People PEOPLE The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper at 55

“IT’S wonderful TO BE HEREIT’S CERTAINLY A THRILLYOU’RE SUCH A LOVELY audienceWE’D LIKE TO TAKE YOU HOME WITH USWE’D love TO TAKE YOU HOME.…”—“SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND”“I don’t REALLY WANT TO stop the show…”—PAUL MCCARTNEY, “SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND” A SPLENDID TIME IS GUARANTEED FOR ALL! THE MAKING OF SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND • THE STORIES BEHIND ALL THE SONGS • HOW THE BEATLES’ WORST YEAR LED TO THEIR MOST ACCLAIMED ALBUM • REMEMBERING 1967 & THE SUMMER OF LOVE PLUS HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY, PAUL!…

EVEN BEFORE SGT. PEPPER came out, people loved to debate whether it would stand the test of time. You can’t even begin talking about the music before you make it past the Easter Island-size obstacle of a question history has left in its path: Is Pepper the Greatest Album of All Time? When it came out on CD in 1987, EMI ran ads proclaiming it “the most important record ever issued on compact disc” and “the Beatles’ first great album.” But Sgt. Pepper was already hailed as their magnum opus before anyone heard it—indeed, before virtually any of the songs were written. The Greatest question is embedded right there in the music. You can’t argue the lads didn’t plan on making the Greatest Album Ever—that was practically the only idea…

“IS BEATLEMANIA DEAD?” Time magazine posed the question in a 1966 headline, and with the cover of their landmark album release the following year, the Beatles themselves would answer it, staging what looks like a funeral for their younger lovable mop-top selves. But at the dawn of 1966 the delirious derangement called Beatlemania was alive, well—and a right pain for the four lads. It quashed George Harrison’s plans for a vacation after the 22-year-old’s January wedding to model Pattie Boyd, whom he’d met during filming of A Hard Day’s Night two years before. “We shall not have a honeymoon yet,” mourned the groom, his arm around Pattie’s red-fox coat. “We would just be hounded.” Then, in March, the London Evening Standard published a solo at-home interview John had given columnist Maureen Cleave, in…

BEFORE IT HAD A TITLE—they were calling it simply The New Album—the Beatles’ eighth studio LP had a mandate: Let them be anyone but themselves. “I took an idea back to the guys,” Paul McCartney recalled in The Beatles Anthology. “‘How about if we become an alter ego band, something like, say, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts? I’ve got a little bit of a song cooking with that title.’” Alter egos aside, they remained the Beatles, of course, and U.S. record dealers placed orders for more than 1 million copies of the yet-to-be-released album. With a streak of seven straight chart-toppers, they’d earned a license to experiment. “We had a huge opportunity,” said McCartney at the record’s 25th anniversary. “We could do anything we wanted.” So they did. And right away Life…

“We’re always being asked how we write our songs,” Paul told a reporter back in 1964. “There are two things we always do when we’re going to sit down and write a song. First of all, we sit down. Then we think about a song.” Inspiration could strike almost anywhere. Lennon and McCartney wrote “Love Me Do” and “I Saw Her Standing There” as teenagers in the McCartney family sitting room. “She Loves You” started life as the band was traveling in a van and someone said, “Don’t worry, ’cause she loves you.’” “Eleanor Rigby” took a little longer. “I was sitting at the piano when I thought of it,” Paul told Time in 1967. “The first few bars just came to me. And I got this name in my head—‘Daisy Hawkins,…

George Martin died in March 2016 at age 90. Paul McCartney spoke to Entertainment Weekly music editor Kevin O’Donnell about the Beatles’ longtime producer and friend. George Martin was in the studio from your first album, Please Please Me. We were Liverpool guys—we hadn’t been down to London much. Here we were in this famous recording studio, not having any idea what the game was. But we were quick learners. We came in through the tradesman entrance, brought our amps, set up our stuff, and from on high in the control room came down this guy, who, you know, was George Martin. He let us know how it went. George was the master in control. He was so lovely to work with. He had a beautiful sense of humor. He didn’t get into…