Geoff Emerick interview/Sgt. Pepper story

[Fab4ever]

Hello all.

Please forgive me if this isn't appropriate, but I got to interview Beatles' engineer Geoff Emerick, produce a sort of audio documentary and write a story about Emerick and the Sgt. Pepper album. I wanted to share it with you, and I thought the recording techniques forum might be the best place, as I tried to focus on Emerick's and the Beatles' techniques.

You can find the multimedia presentation here:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/webspeci...ts/sgt-pepper/

Go to "The Spark of Genius" link to read the story I wrote. The "Interview Audio" link has the little docu-audio I produced. And there's some other cool Pepper trivia stuff on the other links. I hope you all like it! Interviewing Emerick was, I must say, one of the highlights of my journalism career - even though it was only a phone conversation.

[avieth]

Interesting stuff.

I always thought Sgt. Pepper was overrated, and I still do. Abbey Road blows it away.

[Fab4ever]

Abbey Road is my favorite, too. But just in terms of production, ambition and sheer musicality, not many other albums released by 1967 beat Sgt. Pepper, at least for me (though Pet Sounds and Revolver come closest, IMHO.)

[XLR]

Good writing. Enjoyed it. Thanks for making the mp3 available.

[Fab4ever]

Thanks Timothy. Given that I had to write for a general audience, I'm not sure that there are a lot of TECHNICAL details you haven't heard before about the album. But it is kind of cool to hear the man who was there talk about it... I was thinking as I arranged to interview him, there were only six people or so who really knew what happened in the Pepper sessions - and two of them are dead. There's only Emerick, George Martin, Paul and Ringo left. (You might also count Emerick's assistant Richard Lush, who was around most of the time...)

[Dani Pace]

I've been a Beatles fan since the first time I heard "I SAW HER STANDING THERE" way back in 1964. Good job, thanks.

[goodwill559]

Many thanks, Christopher.

[michaelst]

As the sound engineer for a Beatles tribute band, I'm totally into this stuff. Excellent job on the interview and the article. I read the Emmrick book last fall. The interview is much the same as the book. What a time that must have been.

[Fab4ever]

VERY cool Michael. What's the name of the band? You guys ever play in the Tampa Bay area?

[michaelst]

The Britins

We only do regional shows now.
But, we are the 2nd oldest Beatles tribute band in the country (Rain outta Phoenix beat us by 6 months) and have been performing for over 30 years. That was before Beatlemania on Broadway too. Only 1 original member(Rick, the founder), but only replaced each of the other guys once. The first 5 years of the band, they were playing 250 shows a year! All over the country, Mexico, Jamaca, Atlantic City. The audiences are older now, but we still do about 40 shows a year to pretty big crowds at State fairs, music festivals, church and municiple festivals and a few club dates.

The website has some recordings I did(click on "Songs"). They are all LIVE one-take performance recordings. No overdubs or retakes.

[dvincent]

'I read the news today oh boy' - I mean I read Geoff E. book. It was good - it was on CD tho. I would have preferred the book. I don't think Sgt Pepper could ever be overrated - just listen to it in headphones closely - incredible recording for its time. I don't think Abbey Road can touch it - but Abbey is great too of course.

[Robert D]

The tools available for Abby Road we're quite different, weren't they?

[Fab4ever]

Well, they DID have an eight track machine for Abbey Road; also, they used a solid-state mixer for the first time. Having said that, the vocal microphones were still U-47s and 48s; the instruments were virtually the same as in the past several albums, save the Moog synth; the effects were virtually the same. They even had their engineer from Revolver/Pepper/Magical Mystery Tour/first half of the White Album, Geoff Emerick. And of course George Martin produced Abbey Road.

I think the major differences evident on Abbey Road were more mental and emotional. The Beatles had progressed musically, especially George Harrison, who produced two of his best songs for the album. And emotionally, the Beatles knew they were done as a band. After the conflict and turmoil of the Get Back sessions (which produced Let it Be, recorded mostly in early 69 but not released until April 1970), the Beatles tried to do an album like they used to do it. Of course, this was impossible, but still they TRIED to work as a band.

To me, it's their best work - and their saddest, given the inevitability of their impending breakup.

[fuzzy math]

just got his book "here there and everywhere" the other day. im only about 3 chapters in, but its an enjoyable read so far. im already detecting a little bitterness towards lennon and harrison - they must have been mean to him or not given him the respect that he felt he deserved. he has the most positive things to say about mccartney as far as which of the 4 was his favorite to work with.

sgt. pepper is a great album - its the beatles for cryin' out loud! but that being said, it isnt even in my top 5 beatles albums. i think it is kind of overrated w/ in the beatles catalogue. revolver is basically the same era, just as experimental, but with better songs (imo).

pet sounds is better than sgt. pepper, but revolver is better than pet sounds (imo).

[EdWonbass]

Thanks! Really cool. I should have left work 30 minutes ago but I had to finish listening to the interview.

[Monkey Allen]

Good stuff!

[Dani Pace]

Just wanted to add something.... Today June 2, 2006 is the 40th anivesary of the US release of Sgt. Pepper (June 1, 1967 in the UK) for all you Beatles trivia buffs.