(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / Guido Harari / EMI America)
Wed 3 December 2025 17:00, UK
When The Beatles started making Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it was pretty evident they were pushing themselves further than they ever had done previously.
So, what had brought on this more experimental approach to music? Well, to put it plainly, it was the fact that the band didn’t have any pressure to play the songs live. When The Beatles decided to stop performing after problems with sound in bigger venues and a general disdain towards their live shows following the controversy of John Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” comments, the Fab Four decided it was best to call hitting the road a day.
When they started making music, knowing that they wouldn’t need to play the songs they were writing live, the band were a lot happier to truly push the boat out and experiment with the kind of sound that they were making. This meant not just playing around with the effects, orchestration, and song structure on hand, but also leaning further into the reliance of a concept as they took on the role of a fictional band and dressed themselves up as said band on the cover of the record.
The album is still celebrated as a masterpiece to this day, but there are a lot of fans who were somewhat disappointed that the record was never toured. Well, if you are absolutely desperate to hear how these songs can sound live, you needn’t look any further than Jimi Hendrix, who performed the opening song on stage merely days after it had been released.
This was no doubt a special moment for many people watching, but it was made even more special by the fact that Paul McCartney was in the crowd watching. “Jimi opened,” recalled McCartney, “The curtains flew back, and he came walking forward, playing ‘Sgt Pepper’, and it had only been released on the Thursday, so that was like the ultimate compliment.”
The Beatles album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967. (Credits: Far Out / Apple Corps)
McCartney was flattered by the inclusion and spoke about how Hendrix’s playing of the song was a great example of how much he would have liked the record. “He must have been so into it because normally it might take a day for rehearsal and then you might wonder whether you’d put it in, but he just opened with it,” he said.
Adding, “It’s a pretty major compliment in anyone’s book. I put that down as one of the great honours of my career. I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t have thought of it as an honour, I’m sure he thought it was the other way round, but to me, that was like a great boost.”
Hendrix wasn’t the only great musician who was a big fan of the record either. When Kate Bush was discussing her favourite Beatles album of all time, she spoke about Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and said that it was an “album of excellent songs”.
While Bush was a fan of the songs themselves, it’s likely the conceptual side of the album that well and truly appealed to her. Bush is a titan within the art pop realm, and therefore she has used different concepts throughout her records, which was no doubt an idea inspired by records like Sgt Pepper. For instance, on her classic Hounds of Love, the second half of the album is committed to telling the story of a shipwrecked woman.
Given how much great music is out in the world, it can often be hard to find albums that great artists both agree are representations of genius, but both Jimi Hendrix and Kate Bush stand firm on the fact that Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a masterpiece.
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