Abbey Road, The Beatles, 4 Decades Ago

Beatles fans swarm Abbey Road on album anniversary

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER – August 9, 2009

LONDON — Hundreds of Beatles fans swarmed Abbey Road on Saturday, singing songs and snarling traffic to mark 40 years since John, Paul, George and Ringo strode across the leafy north London street and into the history books on iconic pop photos.

The famous photo graced the cover of the Fab Four's "Abbey Road," the last album recorded together, and shows the bandmates walking purposefully across the zebra-striped asphalt.

It remains one of music's best-known album covers, endlessly imitated and parodied. Although the shoot itself only took a few minutes, so carefully studied was the cover for signs and symbolism that some die-hard fans came to the conclusion that Paul McCartney — who appears barefoot and out of step with the rest — had secretly died.

McCartney himself made fun of the bizarre conspiracy in the title of his 1993 concert album, "Paul is Live."

Conspiracies aside, the ease with which fans can imitate the scene has drawn throngs of tourists to the site every day, turning the street into "a shrine to the Beatles," said Richard Porter, who owns the nearby Beatles Coffee Shop and organized Saturday's event.

Crowds spilled into the street, cameramen jostled for angles, and exasperated drivers honked their horns.

"I didn't expect so many people to be here," said German visitor Tschale Haas, 50, who was dressed in a Sgt. Pepper jacket.

Abbey Road, which cuts through London's well-to-do neighborhood of St. John's Wood, is home to the eponymous studios where the group recorded much of its work.

The group decided to shoot the photograph in August 1969 while recording music for the last time together. For the shot, photographer Iain Macmillan stood on a stepladder and police held up traffic while the Beatles walked back and forth across the street.

The enduring popularity of the site has caused headaches for local authorities, who have had to move the Abbey Road street sign up out of reach to prevent theft and repaint the wall every three months to hide fans' graffiti.

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The Beatles: Before They Were Legends

I can't believe that it is the legendary Beatles that I am seeing now on this post! Where are the screaming, crying and running girls? It was nice to see that they were very common and normal before all that Beatlemania. Ok continue reading...

Title: Here comes the sun: Unique photos of the Beatles in the summer of 1963 before worldwide fame

Four weeks later their lives were to change forever.

But in this photograph the Beatles can still enjoy a quiet few hours sunbathing without, it appears, a care in the world - or being swamped by fans.

It was taken in July 1963 during a week when the group had packed out the Odeon cinema in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.


Pictured from the left: George Harrison, 20, Paul McCartney, 21, John Lennon, 22, and Ringo Starr, 23, relax in the sun in Weston-Super-Mare during a week's appearance at the local cinema

The band had already had three top ten hits - Love Me Do, Please Please Me and From Me To You.

But it was to be August of that year, when She Loves You shot straight to number one, that saw Beatlemania unleashed and the transformation of the four young Liverpudlians into global stars.

In the deckchairs pictured from the left: Management organiser Tommy Quickly, George Harrison, John Lennon and a waving Ringo Starr

In the calm before the storm, the band was captured in a scene typical of an English resort of that era.

The lack of response to their presence from the holiday crowds can be judged by the dozing sunbather in the picture who lies there in his underpants without a flicker of interest in the soon-to-be superstars.

Famous bands: The Beatles chat with Gerry and The Pacemakers in the Weston-Super-Mare hotel in July 1963

The unknown photographer who took this shot was persuaded to part with the copyright-by Beatles publicist Tony Barrow.

The picture has remained unseen since.

Mr Barrow, who worked with the group between 1963 and 1968, said: "This is before the pressures of the Beatles got to them, they are not putting anything on for the camera.

Tea time: The Beatles and Gerry and The Pacemakers enjoy a drop of tea at the hotel

"They just wouldn't be able to do this again in a month's time, there's a real innocence here."

The picture is from a collection Mr Barrow aims to publish in a book about the Beatles.

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