Abbey Road endures traffic as fans mark 50 yrs of album
London: Mark Kramer is a huge Beatles fan. Just hours after stepping off his overnight flight from Florida to London, he is not bleary-eyed but brimming with energy as he savors his time at the world’s best-known pedestrian crossing, CNN reported.
Beside the streaks of white paint that mark the zebra crossing on Abbey Road — a site protected since 2010 for its cultural and historical importance — he rattles off Beatles facts, talks about the band’s musical journey and grows ever more excited.
Kramer, 40, is here because of “Abbey Road,” the seminal album the band released on September 26, 1969 — 50 years ago Thursday.
Named after the street where it was recorded, it got mixed critical reviews but was an immediate commercial hit, topping
the charts in the UK for 17 weeks and the US for 11, and selling 4 million copies in just six weeks.
It would prove to be the last studio album the group made together (Let it Be, which came out in 1970, had already been recorded), as John Lennon had broken the news to his fellow band members that he was leaving shortly before its release.
To mark the special occasion, an anniversary edition of “Abbey Road” will be re-released on
September 27. Produced by Giles Martin, whose father, George, was the Beatles’ friend and producer, it will contain outtakes and additional material.
Giles Martin told CNN that his father thought that “Abbey Road” would be the group’s final album. He added: “I think they (The Beatles) knew things were changing. I think they were looking for a way out and they had all become more individual.”