- a. Golden Slumbers
b. You Never Give Me Your Money - a. Because
b. Come Together - Oh! Darling
- a. Here Comes the Sun (George Harrison)
b. I Want You (She’s So Heavy) - a. Something (George Harrison)
b. Octopus’s Garden (Richard Starkey)
c. The End
All songs by John Lennon/Paul McCartney, except where indicated
George Benson – guitar, vocal (except 02)
Herbie Hancock, Ernie Hayes, Bob James – piano, organ, harpsichord
Ron Carter, Gerry Jemmott – bass
Idris Muhammad, Ed Shaughnessy – drums
Ray Barretto, Andy Gonzalez – percussion
Freddie Hubbard – trumpet
Mel Davis, Bernie Glow, Marvin Stamm – trumpet, flugelhorn
Wayne Andre – trombone, euphonium
Jerome Richardson – tenor sax, flute
Sonny Fortune – alto sax
Don Ashworth – baritone sax
Phil Bodner – flute, oboe
Hubert Laws – flute
Rauol Poliakin, Max Pollikoff – violin
Emanuel Vardi – viola
George Ricci – cello
Produced by Creed Taylor
Arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky
Originally issued as A&M SP 3028
Recorded on October 22 (04b) and 23 (03, 05a) and November 4 (04a) and 5 (02, 05b, 05c), 1969, at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 01a recorded on October 23 or November 4, 1969. Unknown (01b).
01a, 02a and 05c published by Northern Songs, Ltd.
01b, 02b, 03 and 04b published by Sony/ATV Tunes Ltd. (ASCAP)
04a and 05a published by Harrisongs, Ltd. (ASCAP)
05b published by BMG Platinum Songs US (BMI)
(P) 1969
The Beatles’ Abbey Road was released in September 1969 and became an immediate commercial success, quickly hitting number one throughout the world. The album is, in many ways, unlike anything that had been done before and contained some of the group’s most mature and notable work on record. Unfortunately, Abbey Road also proved to be the Fab Four’s final recording together (most of Let it Be, the group’s last issued record, had been recorded before Abbey Road). Still, a lot of Beatles fans consider Abbey Road to be the group’s very best and many others consider it to be one of the greatest records of all time. Even DownBeat, which spent years ruing the Fab Four’s invasion into jazz, conceded Abbey Road’s magnificence, surprisingly awarding the Beatles album an earnest and well-deserved four stars.
A mere month after the Beatles’ monumental album came out, Creed Taylor, Don Sebesky and George Benson convened in the Van Gelder Studio to present a jazz impression of the record, called The Other Side of Abbey Road. While jazz players, particularly pianists, routinely recorded jazz takes of Broadway musicals in the fifties – Taylor produced one such record with Billy Taylor’s My Fair Lady Loves Jazz in 1957 – no one in jazz had yet taken up the challenge to cover a full rock album. Perhaps this was due to the fact that all too few rock albums possessed the compositional fortitude that could withstand such creative jazz scrutiny as Abbey Road had.1
“From a conception standpoint,” wrote Andrew Scott in Wax Poetics, “both Benson and Taylor were savvy enough to understand the seismic impact the Beatles’ recording would have.”2 Benson’s is probably the most memorable cover of the Beatles’ influential album but it wasn’t the only one.3 Booker T. Jones was so moved by Abbey Road, that his group, Booker T. and the MG’s, waxed their own tribute, McLemore Avenue, for Stax Records.
was released in June 1970, two months after Booker T.’s album. The Beatles’ album had already reached number one at this point, so the timing was propitious. It’s an especially cunning presentation, arranged magisterially by Don Sebesky, in a series of five suites, similar to the Booker T. record.4
Benson’s guitar is out front on “You Never Give Me Your Money,” the insidiously funky “Come Together,” the aptly hypnotic “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” (featuring a glorious Freddie Hubbard solo), “Something” and the Basie-esque takes of “Octopus’s Garden” and (the first half of) “The End,” while Benson’s vocals feature prominently on “Golden Slumbers,” “Oh! Darling,” “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something.”
Benson never sounded better – or more in his element – with Sebesky providing a magnificent outlet for him to shine. Creed Taylor, said Benson, “made sure that the music we picked would connect with an audience. He would dress it up and put tuxedos on [it] and invite a genius in like Don Sebesky. Pick any album like White Rabbit [nominated for a 1972 Grammy] or The Other Side of Abbey Road. You can’t beat that stuff.”5
The Other Side of Abbey Road points the way to the sound and shape of CTI to come as well. It is more of a “concept album” than any of its A&M/CTI predecessors, favoring an album’s entire presentation over any one or two songs seeking to garner radio airplay.6 This is a new consideration for Creed Taylor and, whether by accident or design, one he would continue to perfect at CTI in the 70s. The Other Side of Abbey Road eventually peaked at number 125 on the Billboard 200, Benson’s highest-charting record until his Warner Bros. hit Breezin’ in 1976.
Coincidentally, it was Breezin’ that brought The Other Side of Abbey Road back onto the jazz charts six years after its release. After The Other Side of Abbey Road, George Benson left A&M to join Creed Taylor at CTI for a series of artistic triumphs over six studio albums and scores of notable appearances on other CTI albums through 1976.
About the cover: Riffing on the Beatles’ classic Abbey Road cover, photographer Eric Meola (b. 1946) captures the always elegantly-tailored guitarist George Benson, Gibson in hand, crossing 53rd Street in New York City – to seemingly no regard whatsoever. Only in New York. Meola had only recently graduated from Syracuse University when he was hired to be Pete Turner’s studio manager. The Other Side of Abbey Road was one of his very first assignments – and the only album in the original A&M/CTI catalog not photographed by Turner himself. Meola went on to a remarkable career of his own in photography, greatly influenced by Turner’s vivid use of color. The two also shared the same keen eye for natural wonders, Americana and a story-like iconography in their photos. There are also a number of notable album covers in Meola’s portfolio, most especially the iconic cover of Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 album Born to Run (Meola has since shot other Springsteen covers as well) and Jimmy McGriff and Hank Crawford’s underrated 1978 album Outside Looking In. Meola later shot the Turneresque cover for Creed Taylor’s 1984 Greenestreet production of Les McCann/Houston Person’s Road Warriors.
Endnotes:
- Oddly, as inspired as The Other Side of Abbey Road concept is, it didn’t motivate many other like-minded jazz players to cover rock albums – despite many strong rock records coming out at the time. Gil Evans surprised many several years later covering Jimi Hendrix, but it wasn’t until Blue Note briefly revived the album-cover concept in 1997 that jazz artists covered full rock albums (i.e. There’s A Riot Goin’ On, Tapestry, Déjà Vu, et al.). And this, too, didn’t seem to inspire much more coverage other than later jazz twists on Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon by Sam Yahel and Nguyên Lê and the multiple-artists tribute to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, A Day in the Life: Impressions of Pepper (Impulse, 2018). ↩︎
- Scott, 2011, p. 66. ↩︎
- Around the same time, Don Sebesky also arranged “Abbey Road Medley” for Doc Severinsen’s Closet (Command RSSD 950 S, 1970). The medley is a suite including “Because,” “Sun King,” “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” and (the second half of) “The End.” Severinsen’s medley differs from the Benson album in that it prominently features Joe Beck’s wah-pedaled guitar solo and a choir of background vocalists. ↩︎
- There is reason to believe that the “suite” concept was adopted at the last minute to get the album out quickly. Benson and Sebesky only address little more than half of Abbey Road’s songs and such features as “Golden Slumbers” and “Because” are more sketches than fully worked-out songs. Taylor was also in the process of launching CTI as an independent entity and probably didn’t give the project as much time and attention as he otherwise would. Indeed, there is no evidence the missing Abbey Road songs were ever recorded. Was it a rush job? Probably. ↩︎
- Scott, 2011, p. 66. There is a sense that Benson is playing to an appreciative audience here. In his autobiography, Benson’s only comment about The Other Side of Abbey Road is “man, critics all over the world hated that one.” ↩︎
- While a promotional single from the album of “Golden Slumbers/You Never Give Me Your Money” (A&M 8395) was issued to record stores and radio stations to promote the album, there were no singles issued from The Other Side of Abbey Road for consumers to purchase. ↩︎