Backstory
The Pepper Sessions was inspired by an anecdote Beatles-Producer George Martin wrote in his autobiography. The small incident happened at the EMI Studios in 1959:
“Ray Martin had a little dachshund who wandered into the studio one day while Solomon was recording a sonata. Unfortunately, the beast wasn't studio-trained, and deposited a small pile of excreta beneath the piano. Solomon put his foot on the loud pedal, and – squish, right in it. He stalked out of the studio and refused to do any more recording that day.” George Martin 1968:35.
The idea grew on me to make a radioplay involving this lovely and ignorant creature running around the Abbey Road Studios, passing by great music recording sessions. And a radioplay seemed to be a perfect format to make a story around the development of creative music production. Many methods and effects that we use today were invented in the 60s by manipulating tape and gear and all you needed to do was listen.
While developing the script and recording music, I met many people who supported and inspired the radioplay. This was teamwork - thanks!
Several books have shaped the radioplay: beside George Martin’s autobiography, I also used his book “Summer of love. The Making of St. Pepper”. The owner of the vintage mic store Echoschall, Carsten Lohmann, lent me a very rare book from his shelve: “Recording the Beatles. The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create their Classic Albums” by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew. This book describes everything - where they put every mic, every button they pressed and every idea they developed. Carsten also gave me Geoff Emerick’s autobiography. He was just was 15 when he started to work at EMI as an assistant engineer. Both books were crucial to understand the technical and production insights of that era.
At Curious Fox (thanks to Stephen Fanning) I found: “Liverpool. Wondrous Place. Music from Cavern to Cream” by music journalist Paul Du Noyer. This was a narrative book about the development of the music scene with some great insights into bands like the Liverbirds (maybe the first all female Band in Liverpool), the historical influence of the Irish accent on the Liverpudlian accent, country music and Brian Epstein’s record store.
Phonotrix
Many people involved in making the St. Pepper album were around 14 or 15 when they got into music, it’s the reason why my main character Olivia Denett is fifteen. The Beatles were around 14 and 15 when they met. Geoff Emerick was 15 when he started as assistant engineer at EMI and George Martin was 15 when he decided to follow the path of music after he first listened to Debussy at school for the first time, wondering how beautiful and methaporical music could sound.
In the radioplay Olivia is recording on a Phonotrix she takes everywhere. It was build in West-Germany in 1959 and was one of the first portable tape recorders on the market.
