Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England.[1] It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner. It is most notable as being the venue in the 1960s for innovative recording techniques adopted by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Badfinger, and others.
Towards the end of 2009, the studio came under threat of sale to property developers, however the British Government protected the site, granting it English Heritage Grade II listed status in 2010, thereby preventing the building from subjection to major alterations.[2]
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Originally a nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in the 1830s on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was later converted to apartments where the most flamboyant resident was Maundy Gregory. The premises were acquired by the Gramophone Company in 1931 and converted into studios. Pathé filmed the opening of the studios, when Sir Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music.[3] The neighbouring house is also owned by the studio and used to house musicians. During the mid-1900s the studio was extensively used by leading British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, whose house was just around the corner from the studio building.[4]
The Gramophone Company later amalgamated with Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI, which took over the studios. The studios were then known as EMI Studios until EMI formally changed their name to Abbey Road Studios in 1970.
Studio Two at Abbey Road became a centre of rock music in 1958 when Cliff Richard and the Drifters (later Cliff Richard and The Shadows) recorded "Move It" there, arguably the first European rock and roll single.
Abbey Road Studios is most closely associated with the Beatles, who recorded almost all of their albums and singles there between 1962 and 1970. The Beatles named their 1969 album, Abbey Road, after the street where the studio is located (the recording studio would only be named Abbey Road after the Beatles record in 1970). The cover photo for that album was taken by Iain Macmillan outside Abbey Road Studios, with the result that the pedestrian zebra crossing outside the studio, still located in exactly the same spot today, has become a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans from all over the world. It has been a long-standing tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the studio fence in front, although it is painted over monthly. In December 2010 the zebra crossing at Abbey Road was given a Grade II listed status.[5]
Pink Floyd recorded most of their late 1960s to mid-1970s albums, returning only in 1988 for mixing and overdubbing subsequent albums.
The Shadows named their Live At Abbey Road album after the studio, with the cover spoofing The Beatles' album.
Notable producers and sound engineers who have worked at Abbey Road include Sir George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Norman "Hurricane" Smith, Ken Scott, Mike Stone, Alan Parsons, Peter Vince, Malcolm Addey, Peter Bown, Richard Langham, Phil McDonald, John Kurlander, Richard Lush and Ken Townsend, who invented the groundbreaking studio effect known as automatic double tracking (ADT). The chief mastering engineer at Abbey Road was Chris "Vinyl" Blair, who started his career early on as a tape deck operator. Blair died on 7 November 2005.
In 1979, EMI commissioned the British jazz fusion band Morrissey-Mullen to record "Britain's first digitally-recorded single record" at Abbey Road Studios.[6]
From 18 July to 11 September 1983, the public had a rare opportunity to see inside the legendary Studio Two where The Beatles made most of their records. While a new mixing console was being installed in the control room, the studio was used to host a video presentation called "The Beatles At Abbey Road". The soundtrack to the video contained a number of recordings that were not made commercially available until The Beatles Anthology project over a decade later.[7]
In March/April 2005, Abbey Road Studios held a film festival. It included a tour of Studio One and Studio Two (excluding control rooms). They displayed several films in Studio One associated with the studio and an exhibition in Studio Two consisting of photographs, and a fully autographed sleeve from every original UK Beatles album. Also on display were several microphones, two upright pianos, and a Hammond Organ.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers included a photograph of themselves walking across the zebra crossing naked, except for the infamous socks, on the front of The Abbey Road E.P., released in 1988.
Abbey Road Studios is a five-to-ten minute walk away from St John's Wood tube station. From central London, it is accessible using the Jubilee line. When exiting the station, the visitor faces south at the intersection of A41 (Finchley Rd./Wellington Rd.) and Acacia Road (to the left)/Grove End Road (to the right). The studio is along Grove End Road, passing Waverley Place and Loudon St. on the right; addresses decrease in number along the way. As Grove End Road veers sharply to the left, Abbey Road is to the immediate right. The first pedestrian crossing is the crossing featured on the album. The studio, at 3 Abbey Road, is the unaddressed white building across the street.
Abbey Road Studios got its start in the film scoring business in 1980, when Anvil Post Production formed a partnership with the studio, called Anvil-Abbey Road Screen Sound. The partnership started when Anvil was left without a scoring stage when Korda Studios were demolished. It ended in 1984, when EMI merged with THORN Electrical Industries to become Thorn EMI.
Abbey Road's success in the scoring business continued after the partnership ended.
John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra used the studios to record the scores for 5 films from the Star Wars franchise beginning with The Empire Strikes Back in 1980.
All three film scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King), composed by Howard Shore and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, were also recorded at Abbey Road Studios.
Apple's iMovie'11's soundtracks for their trailers were recorded here in early 2010.
On 17 February 2010, it was reported that the studio's owners, EMI had put the world-famous studios up for sale due to increasing debts. There was reported interest by property developers with the intent of redeveloping the site into luxury apartments.[8] It has also been reported that there is a possibility that the studios could be purchased by the National Trust[9] in an effort to preserve what in effect is an historical building. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was reported to have put in a bid of £30 million to purchase the studios but was turned down by EMI.[10] The Save Abbey Road Studios campaign has also been mounted to ensure that the studios remain working studios and not become a museum.[11] EMI has released a statement saying that it plans on keeping the studio under its ownership and is actually looking for an investor to help with a "revitalisation" project.[12] Meanwhile, the British government has declared Abbey Road Studios a Grade II listed building, as it is an historic site, which protects the site from major alterations.[13]
Paul McCartney, speaking to BBC Newsnight on 16 February 2010, said that there have been efforts to save Abbey Road by "a few people who have been associated with the studio for a long time", although he did not name those people or include himself among them. "I have so many memories there with the Beatles", he added. "It still is a great studio. So it would be lovely for someone to get a thing together to save it".[14]
The interior of Abbey Road contains many different works of art, the latest by Birmingham based artist Annemarie Wright, which features a handwritten list of all artists that have recorded at the historic venue.[15]
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