New Delhi: Exactly 55 years ago, on May 26, 1967, The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. While the album was iconic, equally interesting was its original vinyl cover featuring a host of celebs, stars, performers, personalities and many more. As many as 71 people were planned and featured on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but a few of the iconic figures were later removed. Among them was Mahatma Gandhi.
The original idea for the now-iconic sleeve (vinyl cover) idea was reportedly to have an image depicting fans around The Beatles as they performed. With inputs from Paul Mccartney and other friends, an idea was shaped up to have different iconic personalities — dead or living or even fictitious — on the cover.
Each Beatles member had been tasked with coming up with a list of personalities they wanted to join them on the album cover, according to an account by Spencer Leigh in 'Love Me Do to Love Me Don't', his book on Beatles.
The shoot took place at 4 Chelsea Manor Studios of Michael Cooper. The collage of the personalities, designed by Peter Blake and his wife Jann Haworth, was made out of cardboard and other materials and assembled before the arrival of The Beatles.
A Rolling Stone report said the cost of the album covers ran to more than 3,000 pounds. Usually, rock and roll album LP covers in that age would cost around 50 pounds. The high cost was because they had to pay some of the personalities who featured on it.
But this was not the reason why Mahatma Gandhi was excluded from the prints though he was there in the original image.
Sir Joseph Lockwood, the top boss at EMI, the record label company for The Beatles, decided to exclude Mahatma Gandhi worried that the album would not sell in India or land in legal trouble, the Rolling Stone report mentioned.