Abbey Road & Beatles Legendary crossing and studio in London (photo story). Mysterious crossing on Abbey Road in England John Lennon originally named the group differently

Forty years ago, at 11:35 a.m., the Beatles crossed a quiet street in north London on a zebra.

The photo session for their new album “Abbey Road” took place a few meters from the recording studio of the same name and took about ten minutes - photographer Ian MacMillan took only six shots, for this he had to climb a stepladder.

Since then, the cover of the new album has become a legend for two reasons - no cover like this has become the object of so many imitations, and no cover like this has spawned so many conspiracy legends.

For crazed fans with inflamed imaginations, this was the ultimate proof of the delusional legend of the time - that Paul McCartney is really dead.

According to this legend, Paul died in a car accident and was replaced by a doppelgänger. The band, legend has it, felt guilty about this deception and placed hidden signs on the album cover for their fans.

Thus, even today, despite Sir Paul's pronounced health, they continue to insist that if you look closely at the images on the front and back covers, you will find symbols of death hidden there.

There is no doubt that this album meant only one death. It was not yet known to the public at that time that the Beatles were in the last stages of disintegration, and this was their last album.

Relations between the band members deteriorated so much that they abandoned the original title of the Everest album and the Himalayan photography, and instead filmed near the studio - and this was the only thing they did by mutual agreement.

Die-hard fans, however, could read much more from the photographs.

1.FUNERAL

The procession of the Beatles, walking along the "zebra", means a funeral for Paul. John Lennon walks in front in a white suit and symbolizes a priest. Ringo Star is a mourner dressed in black. George Harrison, in a scruffy shirt and jeans, represents the gravedigger. Paul is wearing an old suit and is the only one walking barefoot. He later explained that he started filming in sandals, but later took them off as it was a very hot day. Adherents of the legend say that if this is true, then walking on hot asphalt is uncomfortable, and this once again confirms that Pol is a corpse.

2. CIGARETTE

Paul is left-handed, but here he is holding a cigarette in his right hand. Cigarettes are commonly referred to as "nails in the coffin." Thus, this is a sign that Paul's "coffin lid" is boarded up, and the man in the photo is his doppelgänger.

Paul is also out of step with the rest of the group. Everyone has a left foot in front, and Paul has a right foot, which again confirms that he is different from the others.

3. REGISTRATION NUMBER

The white Volkswagen Beetle in the background has registration number LMW 28IF. Conspiracy theorists say this means Paul would have been 28 IF he hadn't died.

Paul was actually 27 years old when "Abbey Road" was released, but fortunately for conspiracy theorists, Indian mystics calculate a person's age from conception, not birth, so in this case, Paul would indeed be 28 years old.

This is supported by the fact that the musicians were famous adherents of the Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. LMW is also believed to stand for "Linda McCartney Weeps" - referring to Paul's wife, whom he married earlier this year.

4. spectators

In the background, a small group of white-clad people stand on one side of the street, and a lone person stands on the other side.

Does this mean that Paul is alone and separate from the others?

5. POLICE MINIBUS

There is a black police van parked on the right side of the street, a reference to the police remaining silent on "Paul's death".

According to legend, the band's manager Brian Epstein bought this silence, and the presence of a police "bean" in the photo is another "thank you".

6.LINE OF MACHINES

You can draw a line from the Volkswagen Beetle to the three cars in front of it. If it is passed through their right wheels, it will just touch Paul's head, and according to theorists, this means that Paul received a head injury in a car accident.

7. BLOOD SPOT

A stain can be seen on the Australian version of the album. It can be seen as a bloodstain on the road, it is located between Ringo and John, indirectly confirming the version of a car accident.

8. SHUTTERED LETTER S

On the back of the cover there is a photo of the Abbey Road sign, and above is the inscription BEATLES. The crack passing through the letter S is clearly visible - it is believed that this indicates problems within the group.

To the left of the Beatles inscription is a group of eight dots. If you connect them together, you get the number 3.

Does this mean there are three Beatles left?

10. IMAGE OF DEATH

If the cover is held with the back facing you and rotated 45 degrees counterclockwise, the image of the Demon of Death can be clearly seen. Some people believe that this means that someone in the group has died.

11. GIRL

No one knows who the blue-clad girl on the back cover is. On the night that "the car crash happened", according to the followers of the legend, it was raining heavily, and Paul gave a lift to one fan named Rita. It must be the same girl, and she is either running away from the scene of the accident or running to call for help.

12. Paul's resting place

If the inscription on the wall is broken into separate sections, then you can get an encrypted message - “Be At Les Abbey”. In numerology, the next two letters - R and O are the 18th and 15th letters of the alphabet. Putting them together (33) and multiplying by the number of letters (2), we get the number 66 - the year in which Paul supposedly died.

The number 3 also corresponds to the letter C, so 33 corresponds to SS. CC means the short name of Cecilia, and adherents of the legend believe that Paul was buried at St Cecilia's Abbey in Ryde on the Isle of Wight.

I want to warn you right away that I took all the information from open sources and something from my own memory. I can assume that people from among the real fans of the Beatles are very jealous of the history of the group and the details associated with it. I apologize if I made any inaccuracies.

2. To begin with, I want to show a diagram of how to get to this place in London. You need to take the metro to St. John's Wood station (link to the metro map) and go down about 400 meters to Abbey Road:

3. We leave the subway. This is what the station looks like:

3. We go down the Grove End Road. On the left side drew attention to the hospital of St.John and St.Elizabeth. To the left, the window of the hospital dining room overlooks the planted flowers on the hill. What care for the sick:

4. At the intersection of Abbey Road and Grove End there is a memorial to the famous sculptor Edward Onslow Ford:

5. From the memorial, you can see the very passage where the Beatles and just tourists are constantly crowding:

6. Everyone wants to get themselves in the frame at the transition:

7. And back in 1969, during a photo shoot of the Beatles, everything was different:

8. There are many legends about the history of this cover and photography. Why is Paul barefoot, why is John in white, etc. There is a lot of information on the net, here are a couple of links to these topics and:

9. Well, according to tradition, photos with me are clickable. In order to add my LJ as a friend, you can click on my cool scarf:

10. Let's look at the transition closer. They say (write) that he was slightly shifted from his historical place. Read the details on Wikipedia:

11. Well, we continue to admire the creativity of enthusiastic:

12. Asians have always been famous for plastic:

13. Look, the same guy as in the first photos. Although a lot of time has passed. Everyone walks and walks along the transition. Enjoys and angers car drivers:

14. Let's take a break from the Beatles for a while and go a little further along Abbey Road. Literally 200 meters away is a very beautiful Baptist church Abbey Road Baptist Church:

15. Pay attention to the car behind the fence. The parishioners arrived

16. Well, we'll go back, because we haven't looked at another Abbey Road Studios legend:

17. She continues to work today thanks to her popularity:

Very famous world musicians recorded here. From Russia, in 2006, the group Mashina Vremya recorded their album Time Machine here. Andrei Makarevich spoke very flatteringly about the work on the album at that time.

18. Entrance:

19. The same porch 1969:

20. They didn’t let me inside:

22. A few more places where fans love to leave their footprints here. Brickwork studio fence:

24. And the gate supports:

26. Another attraction is the studio webcam:

It is directed to the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing. If you go to the studio's website, you can see what's happening online. Here is a link to the camera: http://www.abbeyroad.com/Crossing. Picture delay about 2 minutes.

28. And finally, a bench, which indicates in which area of ​​London the famous crossing is located:

In conclusion, I propose to watch my video, the frames of which were shot in parallel with the photos of this post:

That's all. See previous parts

After extremely unsuccessful recording sessions for the planned album get back(later renamed to Let It Be- 1970) Paul McCartney suggested that producer George Martin get together and record an album "like in the old days", without those quarrels and omissions that began with the work on the record The Beatles(aka White Album). Martin agreed on the condition that everything would be "as it was before", and the end result was Abbey Road. Work on it took place from February to August 1969.

The Beatles' twelfth album was originally named Everest: such cigarettes were smoked by one of the engineers of the studio, Jeff Emerick. The mountains depicted on the pack really liked the group.

But the name had to be changed: none of the team members wanted to go to Nepal for a photo shoot. We got out of this situation very simply and, as it turned out later, very successfully.

The cover art was designed by Apple Records creative director John Kosh. Abbey Road- the only British album of the Beatles, on the cover of which neither the artist nor the name is indicated. The record company EMI warned that the record would not be sold without this information. Kosh clarified that they "didn't have to put the band's name on the cover... They were the most famous band in the world."

A couple of days before the shoot, Ian was given a sketch by Paul McCartney showing what it should look like.

On a particularly hot August 8, around half past eleven, Ian Macmillan, a freelance photographer and friend of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, arrived at the studio building on Abbey Road. The Beatles were waiting for him on the porch.

In stock, Macmillan had only 10 minutes to take the desired photograph. Especially for this, the police blocked the site of the already busy Abbey Road in those days. Using a Hasselblad camera with a 50mm f22 wide angle lens at 1/500th of a second, Ian took the first 3 photos while standing on a stepladder.

After that, I had to stop and let some of the cars pass and only then shoot the remaining 3.

Paul keeps the flip flops when they return, but leaves them on the sidewalk for the rest of the photo shoot.

McCartney examined all the photographs with a magnifying glass before deciding which one would make the cover. The selection settled on the fifth shot, in which the group is crossing the street from left to right, Lennon leading the procession, followed by Starr, McCartney and Harrison. McCartney walks barefoot and out of step with the others. It also featured Alan Flanagan, Steve Millwood and Derek Seagrove, decorating the studio and returning from lunch. They can be found in the frame on the far left.

Parked to the left, a white Volkswagen Beetle belonged to a tenant in the apartment building across from the studio. After the release of the album, the license plate (LMW 281F) was stolen several times. In 1986, the car was sold at Sotheby's to an American billionaire for £2,530, and in 2001 it was exhibited in a German museum.

It is believed that the person standing on the sidewalk to the right of the crossing is Paul Cole, an American tourist. He was tired of going to museums: he just decided to stand and see what was happening around while his wife was examining museum exhibits. Paul got into a conversation with the policeman who was in the car. While they were talking, the tourist noticed that several people had gathered at the pedestrian crossing and four of them began to walk back and forth along the zebra: “Some weirdos! Who walks around London barefoot? Paul Cole noticed himself on the cover of the album only a few years later.

Shortly before the release of the album Abbey Road The Rat Subterranean News published an article claiming that Paul McCartney died in a car accident in 1966 and that the current "Paul" is actually William Campbell. And the picture became a new "proof" of the conspiracy theory. The number on the Volkswagen LMW 281F that was in the picture was read as "Paul would be 28 years old if he was alive" (and it does not matter that Paul turned 27 in 1969). And the whole composition personifies the funeral procession -  ahead John in white as a priest, at the end George in all jeans as an undertaker, and Paul himself with his eyes closed, barefoot, a cigarette in his hand (the expression "a cigarette is a nail from a coffin"), and even walking out of step with the others.

McCartney always denied these allusions, saying that it was nonsense: “We wore ordinary clothes. I was barefoot because it was hot. And the Volkswagen just happened to be there.” In 1993, Paul released a live album Paul Is Live, the cover of which parodied and Abbey Road, and the "evidence" of his own death "found" on it.

The image of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road has become one of the most famous and copied in history. For example, Red Hot Chili Peppers took it as a prototype for the cover. Abbey Road EP.

In 2010, the crossing was given Category II status for its "cultural and historical significance"; Abbey Road Studios had received similar status a few months earlier. There is a special site on which, since 2011, the famous transition has been broadcast in real time.

I wanted to look at England through a webcam, since I can’t go. Through a webcam search engine, I found an intersection on Abbey Road in London.

Cars scurry back and forth. I feel like my head is spinning. Ah, I guessed - it's because they drive on the left side.
Here are the pedestrians. Grouped and standing at the pedestrian crossing. Drivers in England are polite - they stop, let pedestrians pass, but they do not go. They will come to the road, then they will depart. Or they will cross the transition, and then return back. I think maybe the tourists... They don't know which way to go? Strange behaviour, isn't it? That's where I got interested. I kept watching. Below are screenshots from the computer.

Finally, two pedestrians grew bolder and went. One ran out onto the road and takes a picture of the second one walking along the zebra. Weird, I think. Who has already guessed - shut up!

I was even more surprised when the third flock of pedestrians began to be photographed. This phenomenon excited my brain. I began to look for various options for such behavior, called my husband, daughter. Marvel, I say, how people behave strangely. At the family council, we made two assumptions:
1. This is some kind of English flash mob. People take pictures at pedestrian crossings, then upload the pictures somewhere.
2. On the side where the lens is looking, there is some kind of landmark against which they are photographed, and on the transition - because this is a convenient shooting point, perhaps the center of the frame.
Well, I think I found a couple of explanations and that's enough, I was satisfied. But the camera did not turn off.

On the second day, sorting through the mail, reading my bookmarks, I find this - a webcam on Abbey Road.
This second day just shook me! People are more actively photographed. In sequence. "What is this being done?" - explodes from inexplicable surprise and incomprehensible my brain. A little less, but still surprising behavior of drivers. Cars don't just let pedestrians through: they are patient! are waiting! when the last ones take a photo and no one beeps!!! I feel like imbued with respect for English drivers.

Suddenly I see how another group of pedestrians is evenly distributed along the pedestrian crossing and "freezes" in their procession - as if a freeze frame. Hands in a swing in different directions, legs take a wide step. "STOP! I’ve seen this somewhere before, ”I think, and my hands are already typing this strange Abbey Road street in the search engine, but what is it there ?!

Here's what I found about this strange street with strange pedestrians.

Of course, one of the main attractions of Abbey Road is the recording studio of the same name. The studio is known for the fact that such world-famous bands as the Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Shadows, Mike Oldfield, Duran Duran and others recorded their musical masterpieces within its walls.
Legendary rock band The Beatles named their latest album after the recording studio, which is located on Abbey Road and has the same name. The Abbey Road studio is still in operation today. Keane, Oasis, U2, Leningrad and Patrizio Buanne visit its walls to record their hits.
A large number of fans visit the famous street and recording studio every day, leaving graffiti on the fence and taking pictures at the famous pedestrian crossing, which is depicted on the cover of the Beatles' latest album. Incidentally, the Abbey Road crossing has been awarded Grade II status by English Heritage, which means that the crossing is under government protection.

And here, by the way, the morning tourist. Vermya in the lower left corner. The fact that the tourist photographs is precisely the entrance to the record company.

Yeah, and promise me you won't laugh too hard, okay? The inscription above the photo "Webcam on Abbey Road (a street in London). The street became famous after the Beatles' album of the same name" did not tell me anything until I found this picture. what can I say, my thinking is figurative, I think in pictures. And the words ... but what difference does it make what they write there ... the main thing is what I see :)))

That was such an amazing day for me at the beginning of December. My husband said that when we were in London we would also take a picture at the Abbey Road crosswalk.
You can see the street through the webcam

The cover of the Beatles' famous Abbey Road album (Stephanie / flickr.com) The famous Abbey Road pedestrian crossing (Gary Denham / flickr.com) The Abbey Road studio entrance (Peter Bruening / flickr.com) The Abbey Road studio building (james/flickr.com) Passers-by parody the Beatles at the Abbey Road crosswalk (Bruno/flickr.com) Engyles/flickr.com Engyles/flickr.com Engyles/flickr.com

In the capital of Great Britain - London, in the St. John's Wood area there is a popular and important building in world music. We are talking about the Abbey Road recording studio, located on the street of the same name.

The name of the street in the Westminster district is translated as "Road to the Abbey". Here, in the 19th century, the headquarters of the British Horse Artillery stationed its soldiers. The street at that time was the road to the monastery of Kilburn, which in its day belonged to a monastic order and was in the status of an abbey.

Abbey Road Studio Building (james/flickr.com)

The building was founded in 1830, and a few years later it became an exquisite decoration of the district and received its serial number - No. 3.

For a hundred years, the house was owned, replacing each other, by four owners. In 1914 the building was converted into a hotel complex. Its residents were not ordinary people and were very significant figures in history. One of them was John Arthur Mondy Gregory, a connoisseur of music and everything connected with it. He brought musical instruments to the apartment and, enjoying listening to his favorite gramophone records, he liked to independently accompany the compositions he listened to on the drum kit. His life did not turn out in the best way - because of illegal trade, he was sent to prison.

In 1929, the building was bought by the developer Francis Meyer. He was involved in construction and real estate transactions. However, he did not have time to leave his mark on the history of this house, since soon after a successful purchase, he also very successfully sold it to Electric And Musical Industries Ltd. EMI, anticipating the dawn of the recording industry, built the world's first highly specialized studio, where music was recorded at the highest level using modern technology.

The famous Abbey Road crosswalk (Gary Denham / flickr.com)

The reconstruction of the building into a studio was carried out in 1930. The owners paid £100,000 to implement their idea.

The administration of London did not allow changing the appearance of the building and its appearance remained the same, an elegant decoration of the city. Internal work did not greatly affect the old decoration. Minor repairs were required to the 16 rooms of the old building, as well as ventilation systems and recording studio equipment.

By November 12, 1931, three studios, several offices and rooms for a quiet pastime, where musicians could relax, opened their doors to beginners and experienced musicians. At the same time, a recording studio was opened. The process itself was filmed and presented to the general public as a documentary.

Successful work of the studio

The successful work of the studio began with the recording of classical, orchestral compositions. Here the masterpieces of the London Symphony Orchestra and great meters were born.

During the Second World War, Abbey Road gathered propaganda facts from the UK and the BBC. But music has always sounded within these walls: the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong were recorded.

The victory in the Great Patriotic War opened the doors for sound engineers to Berlin, where they studied in detail the technical innovations of the Third Reich in recording using a tape recorder. New technical discoveries in this area have helped to improve studio equipment.

In 1953, experts worked on broadcasting a recording of the coronation of Elizabeth II herself.

The Beatles and Abbey Road

Golden time is associated with the appearance in the life of the studio of the young producer George Martin. In 1950, simultaneously with his arrival, the popularity of rock and roll grew, the first hit parades appeared, and, of course, the already famous studio was directly involved in the birth of compositions that the general public loved.

Abbey Road Studio Entrance (Peter Bruening / flickr.com)

We can say that the results of the work of Abbey Road have always become hits for all time. 1962 became a key year in the history of the studio. At this time, George Martin met the Liverpool Four, later the world-famous Beatles.

The meeting of these people greatly changed both their lives and the musical community around the world. Martin, having become the producer of this group, records all her work within the walls of Abbey Road. Their very first and at the same time popular album, recorded at this studio within 24 hours, called "Please Give Me Pleasure" did not give up its positions in the national chart for 6 months.

According to the members of the Beatles, the atmosphere of the studio helped them a lot when creating music.

The Beatles' Abbey Road album

The most important event in the life of the studio and the Beatles was the release of the album in 1969 under the name Abbey Road. This is how the leaders of the group and the producer himself decided to pay tribute to the place where their very fruitful and world-famous life flowed. On the cover of the album is a photograph of the band members crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing near the studio.

Passers-by parody the Beatles at the Abbey Road crosswalk (Bruno / flickr.com)

This transition later became a gathering place for all the Beatles, each of whom so wanted to take such a photo as a keepsake.

Even today, a webcam installed on the Abbey Road studios captures people crossing the road on the famous pedestrian, just like the Fab Four did.

There are a huge number of different film and paper sources dedicated to the world famous Abbey Road Studios. They will be of interest to those who yearn to get to know her better.

Those who wish to visit this historical place can get to the studio from the St. John's Wood branches of the Jubilee Line in just 6 minutes.