Marking the End of ITV's "The South Bank Show"...

The Making of Sgt Pepper (Part 1)



To commemorate the ending of a great cultural and artistic documentative TV icon "The South Bank Show", here we see a classic full episode on Youtube, from 1992, showing us how "The Beatles" historic album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was produced, in itself commemorating it's 25th Anniversary. We are welcomed at first by that engraved-in-legend theme song of the show, a myriad of classical violins, punchy guitar, jazzy piano chords, the flute and 70's synth. Presented by Melvyn Bragg.

This episodes shows archive clips from the scene of "Swinging Britain" in the late-60's, along with fresh interviews with the likes of The Beatles record producer George Martin, the 3 surviving Beatles members Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. John Lennon was assassinated back in 1980. The episode highlight how the influence of drugs like LSD were an influence on the album itself. This led to a psychedelic rock feel to the album.

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released in 1967, The Beatles eighth album, which become one of their best and one of the most iconic albums in music history. The LP cover envisaged "The Fab Four" in the legendary pompous and regal brightly coloured buttoned uniforms, in front of a large gallery of famous faces from down the decades including the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Laurel and Hardy. The unique preposition for this album, were The Beatles became this fictional or alter-ego band, with the same name as the album title, changing their image and growing moustaches and longer hair. It contains classic hit songs like "With a Little Help from My Friends", "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". You can't knock it, can you?

The last episode of "The South Bank Show" was screened on the 28th December 2009. The last South Bank Awards Show was shown only 2 days ago, with many of the star-studded audience pouring scorn over ITV's decision to axe the Arts and culture programme. The programme ends for "good, good" after a series of "Revisited" episodes in Spring 2010.