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   CLUB SANDWICH 45

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GIVING THE SERGEANT A HAND

To get a new angle on the Pepper syndrome, Harry George has unearthed some interesting characters who helped to make up the Lonely Hearts Club Band.

            Before and after the Beatles came along, it was common practice for session men to play on records supposedly performed unaided by the group in question. Although the Beatles had to accept Andy White standing in for Ringo on one version of 'Love Me Do', they saw little need for outside help and argued successfully that 'Please Please Me', not Mitch Murray's 'How Do You Do It', should be the follow-up. In any case, George Martin soon recognized that his technical help (and occasional piano) was all that was required.
            However, as the Beatles became more ambitious, orchestration (hitherto probably thought of as 'soft') became a means of developing their ideas to the full, the first example being 'Yesterday' and its string quartet. By the time of 'Eleanor Rigby', strings were not a complete surprise and
Revolver also contained the first individual credits for musicians outside the group's inner circle. Alan Civil was revealed as the French horn player on 'For No One', while Anil Bhaqwat's tabla playing was acknowledged on George Harrison's 'Love You To'. The only other musician thus acknowledged was Billy Preston, whose organ playing on 'Get Back' was credited on the single label - a highly unusual move.
            During the unprecedented length of the
Sgt. Pepper sessions, the Beatles and George Martin became in effect arrangers of a new type of orchestra: the recording studio with its growing number of devices. However, there was still a need for the real thing - even the versatile Paul, once an embryo trumpeter, could not play a wind instrument, for instance. Thus four extra musicians added brass to the title track, as did three members of Sounds Incorporated on 'Good Morning, Good Morning'.
            Again, despite the power of the tenor saxophone in rock
V roll, the Beatles were part of the electric guitar generation which associated brass with American showbiz and tacky pop records. But, like 'Penny Lane' and 'Strawberry Fields' before it, Pepper had a very British sound: John, Paul George and Ringo would use many American musicians for their solo work, but the brass players employed in 1967 showed little foreign influence. The sound on 'Pepper' itself looks forward to Paul's involvement with the Black Dyke Mills Band the following year, while Sounds Inc. (good belters behind Little Richard in Don't Knock The Rock) contributed an updated rock 'n roll sound to 'Good Morning'.
            Among its other distinctions,
Pepper contains something unique in the Beatles canon - a string arrangement not by George Martin, on 'She's Leaving Home'. Unlike the Rolling Stones, who have always believed that no one is indispensable, the Beatles liked to record with the whole team (including George) present whenever possible. On this occasion, Paul had a fit of the creative urges when George was committed to recording Cilia Black and, unwilling to wait, got Mike Leander in to arrange. (Sherlock Holmes could not have told from this delicate piece of work that, five years on, the same man would launch Gary Glitter on an unsuspecting world!) Today, George Martin confesses frankly that it "hurt like hell" when Paul used someone else and that Mike did a superb job.
            But Uncle George's expertise was back in play on the other George's 'Within You Without You', blending Western string players with Harrison's helpers from the Indian Musicians' Association. Purists who feel this mixture corrupts the Indians' contribution should remember the composer's reverence for Indian
music and beliefs. Also, anyone who has heard Asian pop music will know that it adds Western trimmings to ethnic instrumentation quite shamelessly.
            'When I'm 64' brings in three outsiders expert in the soft-shoe shuffle mode. Paul enjoyed it so much he returned to the style with 'Honey Pie' on the
White Album and did some shuffling himself on the James Paul McCartney TV special.
            And so to the big one: 'A Day In The Life'. Even those who profess to find
Pepper a period piece are hard put to scoff here. The story is well known how George Martin told the musicians to disobey the basic rule of listening to the players around them, creating the desired effect of organized chaos during that memorable crescendo. Orchestra leader David McCallum (father of the Man From UNCLE actor) and his colleagues - 39 in all- wore party masks and hats and streamers streamed while Mick Jagger and others looked on in admiration and amusement. What a shame the film of this session has not been widely seen.
            Some fool wrote that
Sgt. Pepper was George Martin's best album to date. This was hardly George's fault, but it made the Beatles slightly miffed with him for a time. In fact, as he has been happy to tell anyone interested in this anniversary year, their gifted and sympathetic producer was the conduit and interpreter, most of the ideas coming from 'the boys' themselves.
            The five of them knew who to use and how to use them best. This is one of
Sgt Pepper's achievements.

Club Sandwich 45

George Martin taking a cut!