So Sgt. Pepper is a mishmash of rubbish. What else would you expect from Keef?

THE Beatles s ounded great when they were the Beatles,’ Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones told Esquire magazine. ‘But there’s not a lot of roots in that music. I think they got carried away.’

He added: ‘Why not? If you’re the Beatles in the ’60s, you just get carried away – you forget what it is you wanted to do. You’re starting to do Sgt. Pepper. Some people think it’s a genius album, but I think it’s a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like Satanic Majesties – “Oh, if you can make a load of s**t, so can we”.’

The music world wasn’t taken by surprise when everybody’s favourite recovering addict put the boot into the Beatles and more specifically into their iconic album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Keith has ‘form’ in the abuse department. This time around, he slammed the Beatles for losing the roots of their sound during a meteoric rise to the top of the charts in the Sixties.

Even though we are keenly aware that Keef’s new album and documentary are being released on September 18, it still feels like sacrilege to those who use Sgt. Pepper as their bible.

There has been no love lost between the two bands for long periods and in a famous interview in 1971, Lennon fought his corner and dished the dirt on his friendship with Jagger.

‘We saw a bit of each other when Allen [Klein, the Beatles’ lateperiod manager] was first coming in. I think Mick got jealous. I was always very respectful of Mick and the Stones, but he said a lot of sort of tarty things about the Beatles, which I am hurt by, because, you know, I can knock the Beatles, but don’t let Mick Jagger knock them.’

THE shortness of the Beatles’ performing career is sometimes used as a stick to beat them with. The Mop Tops’ futility at playing live in front of a wail of screaming girls sent them running into studios, where glory of glories, the Beatles found the brilliant producer and arranger, George Martin.

For his own part, George Martin found a band that was open to change and would avariciously dine on a casserole of classical influences he put in front of them

If John Lennon were alive today, I doubt if he would take that guff from Keith. He didn’t in the past. When the Rolling Stones released their album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, a few months after Sgt. Pepper in December 1967, Lennon went on a rant.

‘You know, Satanic Majesties is Pepper; We Love You. It’s the most f***in’ bulls**t, because that’s All You Need Is Love. But they are not in the same class, music-wise or power-wise. Never were. I like their funky music and I like their style. I like rock ’n’ roll and the direction they took after they got over trying to imitate us.

‘He’s obviously so upset by how big the Beatles are compared with him, he never got over it.’ Ouch! The contrast between the two bands was very pronounced. The blues rhythms of the Stones were aggressive and Jagger’s vocal techniques added to the attack. Their contrived louche lifestyle meant the Stones were always the black hats, always bad guys, while the Beatles were the white hats, writing a soundtrack that they would ‘like to teach the world to sing’. Without coke. The effect of George Martin, often dubbed ‘the fifth Beatle’, has never been in doubt for me.

He opened up a bonanza cornucopia of strange and difficult chords to Lennon and McCartney and of the two – and this is pure conjecture on my part – I think McCartney was t he better sponge.

With more instruments to play around with in his head he started composing as much as writing and it was different from Lennon, whose songs are more brittle and political.

In a 1971 letter to Paul McCart- ney, Lennon wrote, ‘When people ask me questions about, “What did George Martin really do for us?”, you had no answer to that. It’s not a put-down, it’s the truth. George Martin took too much credit for the Beatles’ music.’

John was being a bit disingenuous, or else he forgot how many tracks Martin played on, as well as arranged.

He also gave Lennon and McCartney a blank canvas and showed them new ways of mixing the colours on their songs. Lennon had a good feel for the technical end of recording, while McCartney hoovered up any stray notes floating around the studio and turned them into another killer riff.

We know that Sgt. Pepper sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, but is there anything in what Keith Richards says?

Is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band a ‘mishmash of rubbish’?

Keith is right about it being a bit of a ‘mishmash’, methinks the result of a badly thought-out running order. I would say there were fierce battles over how they would accommodate Within You Without You, in particular. It was probably a sop to George. But I have to say, with its wailing sitars, it really sounded like it belonged on a different album altogether.