With a Little Help from My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper [Hardcover]

George Martin (Author), William Pearson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1995

Telling the song-by-song story of one of the greatest albums in rock history, the producer who shaped the Beatles' sound shows how each song developed and provides intimate portraits of the Beatles at their peak. 25,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1962 George Martin reluctantly signed a young group called the Beatles to the EMI record label. Thus began his stint as record producer for one of the most groundbreaking bands in pop history. Martin, writing with freelancer Pearson, describes in detail the creative processes-both artistic and technical-that went into making one of the most acclaimed Beatles albums, the 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "a musical fragmentation grenade, exploding with a force that is still being felt." Tracing each song on the record from its genesis in the mind of one of the Fab Four, Martin explains how each fragment or idea evolved, with input from the entire band and from the engineering team, into a final track, and how the album broke new ground. Fans hoping for an inside scoop on some of the more sensational aspects of the bandmembers' lives will be disappointed, but admirers of the Beatles' music and those who take an interest in the technical aspects of record production will find this book engrossing. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

There are many (probably too many) books on the Beatles already, but this one is by someone closer professionally to the group than anyone else--George Martin, producer of all the Beatles' albums. With Pearson's help, Martin focuses on the making of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the landmark 1967 album that--with its exotic instruments, innovative recording techniques, and sophisticated songwriting--opened new possibilities for rock music and also captured its era's zeitgeist like few works of any kind before or since. Amid a detailed, song-by-song account of the recording of "the virtuoso music collage that is Pepper," Martin recalls his first meeting with the Beatles at their 1962 audition, discusses the band's musical influences, traces its members' rapid progress from makers of simple pop songs to composers of intricate art music, and confirms or denies many established bits of Beatles lore. Until one of the surviving band members pens his own autobiography, this is as intimate and accurate a look at the Beatles phenomenon as fans are going to get. Gordon Flagg

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T) (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316547832
• ISBN-13: 978-0316547833
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,134,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books ever written about the Beatles, September 21, 1999

By 

Joseph Scott ([e-mail]) (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: With a Little Help from My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper (Hardcover)

This fascinating, thorough, and accurate book about the making of the Sgt. Pepper album is the U.S. edition of Martin's Summer Of Love. It's the same book: same text, same photos, different title. Martin did a tremendous job researching this book, combining his and others' enjoyable first-hand recollections about the making of the album with extensive research at the EMI studios, relistening to the session tapes (including the unreleased alternate takes), checking the detailed notes written on the original session sheets, and so on. (In contrast, for All You Need Is Ears all those years ago, he relied on his memory, and the results were much less complete.) Amazingly, this was the first Beatles book to reveal that Paul McCartney played lead guitar on the "Sgt. Pepper" title track (yes, he sure did), and also the first to thoroughly dispel the tired myth that "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was "all John": it was a true cocomposition by John AND Paul (as John said himself in at least two interviews). It's refreshing to see a book like this that assumes the TRUTH will be "good enough" entertainment for any sensible reader. Martin, thankfully, simply ignores rock writers' relentless post-Lennon rewriting of Beatles history, which has magnified anything negative Lennon ever said about McCartney while ignoring anything positive (such as Lennon's praise of "When I'm Sixty-Four" to interviewer Anne Nightingale)... and has consistently seized on Lennon's MOST mistakenly exaggerated or misleading claims about his own role in the creation of songs, while "forgetting" about all the many times John happened to give Paul completely fair, due credit (such as his 1965 interview with Valerie Wilmer, in which he described "Ticket To Ride"'s melody as cowritten by McCartney). George Martin, who admired and liked both Lennon and McCartney, has no axe to grind about them, or the other two Beatles... and he finds the right balance of modesty and candor in describing his own important role in the creation of this album, too. The previously unseen session photos are a fine bonus. This book is a keeper.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Treasure, April 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: With a Little Help from My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper (Hardcover)

I'm pretty surprised about the few people here who have actually bashed this book. As a big Beatle fan and one who's read tons of books about them, I don't recall any inconsistancy's in this book whatsoever. Though short, this is probably one of the most prized Beatle books in my collection. My only complaint is I wish George Martin would do the same thing he's done here with Sgt. Pepper and write books about the sessions for the White Album, Revolver and Abby Rd. : ) A treasure to own. A book to read and re-read over and over.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Musicians take note!, December 24, 1998

By 

Steven Piermarini (Acton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: With a Little Help from My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper (Hardcover)

For fans of pop music history, and especially for those interested in recording science, this book is a must read. George Martin, the Beatles' producer, tells the detailed account of how the group's most famous album was created, from the beginning creative germs to the cover art.

For those in the recording industry, Martin's detailed explanations of how he created some of the now-famous effects on that album, at a time when recording science was still somewhat primitive, is quite interesting.

If you don't like the Beatles' music, you probably won't be able to sit through the sometimes technical recording talk, but anyone for whom the Beatles marked the culture of their youth should find it fascinating.