Thursday, February 2, 1967
Recording "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
For The Beatles
Last updated on December 26, 2023
Thursday, February 2, 1967
For The Beatles
Last updated on December 26, 2023
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)
Recording studio: EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
Session Early February 1967 • Recording "Love In The Open Air"
Interview February 1967 • The Beatles interview for The Beatles Monthly Book
Session Feb 02, 1967 • Recording "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
Session Feb 03, 1967 • Recording "A Day In The Life" #3
Article Feb 05, 1967 • Paul McCartney attends a concert by Cream
Some of the songs worked on during this session were first released on the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (UK Mono)" LP.
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.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Recording • SI onto take 9
AlbumOfficially released on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (50th anniversary boxset)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Tape copying • Tape reduction take 9 into take 10
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 1 from take 10
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 Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 3: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band through Magical Mystery Tour (late 1966-1967)
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 modestly consider the Paul McCartney Project to be the premier online resource for all things Paul McCartney, it is undeniable that The Beatles Bible stands as the definitive online site dedicated to the Beatles. While there is some overlap in content between the two sites, they differ significantly in their approach.
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