Abbey Road endures more traffic mayhem as Beatles fans mark last album's 50th anniversary

CNN ^ | 09/27/2019 | Rory Sullivan

[SeekAndFind]

Mark Kramer is a huge Beatles fan. Just hours after stepping off his overnight flight from Florida to London, he is not bleary-eyed but brimming with energy as he savors his time at the world's best-known pedestrian crossing.

Beside the streaks of white paint that mark the zebra crossing on Abbey Road -- a site protected since 2010 for its cultural and historical importance -- he rattles off Beatles facts, talks about the band's musical journey and grows ever more excited.

Kramer, 40, is here because of "Abbey Road," the seminal album the band released on September 26, 1969 -- 50 years ago Thursday.

Named after the street where it was recorded, it got mixed critical reviews but was an immediate commercial hit, topping the charts in the UK for 17 weeks and the US for 11, and selling 4 million copies in just six weeks.

It would prove to be the last studio album the group made together ("Let it Be," which came out in 1970, had already been recorded), as John Lennon had broken the news to his fellow band members that he was leaving shortly before its release.

To mark the special occasion, an anniversary edition of "Abbey Road" will be re-released on September 27. Produced by Giles Martin, whose father, George, was the Beatles' friend and producer, it will contain out-takes and additional material.

Giles Martin told CNN that his father thought that "Abbey Road" would be the group's final album. He added: "I think they (The Beatles) knew things were changing. I think they were looking for a way out and they had all become more individual. Because creative people want to be creative and they all wanted to do different things."

[dainbramaged]

Paul was s stinkin’ hippy that’s why.
He's a successful songwriter, musician, performer, and multimillionaire - just like you, I'm guessing.

[Kommodor]

“I’ve been listening to Paul’s records - I think he really is dead!”

- Larry Norman

[Big Red Badger]

Joan and Dylan,
Thanks,,,
Reality check.

[plain talk]

It’s harder than you think toi get a photo on that crossing

[Sans-Culotte]

Most overrated band in history

No, that would be whoever you listen to.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

“Abbey Road” isn’t my favorite Beatles album (that’ll always be “Revolver”), but it does have the best opening song of any Beatles album in “Come Together”.

[Yardstick]

The Beatles didn’t grab me at first — too sing-songy and didn’t rock hard enough. Nowadays I consider them genius songwriters and really enjoy their music.

[Clemenza]

Most overrated would be The Who, although I love Quadrophenia.

[newfreep]

Giles Martin did a superb job in re-mixing/re-mastering “Sgt pepper” and “White” from the original individual track tapes into 24-bit reissues. Notably, he used very, very little noise reduction to preserve the sonic fidelity.

No doubt he did an equally masterful re-mix/re-master on Abbey Road - currently available as a 24-bit/96khz download at HDTracks.

[SeekAndFind]

I am really conflicted as to which is the better album — St. Peppers or Abbey Road. Both were superb in my book.

But I’d say I am partial to Sgt. Peppers. As one writer described it: Its kaleidoscopic approach to record-making – layer after layer of instruments and voices piled on top of each other until it all blurs into one colorful explosion – would become a marker and pattern for everything that came after it. In many ways, it still hasn’t been topped.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: “Abbey Road” isn’t my favorite Beatles album (that’ll always be “Revolver”).

Revolver is arguably their best ( but for me, it was Sgt. Peppers ). Three of the songs in the Revolver album are very memorable for me:

* Here There and Everywhere

* For No One

* Eleanor Rigby ( the last one had a double string quartet arrangement and striking lyrics about loneliness. It is still being performed today by string quartets around the world ).

[LS]

BTW, “Yesterday” is a superb movie. Great ending. Probably the best movie I’ve seen this year.

[newfreep]

Considering musicians typically take years to make 1 album, the Beatles released their “trilogy” of Rubber Soul, Revolver & Sgt Pepper within 18 months.

If pressed, I tend to go with “Revolver” as the best Beatles album.

Quick story...

My wife & I were 19 y/o kids from Dayton,OH when we moved to LA and found an apt in Hollywood.

One Sat afternoon, I was listening to KHJ on the clock radio sitting on top of the refrigerator. The DJ was playing these new, unreleased songs and describing what each song was about or what was happening in the studio at the time.

The album? The White album
The DJ? George Harrison

A week later the album was released and I scurried down to a record shop on Sunset and bought it with the serial number embossed on the front.

[BenLurkin]

That is correct.

But on the other hand, Charles Manson thought they were brilliant.

[moovova]

I think I’d enjoy doing the Ferry Cross the Mersey more...

[FirstFlaBn]

For me, Abbey Road will always be connected to my first Florida-FSU game as a student. The game was three days after the album release (in U.S.).

That week some student organization was raising money by selling orange and blue kazoos at a kiosk with a banner that read, “Kazoo FSU.”

Walking into Florida Field, I could kazoos playing Orange and Blue. Thousands of us fledgling kazooists (?) then helped the Gator Band play the national anthem and the alma mater. If you haven’t heard that sound, your musical experience is incomplete. Kinda hard to keep playing while laughing uproariously.

By halftime the student side figured out you could speak a certain phrase starting with ‘F’ through the kazoo (a phrase that didn’t contain ‘Florida’).

By Sunday morning in the dorm, Abbey Road (now out for four days) had connected with the kazoos. For the next week, my dorm was filled with kazoo versions of Abbey Road songs (OK, maybe not She’s So Heavy). Here Comes the Sun was clearly the best fit.

After a week, the wax paper reeds started to wear out and the dull roar of dorm life returned. I was tight with the cafeteria ladies and they gave me wax paper to repair my kazoo. By then I remembered The Boys had used an actual kazoo on Lovely Rita and became an extra Beatle.

Beatles Forever, Baby!

[BenLurkin]

https://webmail.lerctr.org/~transit/healy/offsides2.wav

[BenLurkin]

Here’s an example of Abbey Road studios pre-Beatles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZf41UudAbI

This is what the merry mop-tops rid the world of forever.

[xp38]

Goofing on the Paul is dead rumors. Corpses are buried without shoes at least that was what I was told when the rumor was going full bore way back when. Here is what wiki has to say.

the interpretation of the Abbey Road album cover as depicting a funeral procession. Lennon, dressed in white, is said to symbolise the heavenly figure; Starr, dressed in black, symbolises the undertaker; George Harrison, in denim, represents the gravedigger; and McCartney, barefoot and out of step with the others, symbolises the corpse.[15] The number plate of the white Volkswagen Beetle in the photo was identified as further "evidence",[9][39] the characters "28IF" representing McCartney's age "if" he had still been alive.[20][nb 5] That the left-handed McCartney holds a cigarette in his right hand was also said to support the idea that he was an imposter.[18]

On the other hand a real mystery that will probably never be solved is who the girl on the back cover is or was. This is the photo used without the album credits.

[moovova]

If out it’s any consolation, druggie and pedophile Michael Jackson bought the publishing rights to most Beatles songs. I think Jackson’s ownership was eventually split with Sony.