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. The memorial offers a view of the very passage where the Beatles and just tourists are constantly crowded:
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
In mid-1969, The Beatles recorded their last joint album, which was called Abbey Road. Many consider it the best album of the famous four, despite the fact that later Lennon spoke of it extremely negatively. Recording of the disc took place in an atmosphere of open hostility between all members of the group, but despite this (or maybe because of this), many of the songs on the album have a cheerful and joyful sound.
The album's working title was "Everest"; it was even suggested that the band would have to travel to the Himalayas for the cover photo. But they, of course, had neither the time nor the inclination. When asked where they wanted to be photographed, Paul McCartney replied: "Why not take it on a regular street." He quickly threw a draft of the future cover on a sheet of paper. Meanwhile, John Lennon and Yoko Ono agreed with their friend, 30-year-old English photographer Ian Macmillan.
Ian Macmillan at that time was little known. He graduated high school in 1954, then for some time worked as an apprentice manager in small firm. Since 1959, Macmillan became a photographer, in the early 1960s, his photographs began to appear in the English press. In the mid-sixties, he met and became friends with Yoko Ono, who in turn introduced him to Lennon.
The famous photograph was taken on August 8, 1969, around half past eleven. “I remember we hired a policeman to stop the traffic while I climbed up the stepladder and took pictures,” recalled Ian Macmillan, “I took a couple of photos of The Beatles crossing the street in one direction. Then we passed the crowded cars, and they went in the other direction - I took a few more pictures. In the end, I chose the fifth shot out of six. It was the only shot where the legs of all four were in an inverted 'V' shape, which is what I was aiming for."
This photo has become the most popular in the music world - even more famous than Richard Avedon's The Beatles, which is one of the twenty most expensive photographs in the world. Every year, thousands of fans gather at the now famous pedestrian crossing. Everyone dreams of taking a picture a la the Beatles, although it is not so easy: Abbey Road is a rather busy street, and no one stops traffic for the sake of tourists.
Anna Gruzdeva
Almost 43 years ago the Beatles crossed a zebra street in north London. The famous photo shoot on Abbey Road began at 11:30 am on August 8, 1969 and lasted only 10 minutes.
To commemorate the Beatles' trip to the recording studio, photographer Ian McMillan ( Iain Macmillan) took only 6 frames. The rest of the photos were taken by Mel Evans and Linda McCartney...
Photographer Ian McMillan had ten minutes to take a picture: this section of the street was specially blocked by the police, since Abbey Road was already one of the busiest in London at that time. McMillan filmed the group from the stairs and took six shots, one of which made it onto the cover.
Ian received this sketch from Paul McCartney a few days before filming. The thumbnail shows where to shoot and what the photo should look like. Yen added his sketch in the top right corner to confirm the layout.
Let's follow the order in which Ian McMillan took the pictures:
Photo 1 - The Beatles begin their session across the street from Abbey Road Studios. Paul McCartney is still in sandals. The VW Beetle is present until the end of the session, but the police van is not yet visible.
Photo 2 - Paul continues to walk in his flip-flops, but by the next frame he has left them on the pavement.
Photo 3 - A queue of cars and a bus appears. Paul is already walking barefoot.
Photo 4 - Another bus is waiting for the Beatles to cross the road.
Photo 5 - Friend, famous photo from the cover where they keep pace. A police van appeared. This photo has been edited for use on the cover. The original photo has not been published.
In 2011, the album cover was ranked 26th in the list of the best album covers of all time, according to readers of the online publication. Music Radar
This is the same photo as above, but with a slightly different tint. 2009 remastered version of the photo.
Photo 6. Last shot of the session. Another bus is visible in the distance.
During his lifetime, Macmillan said in an interview: "I took several pictures of The Beatles crossing the street in one direction. Then we let the cars pass and went the other way - I took a few more pictures. In the end, I chose the fifth shot from six. It was the only shot where the legs of all four were in an inverted "V" shape, which is what I was aiming for."
The car "Volkswagen Beetle" with the number LMW281F, standing near the crossing, belonged to a resident of one of the neighboring houses. After the release of the album, the plate with the number was repeatedly stolen. In 1986, the car was sold at Sotheby's to an American collector for £2,530.
White leader suit bands The John Lennon's Beatles was sold at the auction house Braswell Galleries in the USA for 46 thousand dollars. It was in these clothes that the legendary musician was captured on the cover of the Abbey Road album.
The white suit, in which Lennon is photographed crossing a pedestrian zebra outside the Abbey Road recording studio in London, was custom-made in 1969 by Russian-born French designer Edmond (Ted) Lapidus.
A random passer-by onlooker (Paul Cole, a resident of Florida), who got into the camera lens while on vacation in London, became widely known. He later said that at that time the musicians seemed to him like crazy people.
Paul Cole himself noticed himself on the cover of the album only a year later, and he had to convince his relatives that it was he, and not anyone else.
In a 2004 interview with the Scripps newspaper, Mr. Cole told an amazing story...
In the 1960s, Paul Cole ran a small shop in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Worked a lot, rested little. In 1969, his wife persuaded him to take a vacation and rush to London for a week. Paul agreed.
While in London, his wife dragged him to numerous museums and exhibitions, which very quickly bored Paul. Refusing to enter another museum, he said to his wife: “Honey, we have already visited ten museums! If you want to enter the eleventh, then without me.” His wife granted his desire and left him to chill outside. Paul found shade as he turned onto Abbey Road, which was lined with trees on both sides.
And this is a dramatization - 'Abbey Road' from the perspective of Paul Cole
Twenty meters away from him, four guys kept crossing from one side of the street to the other. This process was filmed by a photographer who periodically ran out with a ladder to the middle of the street. "Crazy, those Englishmen!" Paul thought to himself. Being a man far from popular music, he absolutely did not recognize these guys George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and John Lennon.
As you know, the photographer took several pictures for the cover 'Abbey Road' to select one of them. So Paul Cole is present in all the pictures.
Only a year later, in 1970, Paul noticed a record with the same photograph on the shelves of music stores. Paul bought it and brought it home to show his wife and kids. "Take a magnifying glass, kids, and find your father!" he grinned.
All these years, he silently shared the glory with the Liverpool Four, appearing with them on the covers of magazines, T-shirts, posters, mugs, badges, postage stamps and other products.
Paul Cole died in 2008 in Florida, a little before the age of 96. In 1969, without knowing it, he proved the efficiency of the phrase "Right Time, Right Place".
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 crazy 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 cover, 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 outside 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.
Linda McCartney and Mel Evans were present throughout the session and took many photographs. Many of them have not yet been published due to litigation. But some of them are available.
Before shooting, while waiting for the police, and during the rehearsal, several photos were taken:
American tourist from Florida Paul Cole came to London with his wife. On August 8, 1969, he left the hotel for some air. He was sick as hell of going to museums and just wanted to stand and see what was going on. Paul got into a conversation with a policeman who was sitting in a parked police van. While they were talking, Paul noticed that several people had gathered at the crosswalk and four of them began to walk back and forth on the zebra, and another took pictures of them.
- Some eccentrics, - laughed Paul, - who walks barefoot in London.
The Beatles' twelfth album was originally going to be called Everest, named after the cigarettes smoked by EMI engineer Jeff Emerick:
There was a picture of a mountain on the pack, which the group liked very much. But they decided to abandon the name, because no one wanted to go to Nepal for a photo shoot. We decided to get out of the situation in the simplest way - to be photographed right next to the studio.
Before that, Paul drew and showed the photographer how he imagines the frame for the cover of the new album:
On the appointed day, around half past eleven, photographer Ian Macmillan arrived at the EMI recording studio at 3 Abbey Road. He was friends with Yoko Ono and she invited him to shoot. The Beatles were waiting for him on the steps at the entrance to the studio.
At first, Paul was in beach slippers, then he took off his shoes and remained barefoot.
Macmillan took six shots within ten minutes:
The fifth image was selected for the case. It turned out to be Alan Flanagan, Steve Millwood and Derek Seagrove - they were decorating the EMI studio and returning from lunch. They are on the far left of the frame.
The picture, taken at a pedestrian crossing next to the studio on Abbey Road, was another reason for fans of the conspiracy theory about Paul's death in a car accident to find new "evidence" to confirm this theory. The number on the Volkswagen LMW281F, which was in the picture, was read as "Paul would be 28 years old if he were alive." And the crossing itself was considered a funeral procession - in front of John in white as a priest, at the end George in jeans as an undertaker, and Paul himself with his eyes closed, barefoot, cigarette in his hand, and even walking out of step with the others. Real dead man, yes.
The Beetle that sold at auction in 2001 for £2,530 is now in the Volkswagen Museum in Wolfsburg.
This girl in blue on the back of the record sleeve also fit into the conspiracy theory about the death of Paul and his replacement with a double. It was considered that this was the same Rita who was driving the car. In fact, after finishing filming at the crossing, McMillan began to look for a suitable place for a photo with the name of the street. And found it at the intersection with Alexandra Road. The picture with a woman accidentally caught in the frame seemed to him the best.
Almost everyone knows what the 12th album of the legendary band looks like, which became the last collaboration of all four members of the British quartet. Photos from the shooting for the cover of this album have appeared on the network, which we hope you will be interested in seeing:
Paul McCartney sketched out how he envisions the cover: 
A photo session with musicians crossing London's Abbey Road took place on August 8, 1969. 
This, already then one of the busiest sections of the road, was blocked by police especially for the Beatles for 10 minutes. During this time, photographer Ian McMillan filmed the musicians from the stairs and took a total of 6 photographs, one of which became the cover of the album. 
In the lens of Ian Macmillan, as well as on the cover of the album "Abbey Road" got a random passerby named Paul Cole, who came to London on vacation from Florida (USA). He later said that at that time the members of the group seemed to him just crazy. He noticed himself on the cover only a few years after the release of the Beatles album. The American had to work hard to prove to his friends and relatives that it was he who was depicted on the cover, and not someone else. 
The Volkswagen Beetle with license plate LMW281F, which stands near the pedestrian crossing, belonged to a resident of one of the nearby houses. After the album "Abbey Road" was released, the license plate was repeatedly stolen. In 1986, the car was put up for auction by Sotheby's. It was bought by a collector from the United States, paying 2,530 pounds sterling (about 4 thousand dollars) for an unwitting participant in the photo shoot. 
In the picture, many saw "evidence" of the death of Paul McCartney and his replacement with a double. Supporters of the theory perceived the composition as a symbolic image of his "funeral": the musician, depicted with his eyes closed, walks barefoot, out of step with the rest of the band. In his right hand he holds a cigarette (although everyone knows that he is left-handed), in which many considered the existing expression "A cigarette is a nail from the coffin." By the way, on the cover of the album, published by a domestic music label, John Lennon, not Paul McCartney, is depicted barefoot. 
