THE WHITE ALBUM (Room 410)
THE WHITE ALBUM (Room 410)
As a follow up to Pepper, The White Album as it became known, couldn’t have been more different. Packaged in a plain white double gatefold sleeve (as designed by Richard Hamilton, a leading British Pop Artist) the cover merely displayed the title ‘The Beatles’ accompanied by an individual serial number.
The album contained 30 new songs and is perhaps the most diverse recording ever made by any band in the history of music. The musical genres included pop, rock, soul, folk, traditional, avant-garde, blues, ballads, and country. Many of the songs had been written in Rishikesh in India during the Beatles visit to see The Maharishi. However, unlike previous albums much of the work was completed outside the framework of the band. Sometimes only two or three members would feature and on ‘Julia’ John is the only Beatle featured, as is Paul on ‘Blackbird’. The Beatles even took the unprecedented step of inviting another rock musician into the session as Eric Clapton played lead guitar on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Despite their disillusionment with India the divisions that were emerging are most obvious on this album. Hitherto it had been difficult to determine which was a Paul song or John song, save for the rule of thumb of who sang it usually wrote it. However, each had still actively contributed to the others work, until The White Album when the practice stopped. The critic Lester Bangs observed, “It was the first album by four solo artists in one band!”. Despite the tension that John’s blossoming romance with Yoko was causing, the lack of direction since the death of Brian, the album itself is a masterpiece. George Martin had been extremely worried about the sense of issuing a double album of over 90 minutes of material. He campaigned for the project to be reduced to one album for forty minutes. Thankfully The Beatles stood their ground and the album is adorned by classics such as ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, ‘Birthday’, ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Julia’.
Artwork painted and owned by ©SHANNON
THE WHITE ALBUM (Room 410)
As a follow up to Pepper, The White Album as it became known, couldn’t have been more different. Packaged in a plain white double gatefold sleeve (as designed by Richard Hamilton, a leading British Pop Artist) the cover merely displayed the title ‘The Beatles’ accompanied by an individual serial number.
The album contained 30 new songs and is perhaps the most diverse recording ever made by any band in the history of music. The musical genres included pop, rock, soul, folk, traditional, avant-garde, blues, ballads, and country. Many of the songs had been written in Rishikesh in India during the Beatles visit to see The Maharishi. However, unlike previous albums much of the work was completed outside the framework of the band. Sometimes only two or three members would feature and on ‘Julia’ John is the only Beatle featured, as is Paul on ‘Blackbird’. The Beatles even took the unprecedented step of inviting another rock musician into the session as Eric Clapton played lead guitar on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Despite their disillusionment with India the divisions that were emerging are most obvious on this album. Hitherto it had been difficult to determine which was a Paul song or John song, save for the rule of thumb of who sang it usually wrote it. However, each had still actively contributed to the others work, until The White Album when the practice stopped. The critic Lester Bangs observed, “It was the first album by four solo artists in one band!”. Despite the tension that John’s blossoming romance with Yoko was causing, the lack of direction since the death of Brian, the album itself is a masterpiece. George Martin had been extremely worried about the sense of issuing a double album of over 90 minutes of material. He campaigned for the project to be reduced to one album for forty minutes. Thankfully The Beatles stood their ground and the album is adorned by classics such as ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, ‘Birthday’, ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Julia’.
Artwork painted and owned by ©SHANNON
THE WHITE ALBUM (Room 410)
As a follow up to Pepper, The White Album as it became known, couldn’t have been more different. Packaged in a plain white double gatefold sleeve (as designed by Richard Hamilton, a leading British Pop Artist) the cover merely displayed the title ‘The Beatles’ accompanied by an individual serial number.
The album contained 30 new songs and is perhaps the most diverse recording ever made by any band in the history of music. The musical genres included pop, rock, soul, folk, traditional, avant-garde, blues, ballads, and country. Many of the songs had been written in Rishikesh in India during the Beatles visit to see The Maharishi. However, unlike previous albums much of the work was completed outside the framework of the band. Sometimes only two or three members would feature and on ‘Julia’ John is the only Beatle featured, as is Paul on ‘Blackbird’. The Beatles even took the unprecedented step of inviting another rock musician into the session as Eric Clapton played lead guitar on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Despite their disillusionment with India the divisions that were emerging are most obvious on this album. Hitherto it had been difficult to determine which was a Paul song or John song, save for the rule of thumb of who sang it usually wrote it. However, each had still actively contributed to the others work, until The White Album when the practice stopped. The critic Lester Bangs observed, “It was the first album by four solo artists in one band!”. Despite the tension that John’s blossoming romance with Yoko was causing, the lack of direction since the death of Brian, the album itself is a masterpiece. George Martin had been extremely worried about the sense of issuing a double album of over 90 minutes of material. He campaigned for the project to be reduced to one album for forty minutes. Thankfully The Beatles stood their ground and the album is adorned by classics such as ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, ‘Birthday’, ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Julia’.
Artwork painted and owned by ©SHANNON