A Beatles Celebration   8/11/2007
The Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, Ca. Seat: Section G1, Box 5, Seat 13, 15

Forty years ago, pop music was largely a singles world and the instrumentation of rock bands seemed as solidly fixed by tradition as a string quartet. Then the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, making June 1, 1967 opening day for the Summer of Love. With its radical mix of musics and instruments, from English dance hall to North Indian classical, from Baroque to psychedelic, the album marked a step forward in the evolution of rock and roll and revolutionized the way we think of rock bands and orchestras working together.

Tickets

The Beatles' musical and technical collaborators on this project were Sir George Martin, who provided orchestral arrangements and produced the album, and Geoff Emerick, who engineered the project. Thirteen years after the release of that historic album, power-pop band Cheap Trick released their sixth album, All Shook Up. Heralded by critics as “America's answer to the Beatles” for their intelligently crafted, harmony-laden songs, the band this time worked with none other than George Martin and Geoff Emerick, who again provided orchestral arrangements as well as producing and engineering the album. As a tribute to Cheap Trick, Martin recreated in the studio the famous drone that ends Sgt. Pepper's and used it as the intro to All Shook Up, thereby forever linking the two bands and the two albums.

Almost 40 minutes long, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was recorded at EMI's Abbey Road Studios over a four-month period, from December 1966 to April 1967. Much of the unique sound of the project was created on the fly, as the four Beatles, Martin, and Emerick ranged over the entire orchestral line of instruments and exploited the latest technology and studio effects. Critic Kenneth Tynan labeled the album's release “a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization” in The Times of London, and it was the top-selling album in the UK for the next 23 weeks. It was the first rock album to win the Grammy award for Album of the Year. (It also won the Best Contemporary Album award, as well as a Grammy for Emerick's pioneering work, though Emerick was not listed among the album's credits.) First released on CD June 1, 1987, the album has remained a consistent and influential presence on the charts, and in 2003 Rolling Stone put it at the top of its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Newspaper review

The celebration of the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band conjures up many memories for me, and I am delighted that the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra along with Cheap Trick are performing these tribute concerts. Many in the audience will be too young to have remembered the event, but to me it is as clear as daylight. It was such an exciting time, a signal to all the youth of our nations that it was OK to be adventurous, OK to be daring, and OK to attempt to create something that had not been done before. In a way it gave young people a freedom that we were looking for, and I am sure in a small way it changed forever the way we all thought about pop music. I just wish I could be with you all, listening to our music; I will certainly be with you in spirit. - George Martin

We first worked with George Martin late in 1979 when we had our pre-production rehearsals with and for him at a studio in downtown Madison, Wisconsin for what would be the 1980 release of our sixth album, All Shook Up. I don't know how we got him to make the trip near to where we all lived at the time. My guess it was the music. Not long after that, we chartered a DC3 cargo plane for our gear and crew, packed up our families, and then spent a month recording all of the tracks at his Air Studio, Montserrat, in the West Indies (the studio has been closed since hurricanes and the volcano have devastated the island) and then finished some vocals and all orchestration at Air Studios, London. In addition to All Shook Up, we also recorded some movie soundtrack music with George. To this day, having the opportunity to work with Sir George and his engineer, Geoff Emerick, the same team that had done all those great Beatles records together, was and still is an honor.

In August of 1980, Bun E and myself were requested to work on a “secret” project which ended up being two of the tracks on Double Fantasy with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Producer Jack Douglas, who had produced our first album and later mixed our 1979 Cheap Trick Live At Budokan recordings, felt we could really add to the musical chemistry of John's comeback album. What a thrill! The day after we did those sessions, Cheap Trick flew off for another Japanese tour. When we returned Stateside, Bun E and I flew back to New York to do any additional guitars, drum parts, or background vocals for John, but he had just finished the tracks himself. As a gift from me, a fan, I had a special Hamer guitar built just for him. That would be the last time we saw John.

We're touched to have been chosen to be your electrical musical interpreters of some great, great music. This is music we grew up on, and though we all know it, I'm really just now appreciating how well these songs and arrangements have held up and, in my mind, still surpass most of the music that's been written, performed, and produced in the 40 years since then. Simple on a certain level, yet so complex, it's been a challenge for me. The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Hollywood Bowl, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, arrangements from Sir George Martin, and Cheap Trick - it's a dream come true. - Rick Nielsen, Cheap Trick