1966 www.amazon.com Watch more: lifeofthebeatles.blogspot.com On 25 March 1966, the Beatles took part in a photo session in a London studio (1 The Vale, Chelsea). The studio was rented by Oluf Nissen, but Whitaker took the photographs, as he had also photographed the covers for the albums, With the Beatles, Beatles For Sale, Help! and Rubber Soul. The publicity shots were used for the American Yesterday and Today album and a poster promoting the UK release of “Paperback Writer”. The photograph created an uproar, as it featured the band dressed in butchers’ overalls, draped in meat and mutilated plastic dolls. A popular, though apocryphal, rumour said that this was meant as a response to the way Capitol had “butchered” their albums. Capitol parent EMI chairman Sir Joseph Lockwood ordered the butcher cover withdrawn. Thousands of copies of the album had a new cover pasted over. Whitaker later explained that he was trying to create a satirical commentary on the Beatles’ fame, and that the images of dismembered doll and mannequin parts had been inspired by the German surrealist Hans Bellmer. Uncensored copies of Yesterday and Today command a high price today, with one copy selling for 500 at a December 2005 auction. Unpeeled copies of the pasted over sleeve are also collectable. After the group played a concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on 29 August 1966, they announced that they would stop touring. Immediately after the tour, the Beatles took a three month …
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