Who Are All Those People In Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
posted by ricky smith, Spacious Planet, May 08, 2012

The cover is a collage of more than 60 famous people. Most of the people selected for the collage were requested by The Beatles. For example, George Harrison requested the three Hindu gurus who appear in the collage.Lennon requested Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus Christ. However, Jesus and Hitler were rejected because the record label feared a public backlash. The record label was nervous because of the controversy over the US Butcher Cover a year earlier. Mahatma Gandhi was excluded because EMI was worried about a negative reaction in India.EMI needed the permission of all living persons in the collage, creating a nightmare for their legal department. All the celebrities in the collage gave their permission. Only one person, Leo Gorcey was removed from the collage because he demanded a payment of $400.
The following is the complete list of all the people on the cover of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band:
Top Row- from left to right
Yukteswar Giri – Hindu guru
Karlheinz Stockhausen – German Composer
Edgar Allan Poe – Writer and Poet
The Vargas Girl – Fictional Pin-up Girl
Second Row
Aubrey Beardsley- Illustrator
Sir Robert Peel- 19th Century British Prime Minister
Karl Marx- Political Philosopher
Paramahansa Yogananda- Hindu Guru
Second Row
Stuart Sutcliffe- Musician / Former Beatle
A Petty Girl – A Series of Cartoon Pin-up Girls by Artist George Petty
a second petty girl appears in the front row
David Livingstone – Missionary
George Bernard Shaw – Playwright
Albert Stubbins- English Football Player
T. E. Lawrence- The Historical Lawrence of Arabia
Shirley Temple (appears three times on the cover)
The Beatles (John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and
George Harrison) all appear twice – once as wax models.
A few additional facts about the Sgt Pepper Album Art:
- Two figures in the cover photo are hairdresser’s wax dummies.
- It was the first UK album to have the lyrics printed on the inside cover.
- There was a long running urban legend that the green plants in the photo are cannabis.
Great posting. Really interesting story about the album cover, great record too!
glad you enjoyed my posting ana