At a glance
The documentary “Sgt. Pepper’s Musical Revolution” will air at 8 p.m. Saturday on PBS, including WOSU-TV (Channel 34). documentarian Howard Goodall.
“I know it’s a landmark in terms of pop culture — the Summer of Love, youth culture, the ’60s,” Goodall said, “but really what I’m interested in is: What does this music say today? Why has it been treated with such respect for 50 years?”
Greg Harris, executive director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, noted, “Stylistically they were throwing garage rock in with music hall with Indian ragas.”
“Sgt. Pepper,” the most elaborate reissue yet of an individual Beatles album, is being offered in several configurations: on CD, digital and on vinyl — the last in a half-speed mastered pressing that ups the audio fidelity one more notch. It is accompanied by a second LP containing alternate mixes of all 13 “Sgt. Pepper” songs as selected by Giles Martin.
Overall, the “Sgt. Pepper” remix represents what the Beatles and George Martin might have done had they cared about stereo in 1967.
“It improves upon what was done 50 years ago while paying homage to the mono mix that the purists say is the only way to hear ‘Pepper,’” said Beatles historian Bruce Spizer, author of nearly a dozen books on the group’s recorded legacy and a new volume, “The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper: A Fans’ Perspective.”
“Like a lot of Beatles stuff,” he said, “it’s a bit like opening up a body, in a way. And you find it’s really healthy. All of the bits and pieces that make up ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ are there for a reason.”
Remixing one of the most hailed works in rock music called for more than myriad judgment calls on how much reverb to use, when to up the automatic double tracking, and when and where to split instruments or vocals into different channels.
“For my father,” Martin said, “it was the happiest time (working with the Beatles), I think, because they were all pulling in the same direction. In a typical Beatles way, they were actually pushing more than pulling: pushing their past away.
“They were almost deliberately not making an album for their screaming fans. That’s what was interesting.”