Part of
Recording "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
Nov 24, 1966 - Apr 20, 1967 • Songs recorded during this session appear on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (UK Mono)
This image is a cover of an audio recording, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the work or the artist(s) which produced the recording or cover artwork in question. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of such covers qualifies as fair use.
- Album Songs recorded during this session officially appear on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (UK Mono) LP.
- Studio:
- EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
Timeline
More from year 1967
Some songs from this session appear on:
Spread the love! If you like what you are seeing, share it on social networks and let others know about The Paul McCartney Project.
About
The Beatles had recorded the basic track of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” the day before. On this day, from 7 pm to 1:45 am, they added overdubs to the track.
Paul McCartney added his lead vocals and backing vocals, sung with John Lennon and George Harrison, to track four of the four-track tape. The three Beatles then double-tracked their backing vocals onto track three. Take 9 was included in the 2017 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” box set and contains some studio chatter at the end.
Paul: (singing) I feel it, I feel it…Baby, now I get it…Gotta get free now… (talking) Don’t like that. I think it’ll probably be another day singing it.
George: Yeah, and what you can do with the bits where you can’t get it ’cause you haven’t got enough breath, you can just stop…
Paul: Just take over, yeah.
Obviously, Paul changed his mind about re-recording his lead vocals, because the vocals recorded on that day made it to the released version.
Mal Evans wrote in his diary for this day: “Recording voices on ‘Captain Pepper’. All six of us doing the chorus in the middle, worked until about midnight.” This suggests that he and likely Ringo Starr and Neil Aspinall also contributed backing vocals. If this was the case, these were likely placed low in the mix and hardly audible.
As the four tracks of the tape were now filled, a reduction mix, called Take 10, was made to open up two tracks. Track one had the instruments and track four had all the vocals.
Towards the end of the session, a mono mix was made only for demo purposes. George Martin likely used the acetate discs of this mix to score the brass parts. Those were recorded on March 3, 1967, which was a little over a month later.
Last updated on December 26, 2023
Songs recorded
1.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Recording • SI onto take 9
Album Officially released on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (50th anniversary boxset)
2.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Tape copying • Tape reduction take 9 into take 10
3.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 1 from take 10
Staff
Musicians on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
- Paul McCartney:
- Lead vocals, Backing vocals
- Ringo Starr:
- Backing vocals ?
- John Lennon:
- Backing vocals
- George Harrison:
- Backing vocals
- Mal Evans:
- Backing vocals ?
- Neil Aspinall:
- Backing vocals ?
Production staff
Going further
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions • Mark Lewisohn
The definitive guide for every Beatles recording sessions from 1962 to 1970.
We owe a lot to Mark Lewisohn for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - the number of takes for each song, who contributed what, a description of the context and how each session went, various photographies... And an introductory interview with Paul McCartney!
The third book of this critically - acclaimed series, nominated for the 2019 Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) award for Excellence In Historical Recorded Sound, "The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 3: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band through Magical Mystery Tour (late 1966-1967)" captures the band's most innovative era in its entirety. From the first take to the final remix, discover the making of the greatest recordings of all time. Through extensive, fully-documented research, these books fill an important gap left by all other Beatles books published to date and provide a unique view into the recordings of the world's most successful pop music act.
If we like to think, in all modesty, that the Paul McCartney Project is the best online ressource for everything Paul McCartney, The Beatles Bible is for sure the definitive online site focused on the Beatles. There are obviously some overlap in terms of content between the two sites, but also some major differences in terms of approach.
Contribute!
Have you spotted an error on the page? Do you want to suggest new content? Or do you simply want to leave a comment ? Please use the form below!