When ‘Sgt. Pepper’s on the Road’ Crashed and Burned

‘New York Rock & Roll History: The 1970s’ Book Excerpt

Frank Mastropolo

Capitol

With little input from the Beatles other than the use of their music, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road: A Rock Spectacle’ debuted off-Broadway at New York’s Beacon Theater on Nov. 17, 1974. Produced by Robert Stigwood and directed by Tom O’Horgan, the musical included 29 songs, primarily from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road albums.

All of the songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. George Harrison and Ringo Starr declined to participate.

“We put them together like a Tinkertoy set and made sense of it in our own way,” O’Horgan said in The Theater Will Rock.

“We made a script of the songs, and we didn’t add additional dialogue or change the lyrics. Maybe we changed genders or something, but basically it was the songs with the original orchestrations. We were just trying to use this music in a different way.”

It was certainly different. Billy Shears (Ted Neeley) is the show’s hero, a musician who becomes a star courtesy of Maxwell’s Silver Hammermen, a gang that represents the music industry.

Shears marries his girlfriend, Strawberry Fields, who is later killed off. All is well by the final curtain, as a statue of Sgt. Pepper (David Patrick Kelly) comes to life and orders everyone to “Get Back.”

One of the Hammermen, B.G. Gibson, described in the Good Day Sunshine fanzine the staging created by scenic designer Robin Wagner.

“There were the helium-filled weather balloons, which projections bounced off of while the Hammermen rotated them out over the audience in slow motion. There were the hundreds of pink Styrofoam Frisbees, which the cast hurled into the audience at the end of Act I.

“There was a 30-foot Lucille Ball look-alike Statue of Liberty which was moved onto center stage to reveal ‘Polythene Pam.’ There were the giant grandma and grandpa puppets who danced to ‘When I’m Sixty-Four.’

“There were the super-life-sized busts of Mick Jagger and David Cassidy, the huge wristwatch and hand, the smiling lips and teeth, and the larger-than-life octopus. There was also a Mylar confetti shower to be timed with ‘The End.’”

Celebrities filled the Beacon on opening night. John Lennon, who had attended several rehearsals, arrived with companion May Pang. Yoko Ono also attended along with Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, and “Papa” John Phillips.

“‘It was twenty years ago today…’ The opening chords of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ rang out into the darkened theater and an immediate roar went up from the crowd,” recalled Gibson.

“As the curtains parted and the Hammermen high-stepped out onto the open stage, the audience gave us a standing ovation!

“Front row center were Johnny and Edgar Winter. A few rows behind them Carol Channing could be seen. Farther back in the orchestra section to the right was Alice Cooper. And of course, John Lennon was out there somewhere, too!

“Every new Beatle song prompted a standing ovation from the wildly enthusiastic opening night fans. It seemed as if we were playing to a mob of adoring Beatlemaniacs! The cast gave a greatly received opening night performance and when it was over, we all changed into our best regalia to attend our opening night party at a club called Rhinoceros.”

The euphoria didn’t last long as the critics were brutal. Martin Gottfried of the New York Post called the show “a cheapskate circus — a clumsy concert with dance movement and Thanksgiving parade props.”

Robert Christgau wrote, “Artistically as well commercially (the Beacon wasn’t one-third full on the fourth day of the run) ‘Sgt. Pepper’ is a flop.”

T.E. Kalem of Time wrote, “Exploitation is at the core of this show. The idea was to cash in on the popularity of the Beatles. Their songs are probably as original and innocently evocative of the flower-child world of the ’60s as they ever were, but here they are trampled under the dreck of Tom O’Horgan’s grimagination.”

Many who attended were disturbed that O’Horgan reordered the 13 songs of the original Sgt. Pepper’s, an album that seamlessly flowed from one tune to the next.

“I think that what we did offended Beatles fans,” O’Horgan recalled, “because we didn’t follow the record.

“Whatever the record was about — we took some songs out and put others in, and — ’how dare you!’ It was like messing with Bach or something.”

Paul and Linda McCartney attended a Sunday matinee in December and met the cast afterwards. But audiences dwindled and on New Year’s Eve, the cast received the closing notice for Sgt. Pepper’s on the Road. The show shuttered in early January 1975, after 66 performances.

Stigwood produced a film version of Sgt. Pepper’s in 1978 that starred Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees that took some elements from the musical. The film’s songs were largely from Sgt. Pepper’s and Abbey Road and again, critical reaction was mostly negative.

Frank Mastropolo is the author of New York Rock & Roll History: The 1970s. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.