As you may have heard, it was 40 years ago yesterday that the Beatles unleashed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on an unsuspecting world.
And yes, I think it's a great record, and yes, I remember exactly where I was the first time I encountered it.
That's all I'm gonna say.
Over to you, kids.
As said kid, I'm almost blushing to tell you how old I was when this record came out: less than one. So I never really lived in a world without Sgt. Pepper. Despite the fact that it, in many ways, was the end of the Beatles' power pop period, it's just a mighty record.
And a short documentary.
Best line (from Ringo, natch): "It's a fine album, but I did learn to play chess on it."
--NYMary
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Okay, here's what I remember.
June 1st 1967 was a Saturday.
I wanted to be the first person I knew to buy the album, but the only record stores where I lived in Jersey -- a little mom and pop store in Teaneck, or Sam Goody at the mall in Paramus -- wouldn't open till noon.
But I knew this kind of hip little indie store in Greenwich Village, so I took early bus into the city.
Ten o'clock, and I was the first person in the store, and I bought it.
Then I smoked a joint and walked around the Village. It was downright eerie -- everywhere you went, the album was being played loud. It seemed like every window was open, and everybody was playing it.
Walking back uptown to the bus station, it also seemed like everybody was carrying a copy of the damn thing. People were actually waving the album at each other.
If memory serves, the first FM rock station -- WOR-FM, home of Rosko and the suddenly grovvy Murray the K -- was playing it non-stop as well. I do remember that George Harrison showed very soon after the album was released -- maybe within a week or so -- and a lengthy interview with Murray, which pretty much everybody I knew tried to tape.
It was a very busy summer, is what I'm saying.
I was ten in 1967 and had a transistor radio glued to my ear every night - WAMS AM Wilmington. The older sibs were tuning into the newer FM formats (WMMR) but I and my younger sis were down with the pop of the day.
I didn't turn into a full Beatles fan til early 70's.
heh, instant commenting!!!
nice!
The first two "albums" I ever got were Christmas gifts when I was a 6th-grader: Pepper and "The Beatles Second Album" as they were realeased back then on Capitol Records.
Pop and psychedelia.
That was half-year before Woodstock and we were living in West Hurley then, having just moved from a little pink rented house on Rock City Road.
The next Christmas my 'rents got me a Vox Panther bass guitar, which I still have. Very cool.
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