SINGING SGT. PEPPER
Four Canadian stars give voice to their thoughts about one of the most important pop albums of all time
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is one of the most important albums ever produced. The eighth studio album by the Beatles, it was released in June 1967. There are more than 70 million copies sold. It spent 27 weeks at the top of the UK Album Chart and 15 weeks at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200. It won four Grammys in 1968 and was named the greatest album of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003.
The songs are: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; With a Little Help from My Friends; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Getting Better; Fixing a Hole; She’s Leaving Home; Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!; Within You Without You; When I’m SixtyFour; Lovely Rita; Good Morning Good Morning; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise); and A Day in the Life.
It takes chutzpah to prepare a concert and new arrangements of this music, but that is what the Toronto-based musical ensemble Art of Time has done.
This will be the second presentation; the first was in Toronto in 2012. To help understand the event more deeply, the Citizen interviewed the four prominent Canadian singers who are taking part. This is an edited transcript.
Andy Maize (Skydiggers)
Favourite Beatle? Paul initially. I’m a real sucker for melody. Then I went through a John phase for the depth and now I’m sort of in a George phase. I’ve recently been listening to All Things Must Pass and so it’s more postBeatles stuff with George. Is Sgt. Pepper your favourite Beatles album? It’s right up there, but my favourite Beatles records are Rubber Soul and Revolver. They show them in such an interesting transition. (Moving) from Rubber Soul to Revolver is a huge leap, but there are still some wonderful songs on Rubber Soul, especially Nowhere Man. Sgt. Pepper is an important album. I just don’t think they made a bad record. It was one of the first concept albums and one of the first to really use the studio as an instrument. It started with Revolver with Tomorrow Never Knows, but they took that much further on Sgt. Pepper.
What songs are you
singing? I’m singing Within You Without You, A Day in the Life and Getting Better. Getting Better and Within You Without You are — it’s probably the wrong word — easy songs to sing. Day in the Life is such an iconic song; to approach that one I feel a fair bit of responsibility. When I step up to sing it, I feel Lennon looking over my shoulder a little bit. I feel like I’ve really got to deliver. Getting Better is a Paul Song, Within You Without You is George and Day in the Life is mostly John. So I have covered all my Beatles. How have you enjoyed working with Art of Time? I’ve done several shows with Art of Time. We did Abbey Road a few years ago and there have been other events. This time I think we will be picking up from where we left off, and having the opportunity to digest what we’ve already done. I think we’ll start out at a different level and take it even higher. The first time out we were learning together.
John Mann (Spirit of the West)
Favourite Beatle It’s always been Paul. He’s just a master of writing these incredible little tunes. I love melody. Craig (Northey) and I have been getting together to rehearse — we go to Craig’s house or my house and we are always amazed at how fantastic they are. Is Sgt. Pepper your favourite Beatles album? I’d have to say it is. My older brother Jeff is a Beatles fan and we had that album kicking around the house. I am happy to be reunited with that. The melody and the songs are fantastic and the writing is so good. They were very whimsical with Sgt. Pepper. They were very thematic and you don’t really see that anymore, which is a shame. What songs are you singing? When I’m 64 and Fixing a Hole. My favourite song is 64. It’s just so singable. The melody is so ‘hooky’ and I really admire that. I feel no pressure singing them. I’ve done it so many times. We’ve been rehearsing for quite awhile and I don’t get sick of them. I find more every time. I think McCartney is a throwback to an era long gone. I am buoyed by the fact that the first time we did it the audience just went crazy. How have you enjoyed working with Art of Time? I hadn’t worked with them. And I just kind of ran with it. We were all a little nervous that first show off the top. But I think we all came in there very well prepared and when you have that your confidence is set. This time I’m gonna just do what I do. It feels good and everyone has their designated songs. I’m just glad I wasn’t given Within You Without You.
Steven Page (one-time member of the
Barenaked Ladies)
Favourite Beatle?
I always thought it was supposed to be John, but honestly ... John’s peak as a writer was in the era from Hard Day’s Night to Rubber Soul (although his first two solo records are pretty flawless, too). And as much as I love Ringo’s first few solo albums, Paul has proven himself to be the most versatile and also the most musically fearless. Paul’s unabashed desire to simply be himself, whether it’s at his most experimental or his most saccharine, places him above the others in my heart.
Is Sgt. Pepper your favourite Beatles album?
No, that’s probably the White Album, but Sgt. Pepper is pretty fantastic and groundbreaking. From a recording geek’s point of view, much of it still blows my mind, and the flow from song to song is pretty perfect. That it’s iconic is pretty well agreed upon, but it’s importance can be debated. I think it’s less of a “concept album” than it was presented to be, and many Beatles have since backed this up. It has a lot in common with Revolver, but remember this came out in the Summer of Love — times had begun to change significantly when Sgt. Pepper was released. That album (Revolver) helped usher in those changes, and famously influenced so many other musicians from Hendrix to the Rolling Stones to Eric Clapton, and then across the lines of nearly every other musical genre.
What songs are you singing on the 28th?
I’ll be taking the lead on the title song as well as Lovely Rita, She’s Leaving Home and a couple of others. The show is far from a “tribute” concert, and there is much in the arrangements that have been reimagined. However, the melodies have stayed the same, which can both be very exciting to sing, since it’s an album I’ve known like the back of my hand since I was a child, and it can also be daunting, especially when singing a song like She’s Leaving Home, which McCartney already sang perfectly. The work is to make the song your own without taking it too far from what already made it great.
How have you enjoyed working with Art of Time on this project?
I started working with Art of Time Ensemble in 2008, and I believe this is my sixth project with them, including a tour a few years ago. It’s really an amazing group of musicians from the jazz and classical worlds who come together with us rock and pop types. It’s a situation that could be intimidating for a lot of musicians from my world, but once we get into the rehearsal room, that all goes away; we are all musicians working toward the same goal.
Craig Northey (The Odds)
Favourite Beatle?
George. He played guitar and wasn’t everyone else’s pick. I liked his big Gretsch guitar better than John’s shrimpy Rickenbacker. I was a little kid. He played it cool and seemed to have the deadliest dry wit. Is Sgt. Pepper your favourite Beatles album?
My favourite is Revolver. When the drugs really kicked in (for them), it got interesting. I loved the guitar work and the sounds were so exotic. Sgt. Pepper was so dense and trippy when I was a little kid. It took me longer to grow into it but now that I am also dense and trippy I can totally relate. Although ... most times I feel like the White Album as I tend to ramble and have a lot of internal arguments. I definitely think Sgt. Pepper is/was innovative and iconic. Everything about it was big. It happened at the confluence of free thought and the modern recording process. The way people used the studio as a tool was altered by the Beatles and their henchmen.
Things were different after that. The possibilities were limitless. What songs are you singing on the 28th?
I’m singing lead on Strawberry Fields Forever (which was recorded for Sgt. Pepper but didn’t come out on that album), Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, Good Morning Good Morning and Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite. All John songs and I was probably chosen because I sing through my nose more than the other guys. My range isn’t super high and when I go high I have the classic “strained sound.” It’s a very exotic and transformative experience to be in front of a small yet powerful orchestra and listening to these songs take over the space. They’re really weird and wonderful pieces of art. They are part of my muscle memory but if I stop to think or count them out, or try to understand them on an academic level, they melt my mind. It still feels like you’re breaking into a new dimension when you sing them ... even though they were written 45 years ago. How have you enjoyed this project?
We performed the show for three nights last year and it was a blast. I have been friends with the other singers for a couple of decades and we get on like a real band except not the bad parts of being in bands.
Andrew Burashko (the artistic director of Art of Time) is brilliant. He comes up with great ideas and great pairings of artists while all the while having to rip up the ivories and lead the posse. A few of the composers and arrangers are friends of mine and I would include them in the Art of Time Ensemble. What they have contributed and accomplished is wonderful. The ensemble of players is absolutely world class.
I grew up with a classical musician mom and my first instrument was violin. This whole experience is a smorgasbord of comfort food.
What have I learned from this experience? Say yes whenever Andrew Burashko calls.