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Graffiti covers a sign on a building next door to the Abbey Road Studios in north London - Source: Reuters
The London recording studio immortalised by the multi-million-selling Beatles album of the same name has been put up for sale by its owners.
Debt-laden music company EMI is seeking buyers for Abbey Road Studios, a mecca for Beatles fans around the world who pose for photographs imitating the picture on the 1969 Abbey Road album cover which shows Paul, John, George and Ringo strolling over a pedestrian crossing outside the studio.
EMI is talking to a few interested parties about selling the North London studios, but a deal is not imminent, a person familiar with the situation told Reuters. The company and its private equity owner Terra Firma declined to comment.
Abbey Road, which began life as a Georgian town house built in 1831, has an impressive history aside from the Beatles, who recorded most of their 1960s hit singles and albums there under the direction of EMI house producer George Martin.
Its walls have also echoed to music performed by classical composer Edward Elgar, rock bands Pink Floyd and Radiohead, violin maestro Yehudi Menuhin, 1980s bands Spandau Ballet and Simple Minds, as well as Mike Oldfield and Jeff Beck.
A sale that includes the brand could raise 25 to 30 million pounds, the person said. Terra Firma recently told investors it needed more than 100 million pounds to stop EMI breaching banking covenants.
A 4 billion pound deal to buy the record label in 2007 has come to epitomise the woes of buyout deals done at the private equity bubble, with a high debt burden and a weak performance crippling the business.
The investment has been so tumultuous for Terra Firma that it recently launched a lawsuit against Citigroup claiming the US bank inflated the price of the business during the sale process by not revealing the only other bidder had withdrawn from the auction. Citigroup denies the allegations.
Looking back down the road
The beginnings:
The 19th century town house at No 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, was bought by EMI in 1929 to make the world's first custom-built recording studios.
British classical music composer Edward Elgar opened the studios in a ceremony on Nov 12, 1931. Elgar can be seen in a film of the event, conducting the all-male orchestra through his Pomp and Circumstance March No 1.
The inaugural recording made at the studios, also conducted by Elgar, was of his Falstaff symphonic study.
In 1932, 16 year-old violin prodigy Yehudi Menuhin was invited
by Elgar to record his own Violin Concerto, the start of Menuhin's
lifelong association with Abbey Road.
Other regular visitors at that time were Al Bowlly, Ray Noble, Joe
Loss, Flanagan and Allen, Paul Robeson, Gertrude Lawrence, Fats
Waller and Fred Astaire.
After the war:
During World War Two, Abbey Road remained open. It was used for propaganda recordings and BBC broadcasts. Glenn Miller, recorded several titles with singer Dinah Shore in Studio One on Sept 16 1944, the last recordings he made shortly before his plane disappeared on a flight to Paris a few months later. Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli made most of his recordings at the studio.
The Beatles:
The first British artist to record a No 1 hit single in Abbey Road was trumpeter Eddie Calvert whose record of "Oh Mein Papa" topped the charts for nine weeks in 1954.
In 1962, producer George Martin, who had arrived at Abbey Road in 1950, was introduced to the Beatles and produced their first records. The first single from their collaboration, Love Me Do, was released on October 5 and entered the top 20 chart.
In 1969, the Beatles' Abbey Road album was recorded, their first entirely in stereo. Traffic outside the studio was stopped for the iconic cover photo of the group walking over a pedestrian crossing. The final mix on Aug 20 was the last day all four members were together in a recording studio. It was released on Sept 26 and went on to sell more than 10 million copies.
The last 40 years:
Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds, Kiki Dee, XTC, Mike Oldfield, Jeff Beck, Tom Robinson and Kirsty MacColl all recorded there during the 1970s.
Following the success of films such as Star Wars and Superman, the studio became the industry's first choice for recording film scores outside the United States. In 1996, Abbey Road Interactive was developed by owners EMI Music and Apple Computer and a unit for the production of compact discs that combine music, video, graphics, animation, text and speech was opened.
In 2007 a television music series Live From Abbey Road,
consisting of 12 hour-long sessions each featuring three major
acts, was aired in more than 120 countries.
