile Image for Napoleon.
97 reviews9 followers
February 1, 2025
Ao falar de especificamente de cada composição do álbum, a verdadeira genialidade do ofício se mostra em cada etapa da produção.
2 reviews1 follower
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October 29, 2019
Sgt. Peppers e o meu coração
Escrito por um dos maiores produtores musicais que o mundo já viu, George Martin faz um relato sobre os bastidores das gravações de sgt pepper's lonely hearts club band de forma direta e dinâmica. Trata-se de uma narrativa cronológica dos eventos, nos quais não esconde a própria participação sem, contudo, se tornar arrogante; de tal sorte que conduz o leitor junto com ele e os 4 Fab àqueles bastidores psicodélicos.

A vida pessoal de John, fornte constante de sua inspiração; o talento e a musicalidade natos de Paul e a amizade unia os dois e acaba por ser um obstáculo a ser transposto por George Harrison e Ringo. Aliás, o Talento e a contribuição desses dois últimos ao Disco em particular e à banda como um todo foram expressos e reconhecidos por Martin.

Excelente livro, que recomendo não só aos amantes da música, mas também aos amantes de história, por ser lindamente bem contextualizado no período histórico em que ocorreram as gravações.
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