Alan Powell,  then drummer with the mod band “Ivan’s Meads” (and later on Hawkwind), gave permission to quote some memories of recording at Abbey Road around 1965.  The specific details are a little hazy now, “…almost as if the whole thing was a dream”  ( -might it even have been during/after the recording of Help?   It could have been slightly earlier than he originally recalled)….  Rubber Soul would be released in December;  the 7-series amps would  arrive in the studio the following April ( brought in by Mal, having picked them up from Vox).  This snapshot though gives us a fleeting glimpse of London’s Abbey Road studio, and the environment in which they were to arrive.

“…I remember making my first record. By this I mean real record – major label (Parlophone), big time producer (Ron Richards – he was the guy behind all the Hollies hits) and big time Studio.That would be E.M.I. Studios on Abbey Road.

This was 1965 so Abbey Road had not yet become the world famous icon it was destined to become. The band I was in then was Ivan’s Meads, a “mod” band fashioned after the Who. We were the next big thing from Manchester, we already had screaming girls at the shows we did and we were well on our way to pop stardom but going to London to actually make a record with Parlophone, one of the top labels in the U.K. with the aforementioned Ron Richards was big time.

Heady stuff for a bunch of 18 year old Manchester lads. We left Manchester in our old converted ambulance, which served as our equipment wagon and bus, around 6a.m. so we would arrive at Abbey Road studios around 2p.m. None of us had ever been to swinging London, the centre of the known universe, before and we were excited and nervous. This was a big, big deal you must understand.

We parked our van near a pedestrian crossing which would, in just a few years become the most famous pedestrian crossing known to man. We carried our equipment into the unimposing building and were told to get set up in Studio 2. We walked into Studio 2.

The air was a little stale and full of smoke. Scattered around the room were half empty bottles of coke and some magazines. Obviously someone had just been using the studio. And there, right in front of us, next to where we would be recording was the most awesome, jaw dropping sight we had ever seen a line of vox amplifiers with a gretsch guitar on one, a Hofner violin bass on another, and a Rickenbacker guitar on the other. In the middle was a Ludwig drum kit. On the front head, written in black paint, it said “The Beatles”.

You have to understand that (in 1965) the Beatles were living gods. London, or swinging London as it was then referred to, was the most happening, fantastic place a teenage guy could possibly be. No other location on Earth had the mystique, the magic, or the allure that the city had. And the Beatles lived there so that sealed the whole deal. And there we were in the same studio THEY were in. just a few minutes prior to us walking in, the Fabs were recording a new album which would be called “Rubber Soul”.

For some strange reason which I find hard to explain, being in the studio with just the Fabs guitars and drums had more impact on us than if the Beatles had been there in person.

Postscript: the record we made that day was released and became a hit and Ivan’s Meads became pop stars for a year or so. I really believe that making that record whilst in the presence of the Beatles gave it some kind of phantom push and helped it to become a hit…   “

( originally found on the great ‘Manchester Beat‘ site )

Alan went on to work with Vinegar Joe in the 70s.  He would go on to collaborate and co-write with Robert Palmer, his friend from Vinegar Joe.  He also formed a band with Brian Jones of the Damned in 1978, recording  a Peel session before going on to tour with Black Sabbath, before moving to the States.

“..By the way, the best book I have read about the start of the British ‘Beat’ Scene in the late 50’s through the 60’s and the gear that was used in that period is: 17 Watts?  by Mo Foster….Check it out, its a gem.   Best,  Al Powell”

The amps themselves were born out of the experimentation of the 60s, where companies like JMI tried to respond to changing technology, and the desires / styles of the musicians of the time; the memories of Pete Miller (‘Big Boy Pete’) give us a good glimpse into this world.  Touring alongside the Beatles in 1963 (and later alongside the Stones), he played in the Jaywalkers, who JMI would supply with gear and sometimes ask to try out their new products. They had a punishing schedule, and Pete tested the Vox gear to destruction, often finding it wanting. These extracts from his records though give us a real insight into the way touring bands like the Jaywalkers and the Beatles dealt with the various companies supplying them with gear.  We also glimpse the sort of issues that were driving JMI/VOX to experiment with a new series of hybrid solid-state amps, the search for new, lighter, more rugged and reliable technology, and how they worked with bands to test and develop their products.

Regarding a trial of some Vox Guitars;

‘…Just after our endorsement deal with Vox, the Phantoms were introduced. One
afternoon we drove our bandwagon to the factory in Dartford and the good
people loaded it up with about a dozen AC30,s and about the same number of
Phantom guitars, including six stringers, twelve stringers, four string
basses and six string basses. These were early production models and
somewhat less than perfect. (We had been playing Fenders and Gretsches up
until that point). The amps were fine but the guitars were difficult to play
– doggy necks – shitty pick-ups and wanky tremolo systems which kept busting
strings.

In exasperation one night, on stage, I removed my Phantom, hurled it like a
javelin across the far side of the stage where it hit the wall and shattered
into a multitude of pieces which rained down all over our piano player.
Nonchalantly, I picked up Henry (my trusty Gretsch) and finished our set.
The audience loved it and thought it was part of the act. (This was quite a
few years before Townsend, Beck or Hendrix destroyed their instruments).

That night we happened to be on tour with Billy Fury et al, playing at
Slough Adelphi. Of course, Slough is close to Dartford in Kent. Unbeknown to
me, most of the Vox directors and top dudes were in the audience and bore
rude witness to the Phantom javelin-hurling incident.

In the intermission, our agent and manager stormed into our dressing room
and proceeded to verbally kick my arse and threaten my very being in the
group. I tried to explain that playing that Phantom was like trying to play
a ukelele with boxing gloves underwater.

But good things came to pass. A few weeks later, Vox presented us with a set
of Phantoms which were one-off specials. They bore Fender necks (carefully
disguised with the Vox headstock), and actual Fender pickups. They played
and sounded great.”

Big Boy Pete

Some biography extracts;

‘…Then came the stage full of Voxes. The band had two bass players and two guitar players and also needed a PA for the dance-hall tours. The endorsement deal with Vox was very generous. They would give us what we asked for whenever we asked for it and it arrived promptly. We didn’t take advantage and luckily this went on for a few years. Initially the Vox equipment was thrust upon us without us being able to select individual instruments, but it was free so nobody bitched. The AC30 amps were always great but after a while we became despondent with the poor sound quality and virtual unplayability of some of the Phantom guitar necks. The twelve-string guitar was just dreadful. The four-string bass wasn’t at all bad but the only instrument which really sounded great was the Phantom six-string bass. You can hear Pete soloing with this at the end of their “Poet and Peasant” record and also playing the introduction to “You Girl” on the Phantom 12-stringer.

Talking about endorsement deals, George Harrison also had one with Gretsch. I remember midway through the Beatles tour, we were playing Manchester I think, probably the Apollo theatre. The morning after the show we all arrived back at the theatre to pack up the gear and re-board the tour bus for the next night. Jack, our driver looked a little shocked and told us that the theatre had been broken into during the night and amongst other things, George’s Country Gentleman had been stolen. George, to my surprise was quite unfazed. “Doesn’t matter. Who cares. They’ll send me up another.” To me, the loss of your very own guitar is like losing a member of your family and in no uncertain terms I told him how I felt about his attitude. We had a bit of a barney about that. Anyway, when we arrived at the next town on the tour, a policeman was awaiting the bus with George’s Gent slung over his back. Looked kinda funny – with his Bobby’s helmet and all! He explained that the guitar had been found only a few blocks away from the Apollo theatre, just hanging on the wrought iron fence of a church graveyard. Maybe the thief had second thoughts.

…..

Another iconic date on that tour was November 22nd. We had played at The Globe theatre in Stockton that night and when we got back to the hotel, somebody switched on the TV in the bar. An announcer informed us that John Kennedy had just been murdered.

Soon after Vox started making solid-state amps, circa 1964, a pair of Vox Super Transonic amps were manufactured and given to the Jaywalkers to try out on stage. Pete believes they were the only pair ever to leave the factory. They were essentially fully-working prototypes which were given to the band to test on the road. After a quick trial we found they were unsuitable for public consumption and for any kind of bass or low-end instrument because of their small 3-inch tweeters. They were barely passable for lead guitar and rhythm guitar. We used them on tour for about a week before shipping the remains (I think in a coffin) back to the Vox factory in Dartford along with our disgruntled evaluation: In comparison to the trusty AC30s, they were a load of crap. The transistor amps sounded distorted, toneless, thin and nasty. The tweeters soon blew, the chrome hardware broke, the counter weights fell off, the casters broke, and the fuses continually blew. Even the Vox logo fell off. Needless to say, they never went into full production. The two 12-inch speakers in the lower cabinet were whatever Vox was using at that time in its AC 30s. However, the Super Transonic looked really cool. The amp and speaker cabinets were covered with the same orange vinyl cloth that was used later on the Vox Continental organ. The grill cloth was a light beige. The two tweeters were housed in circular chrome balls, balanced by a solid counterweight. They would rotate horizontally but not vertically”.  *UPDATE; here are some pics we’ve found of another band using the rare super-transonic amps, Jamie & the Raiders, around 1963; 

“…Vox had made a valiant but failed attempt to enter the cool. Like many other musical instrument manufacturers who over the ages have unsuccessfully tried to expand into new waters, it may have signaled the beginning of the end for the company. They panicked with more untoward and preposterous products such as the Electric Conga Drum which also has a story. It was essentially an oblong wooden black vinyl-covered wooden box with nothing but a microphone inside – and it had its own chrome stand. Of course it sported the Vox logo. My band The News took one of these to Thailand in 1969 (we were touring the US bases, working for the Vietnam GIs.) Firstly the “drum” got lost by Alitalia airlines and never arrived with the rest of our equipment in Bangkok.

Electric what? – (Jennings version)

A few weeks later Vox sent us a replacement and we used it for such sillyness as 50-minute jams on “In A Gadda Da Vida”, complete with Electric Conga Drum versus Electric Wah Wah Sitar solo battles. The drum acquired the name “The Electric What” because GI’s would come up to us on stage and ask “what’s that box we were beating on?” We’d tell them “It’s an electric Conga” and they would say “An electric what?”. “We also were privy to some of the very first Asian guitar and amp knock-offs. Most of them were quite dreadful and fairly obvious to any experienced picker that they came from cocoanut trees. They certainly wouldn’t get past George Gruhn – even at closing time. However, some GIs were fooled and bought them real cheap from the PXs. Many ended up back in the USA.

Vox also issued a small amount of ribbon microphones. Many of you may have noticed pictures of English Beat groups on stage singing through these oblong looking mics. They were actually manufactured by the Reslo company but Vox stuck their logo sticker onto the body of a few of them. They sound excellent with a warm delicate resonance. The only drawback is that ribbon mics are very fragile and don’t stand up to the rigorous road life very well. You can break the ribbon even by blowing into the mic. Our band would go through a couple of dozen of these every year. Pete still has one of these Vox/Reslos in his studio that he uses on occasion for special sounds. It works nicely miking a low-level Deluxe reverb, off-axis, from a distance of about twelve inches.

Upon hearing of our disappointment with the Phantom guitars as well as the Martian amps, Vox invited the whole band to come down to the factory one afternoon. “I remember getting excited seeing the Phantom guitar-organ on the workbench but it wasn’t quite ready for a test drive on that day. The people gave us cups of tea and a proud tour of their factory and we left with a van full of goodies, including about eight guitars and the same number of AC30s. They also supplied us with a hefty PA system which we would use on the dancehall circuit. This had a pair of Vox columns containing about six tens in each and a complementary mixer/amp of quantiful wattage. All this gear was quite enough for a couple of long arduous tours. We were working over 300 nights per year. It was on one of these tours that the javelin Phantom incident occurred. This resulted in a replacement one-of-a-kind pair of look-a-like Phantom guitars which to all intents and purposes, from a distance, looked just like the real thing, but actually contained Fender Strat pick-ups and fiendishly disguised Fender necks with the Phantom headstock glued on. Needless to say, they played and sounded great.

…

The AC30s not only suffered from overheating – even while working for short periods, but they’d start smoking and burst into flames every once in a while. We learned to use the stand-by switches at every available opportunity. Furthermore the cabinetry was less than stellar. Twelve months on the road being dumped daily into the cargo hold of the Timpsons tour bus by ex-wrestler Jack (our cigar-drenched driver) took a toll on the mortise-and-tenon joints which would gradually come apart due to the overheating. I remember picking mine up one day and the handle and top just popped away from the rest of the cabinet. Never mind – call Dartford.

I think even Paul would agree that the T60 was less than fulfilling for bass. (Dick) Denny would crucify me, bless his soul, but let’s be honest the AC30 was king. The rest was crap. Vox should have stuck with their valve amps and Jim Marshall might still be trading used gear in his Hanwell shop.

…

That night on stage at a dance hall gig in High Wycombe he (a Gretsch Anniversary) made his premier appearance. I remember being a little disappointed because his Hilotron pickups were not as strong as my Hofner Verithin’s although his tone was magnificent. A few months later George pointed it out to me after he’d used Henry on stage a couple of times: “Trade the Hilotrons for Filtertrons”. Yeah sure! Finding Gretsch parts in England? No way! (Both George and John would use Henry on stage occasionally – when their own instruments were out-of-commision due to broken strings etc. This was long before anybody had the luxury of roadie guitar-techs.)

..

While in London he heard of an Abbey Road tape-recorder that was looking for a new home. “It weighed about 400 lbs. We actually loaded the monster EMI machine into the trunk of my drummer’s Jaguar car (of course the door wouldn’t close) and drove it back to my home with the car riding at a 15 degree angle. The machine was far too heavy to get upstairs into my bedroom-studio so my mother kindly allowed me to move the studio downstairs into the lounge – which was sizable by English standards. We pulled a curtain across that corner of the room when guests were due to be entertained. It actually worked out well because Dad’s upright piano could now be implemented on my recordings. He wasn’t too keen on the thumb tacks I installed on the hammers. I told him to imagine he was playing a well tempered clavier!”

 

With Pete on lead guitar, the Jaywalkers enjoyed immense popularity in Britain, releasing a dozen singles for Decca and Pye records between 1961 and 1966. Many of these tracks were produced and engineered by the legendary Joe Meek (Outlaws, Tornados, Honeycombs, Heinz etc.) from Joe’s bedroom recording studio at 304 Holloway Road in London. It was from Joe that Pete learned many tricks of the trade as far as recording techniques are concerned which is quite apparent in the sounds on the Big Boy Pete records. It was around this time that Pete turned down an offer from Clem Cattini to join the Tornados – just days before they recorded the world-wide smash Telstar. No regrets!….”

Having toured with the Beatles and the Stones, Pete recorded one of the earliest classic psychedelic tracks (“Cold Turkey”), and later moved to the States, via Vietnam-War-time Laos  (where he narrowly avoided becoming a guest of the Viet Cong).

There’s a fuller biography HERE, explaining how he went on to set up a studio in San Francisco, as well as a school for Audio engineers & producers.  He has recently been working with his old friend Hilton Valentine (guitarist with the Animals).

Beat Instrumental interview, 1965

On the 25th June 1967, the Beatles performed “All You Need Is Love”.  This was at the closing of  the first live, world-wide satellite television programme,  “Our World”.  The broadcast would be a live feed from Abbey Road itself, the sound studio becoming a t.v. studio for the day. With all the preparation and changes for filming and recording of All You Need Is Love live from the Abbey Road Studio, it’s been extremely difficult to tell what was used when and where.  Because the photos were so unclear, nobody’s been able to say whether the amp seen used by Paul in the build-up was a 430 or a 730;  we can now say for sure that this was a 430 after all, at least in these rehearsals leading up to the final performance.  (The 730 seems to have been used for rehearsals on earlier dates leading up to this).

It’s hard enough with modern technology to ensure satellite link-ups go smoothly.  It must have been pretty nerve-racking to face the prospect of the whole world watching a live performance, in a studio with loads of guests and a hastily improvised set, and a whole load more wiring for all the crews to worry about.  A prudent decision seems to have been made then to pre-record a back-up/backing track.  How exactly this was used and what ended up on it is unclear; the ‘Beatles Bible’ site states that,

“For the live performance, which took place at 9.36pm GMT, The Beatles played along to their pre-recorded backing track. The vocals, bass guitar, guitar solo, drums and 13-piece orchestra were live. To reduce the chances of on-air errors, the event was carefully arranged, although care was taken to make it seem spontaneous.”

The 430 was also seen sitting on a cab in some Fool on the Hill sessions, that time with a casino leaning against it.  In another session though, seemingly an overdub for ‘With a little help from my Friends’, Paul looks to have used the same cabinet without a trolley, but with 730 head sitting on a chair nearby.  In most of the All-You-Need-Is-Love pics the amp is obscured,   but we can finally see from the photos below that (in these rehearsals at least) it is in fact clearly the 430.

They seem to have rehearsed/recorded back-up/backing tracks on the day of the performance, even as the large multi-lingual ‘love is all you need’ boards were being brought in and left around the studio (seen leaning against the amp/cab in some pics).  Some of this presumably can be heard being played back in the studio in the lead-in to the final performance.

The respected Ryan/Kehew “Recording the Beatles” book gives some good details on the mixing of the tracks.  It states that some of the original double-bass from the first recordings (at Olympic Studios) made it to one track,  but buried in a mix with drums, violin, harpsichord, piano, banjo and percussion – and seemingly some backing vocals.  It says that track 2 of the final mix had an overdub of bass, drums and guitar; track 3 was the orchestra, and track 4 the vocals.  This raised the question though of what second amp (if any) Paul & George were using?  Paul seems to have used the 430 for the rehearsals/recording leading up to final performance, while George used an out-of-picture conqueror/cab.  For the final performance, we see the conqueror head, but now on top of the cab Paul had used with the 430; the studio is full of people and set-dressing like foliage etc.  The 430 head had been taken off the cab, but where did it go?  There is a small metal box visible in some shots by the amp; did Paul have some sort of d.i. (direct injection) set-up?

“I think direct injection was probably used on Beatles sessions for the first time anywhere in the world,” Ken Townsend, an engineer in the technical department at Abbey Road, said in Mark Lewisohn’s ‘The Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962 – 1970.’ “..We built our own transformer boxes [called DIT boxes] and plugged the guitars straight into the equipment.”   It’s unclear how much if any of the 430 made it through to the final pressed recording, it seems even the Abbey Road records aren’t 100% reliable – but it certainly played its part in the lead up.

Read More: 48 Years Ago: The Beatles Begin Recording the ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ Title Track | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-sgt-pepper-song/?trackback=tsmclip

Recording the Beatles mentions later use of d.i. during the White Album; ‘…many tracks on the White album have a distinctly different bass sound…Ken Scott..chose to supplement bass mic with D I…two signals treated to sound different..one warm, round.. smooth full low end, the other more percussive, biting… more mids…”.  The d.i. would appear in this case to have been added to the miked amp sound.

amp in background

close up; 430 panel

There’s some footage of the original broadcast (after short interview with Paul) here –

With the microphones (one over the 430’s cab) and headphones, this could be an attempt at recording a backing track with the orchestra.

A fascinating article HERE  describes how some new Rolling Stones photos were  discovered recently, by an excellent pair of researchers in the USA at the Virginia Pilot,  Maureen P Watts and Jakon Hays.  They have a fascinating and wonderful archive, images of vintage Americana.  What is of particular interest to us though, is that it helps us to reveal for the first time that Bill Wyman was using one of the prototype style 4-series amps,  at a concert in July, 1966.  This looks to be either a 460, or more likely a 4120.  No 4-series amps with proto panels survive, though one can be seen in a Vox catalogue pic in the Vox Story (see vox 460 prototype).   Perhaps there’s a hope the Stones might have kept this one stored somewhere?  Wyman swapped out at one point at the end of the tour with an ac100;  two foundation cabs were used, on either side of the stage. Given that a bass amp also needs more power to cut through,  this would suggest it’s more likely to be a proto 4120.

As it’s a great story it’s worth copying the full article; then we’ll look more closely at the prototype head.

“..Several weeks ago, I was asked to poke around in the basement to see if we had any shots of a certain building in downtown Norfolk. As I flipped through the envelopes for the summer of 1966, I paused for a moment when I spotted the negative packet pictured below.

We noticed these pics on an excellent site about the final days of the Yardbirds in 1968 (here).

They’re not always clear enough to say for certain,  there were some very similar-looking amps around at the time.  They do seem to suggest though that the 4120 was being used at places like ‘Thee Image’ with the Yardbirds, before Page later returned with Led Zeppelin.

4120 behind Page on floor

part of control panel visible, middle / right

4120 on floor, looks again like another head balanced on top

Page is seen at one point with a Danelectro;

“..You used a Danelectro with the Yardbirds?

Jimmy Page: Yes, but not with Beck. I did use it in the latter days. I used it onstage for “White Summer” (Little Games). I used a special tuning for that; the low string down to B, then A, D, G, A and D. It’s like a modal tuning, a sitar tuning, in fact.”  (from interview,  here)

There’s a recording of Page/Yardbirds doing  ‘White Summer’ here, in 1968.  Apparently the Anderson Theatre in New York, on 30 March;

A blog here draws attention to a ghostly reflection seen in the Strawberry Fields promo.

Towards the end of the film, just before the orange toned sections, you can see it just for a moment, reflected in the wood of the piano.  Who was  the mystery guardsman?  We have one suggestion.

It doesn’t seem there were any extras in uniform on the shoot, but then again there doesn’t seem to be a picture of our guardsman either.  The image is deliberately distorted;  could it be someone wearing one of the Beatles’ jackets?  The colour is distorted somehow, but there’s the suggestion of a gold or lighter colour epaulette, which doesn’t seem to match the Beatles jackets.  If it is gold, then this would seem to be someone either wearing some of their oher jackets/hats, or someone close to their circle, with his own similar guards jacket, and what might be a hat with some sort of sharp black pointed front?  It’s hard to tell if we’re seeing the edge of a hat with a forward point/vintage regimental headgear, or just lines of strings and dark shadows beyond.

regimental headgear

The director,  Peter Goldmann, recalled later, (roughly translated, from here) -“..Cold winds were blowing at Knole Park, but the Beatles kept everyone’s spirits up.  In spite of frozen noses they fooled around, always making encouraging comments….There were several changes of clothing.  Nearly all the clothes came from John, Paul, George and Ringo’s own wardrobes.  Four red coats were all that they had to buy especially for the film; the rest came from the wardrobes.

Peculiar combinations occurred. Ringo loved an old uniform coat.  John changed between a knee long beige jersey, a scarf and a preachers coat that he originally had hired for a party but didn’t want to return”.

Old military gear was becoming fashionable;  Robert Orbach,  director of the shop “I was Lord Kitchener’s Valet”,  remembered  in an interview how one morning, “… in walked John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Cynthia Lennon.  And I didn’t know whether I was hallucinating… but it was real. And Mick Jagger bought a red Grenadier guardsman drummer’s jacket, probably for about £4-5. They all came from Moss Bros and British Army Surplus.

..So Mick Jagger bought this tunic and wore it on Ready Steady Go when the Stones closed the show by performing Paint it Black. The next morning there was a line of about 100 people wanting to buy this tunic… and we sold everything in the shop by lunchtime”. (Robert Orbach, from V&A interview here).

It seems likely that our mystery guardsman wasn’t just some random extra, but was familiar enough with the Beatles to be in the shoot borrowing their clothes, or wearing his own.  Maybe he’d been shopping with them or someone else when the other 4 red coats were bought for the film.  There is one person that comes to mind, and that is Neil Aspinall.   A childhood friend from the original ‘mad gang’ with Paul & George,  he died sadly in 2008.  “..Sir Paul, Starr and the widows of Lennon and Harrison said: “All his friends and loved ones will greatly miss him but will always retain the fondest memories of a great man”….. And Harrison’s widow Olivia and the couple’s son Dhani said: “Neil takes with him the love and history of his extended family..He was our constant and avuncular caretaker for so many years; there is no way to measure how much he will be missed”.

Here”s a side by side comparison, with a photo of Neil from the 60s;

Neil, the Beatles’ friend and assistant who would become Chief Executive of Apple, had actually been with Lennon in Spain when he started writing Strawberry Fields.  John was filming there for Richard Lester’s “How I Won the War”.   Neil stayed at the villa with John;  it was believed to be haunted, and one night during a power cut, a candle-lit party of actors and crew sang to the ghosts.  Locals would cross themselves as Neil drove Lennon around in his black Rolls-Royce, thinking it was a hearse passing by.  Could Neil be our ghostly guardsman?

More on Kitchener’s Valet / 60s fashion fun here

Between January and February in 1967, The Beatles had been grabbing the guitars and 730/430 amps, Ringo’s drums and some other gear, and setting off on their own little magical mystery tour.  Their destination was Knole House,  in Sevenoaks, Kent, to film promo videos for Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane.  The ‘House’ itself was built for the Archbishop of Canterbury as a retreat for hunting, replacing the old one with the ‘new’ one in 1456.  The ‘House’  looks more like Batman’s stately Wayne Manor, but it is surrounded by a large park with wild deer, descended from the herds that Henry VIII hunted. (Thanks to Ian Drummond for finding these  pics).

Filming started at the end of January, with footage used mostly in the Strawberry fields promo; on February 5th they returned again, with footage ending up in the ‘Penny Lane’ video.  The producer was Tony Bramwell, a childhood friend of John, Paul and George, who became Brian Epstein’s right-hand man, and later joint head of Apple Records.

He told us, “Yes, I produced Strawberry and Penny, as I did all the little Beatles films.  The piano was bought in a junk shop for £5.00 and smashed up…. just basic (equipment) …film, foldback speaker …the timpani just hired for the day, as were the horses!”.

The director for the filming was Peter Goldmann.  He had been recommended by Klaus Voormann;  It was shot on 35mm colour film, around the park grounds, ruins and follies.

Goldmann was a fascinating character in his own right; he later told Swedish magazine Vecko-Revyn, “Everything went so fast. It wasn’t until I sat on the plane for London I realized what I was up to. I felt the nervousness and the excitement crawling under my skin. How in the world could I make something funny, bizarre, clever, crazy, sophisticated enough to satisfy the Beatles. It was there in the plane that I came up with the idea of the horses…

In John’s special built Rolls Royce they had a real big laugh. Through a microphone and a loudspeaker they tried to shore me up with comments and advice that echoed out over the neighbourhood….

The wind blew on the strings and they kept falling all the time and made a mess”.

http://beatlevid.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/strawberry-fields-forever-penny-lane.html

Details as always are sketchy;  it seems the Beatles stayed at a Hotel in Sevenoaks.  A relative saw them filming; she said they heard they had a party one night in some house in the park.  I think this might have been in what some people call the Bird or Owl house,  near the arch/ruins where the Beatles were filming  (photo from site www.fabulousfollies.net )

Dave Roberts, a pupil at the time at Sevenoaks School, recalls in his book, “….word spread around the school like german measles.  The bell for lunch had signalled a mass exodus to the park, and soon the Beatles had been joined by hundreds of boys in straw hats. Ringo and John in particular were quite friendly, coming over and chatting to us between takes. When asked to sing something,  John burst into ‘Hey hey we’re the Monkees’.  It was one of my best times at Sevenoaks”. (extract from Dave Roberts, ‘The Bromley Boys’, Portico books 2008)

In the finished footage, the 730/430 amps can be seen in the Penny Lane video (thanks to Steed Taranto for pics);

In a break during the filming,  John wandered around an antique shop in the nearby town of Westerham.  Here he came across an old poster, announcing Pablo Fanque’s Circus Royal;  “‘.. ‘Mr. Kite’ was a straight lift. I had all the words staring me in the face one day when I was looking for a song. It was from this old poster I’d bought at an antique shop. We’d been down to Surrey or somewhere filming a piece.

There was a break, and I went into this shop and bought an old poster advertising a variety show which starred Mr. Kite. It said the Henderson’s would also be there, late of Pablo Fanques Fair. There would be hoops and horses and someone going through a hogs head of real fire. Then there was Henry the Horse. The band would start at ten to six. All at Bishopsgate. Look, there’s the bill– with Mr. Kite topping it. I hardly made up a word, just connecting the lists together. Word for word, really.”  John Lennon.

HD clip from Strawberry Fields on youtube here –

Ian Drummond’s transcription of the playbill;

PABLO FANQUE’S CIRCUS ROYAL
TOWN – MEADOWS, ROCHDALE

Grandest Night of the Season!
BEING FOR THE
BENEFIT OF MR. KITE
(LATE OF WELL’S CIRCUS) AND
MR. J HENDERSON,
THE CELEBRATED SOMERSET THROWER!
WIRE DANCER, VAULTER, RIDER, &c.
On TUESDAY Evening, February 14, 1848
______________________________________________________________
Messrs. KITE & HENDERSON, in announcing the following Entertainments,
assure the Public that this Night’s Production will be one of the most Splendid ever produced in this Town, having been some days in preparation.
MR. KITE will, for this night only, introduce the
CELEBRATED
HORSE, ZANTHUS!
Well known to be one of the best Broke Horses
IN THE WORLD!!!
Mr. HENDERSON will undertake the arduous TASK of
THROWING TWENTY ONE SOMERSETS,
ON THE SOLID GROUND.
Mr. KITE will appear, for the first time this season,
On the Tight Rope, When Two Gentlemen Amateurs of this Town will
Perform with him.
Mr. HENDERSON will, for the first time in Rochdale
Introduce his extraordinary
TRAMPOLINE LEAPS
AND
SOMERSETS!
Over Men & Horses, through Hoops, over Garters, and lastly, through a Hogshead of REAL FIRE! In this branch of the profession
Mr. H challenges THE WORLD
For particulars see Bills of the day

Intriguing photo here from September 1967.  Some journalists and a photographer from Japan had been invited to Abbey Road;  some rough audio was taped, and some photos were taken. Tucked away in the background is an amp, with a casino leaning against it;

It doesn’t seem to have been noticed before, but we can now confirm from this & other photos that is a Vox 430, with a 6-string casino.

4/730, to left of Paul, pre-recording/rehearsal for All You Need is Love

In another photo, there’s a conqueror/cab off to the left.  This conqueror/cab/trolley and 4/730 head sitting on trolley-less cabinet combination was seen earlier, in rehearsals for the All You Need is Love broadcast; was that a 430 that was being used in rehearsals/recordings before the broadcast?.  The 4/730 head was taken off the cab in rehearsals as foliage & backdrop items were added and people began to come in. A conqueror head was then visible placed on the cab; in the increasing confusion it’s impossible to tell where the 4/730 head was moved to.  The 430 and conquerors, all on trolleys, were clearly seen in the Hello Goodbye video,  and the 430 was probably in the Strawberry Fields promo.  The 430 head was also seen sitting propped on a chair during the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds recording sessions;

Here in the Fool sessions though, the casino leans against it, and a bright reflection slightly lower down to the right of the controls might be flare off a metal end of a guitar lead going into the ‘normal’ channel.  It’s not definitive of course, but it would seem to suggest Paul or George/John weren’t averse to running the 6-string guitars through the 430.

More pics/info on an excellent Spanish site/page here, about 3/4 of the way down;

http://www.elforo.de/liverpool/viewtopic.php?t=2130

It says, “…The Beatles spent the evening of September 25th inside EMI’s Studio Two, in London. This was a 7pm to 3am session which resulted in the first proper recordings of The Fool On The Hill (Paul had recorded a demo back on September 6th). Three takes of the basic rhythm track were taped. Harmonicas were played by John and George, and overdubs of a recorder were played by Paul…Early on during the session, the Beatles were visited by two members of the Japanese media, Koh Hasebe and Rumiko Hoshika. While the Beatles began rehearsing The Fool On The Hill , Koh took photographs and Rumiko recorded brief interviews with each member of the group. The complete tape runs approximately 12 minutes in length (when played at close to the correct speed), but unfortunately only survives in inferior sound quality.”

The page has links to the audio too, here’ s one extract of it –