Abbey Road: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Famous Recording Studio (with a foreword by Paul McCartney)

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This joyful read offers a time-traveling experience, shedding light on the rapid evolution of our listening habits, the enduring impact of certain bands, and the pivotal role played by a studio that housed it all. The hardback is white with a black zebra crossing embossed on both front and back, and the spine has the title embossed onto a little road sign, too. Despite its spit take title, “That’s Why Darkies Were Born” is a great song, and, as sung by Robeson, a great record. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. The artwork for the book is beautiful, with an iconic white Abbey Road Studios wall autographed by some of the famous names who have recorded there.

Telling the story of the infamous studios through the eyes of all those who have walked through its doors, including much unpublished material. This arises from the coming together of one particular artist with one particular song on one particular medium, the 78 rpm record, at one particular moment. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. Unofficially the studio had already been in use for two months, recording the likes of bass-baritone Paul Robeson and pianist Raie Da Costa.

Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. David Hepworth has been writing, broadcasting and speaking about music and media since the seventies.

As we get closer to the present day, there's more opinion, with a definite undercurrent of nostalgia, which perhaps is understandable, and anyway never veers too close to grumpy old man territory. While the point isn’t made in Abbey Road, “try it quicker” and “start with the chorus” are the exact instructions George Martin gave the Beatles during the recording of “Please Please Me” and “A Hard Day’s Night” respectively. A story through the adress, the techcnical progress and development and the people working there, and the bands playing there.For me, the main and most interesting point to taker from the narrative is that the music that we have listened to and loved was the product of a combination of the artists themselves who supplied the vision of what they wanted to achieve, and the technicians and producers, without whom the sounds that we hear could not have been made reality. While still a working recording studio, in a world where anyone with a laptop can make a record in their bedroom, Abbey Road has had to be creative. Aller mest kjent for platene The Beatles spilte inn der, ikke minst fordi det siste bandet spilte inn i studioet fikk navnet Abbey Road. The introduction of the microphone, especially when used by a crooner like Al Bowlly, allowed for intimacy. Describes a book or dust jacket that does show some signs of wear on either the binding, dust jacket or pages.

Excellent and interesting history of Abbey Road and the recording of artists well before the Beatles in the 60s. Even into the late ‘90s, rock bands (rare as they were at the time) like Travis were still coming to Abbey Road to see if they couldn’t capture a bit of the old building’s magic on tape. Just about everything that David Hepworth sublimely documents happening at Abbey Road, the studio, serves as a fabulous historical template with implications and lessons far beyond the music business. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target.Compression, which Abbey Road engineers picked up by attending American recording sessions, made records sound “punchier, harder, more urgent. There’s a fine line between “those studio folks sure contributed” and “the Beatles would have been nothing without their technical minders,” but Hepworth walks it well. I welcomed these sidebars and found it only appropriate to "hear" the inside story of Abbey Road in Hepworth's very British voice. Of course, I especially liked reading about The Beatles and how they recorded at the studios, and as I read, I found myself yearning to visit the studios. This gorgeous book includes material on the artists, the engineers, the technology and the history of Abbey Road.