Fans recreate Beatles’ Abbey Road cover shot 50 years on
Posted August 8, 2019 6:33 am.
Last Updated August 8, 2019 7:41 am.
LONDON — It was 50 years ago today, that The Beatles caused a traffic delay.
And hundreds of fans of the Fab Four gathered Thursday at a crosswalk in London’s St. John’s Wood neighborhood immortalized on the “Abbey Road” album to recreate the cover photo half a century after it was taken.
At 11:35 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1969, Iain Macmillan photographed John, Paul, George and Ringo striding single-file across the black-and-white “zebra” crossing outside Abbey Road Studios while a police officer stopped traffic.
Used as the cover of the band’s penultimate studio album, it became one of the most famous images in music history.
On Thursday spectators snapped photos on cellphones and lookalikes from a Beatles cover band crossed the street in tribute to the original image.
Fans dressed as lookalikes walk across the Abbey Road zebra crossing on the 50th anniversary of British pop musicians The Beatles doing it for their album cover of ‘Abbey Road’ in St Johns Wood in London, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019. They aimed to cross 50 years to the minute since the ‘Fab Four’ were photographed for the album. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
The spot remains a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans from around the world.
“Every hour of every day there are fans on the crossing,” said Beatles tour guide Richard Porter, who organized Thursday’s commemoration. “I’ve seen lots of different sights on the crossing, too, from couples having their wedding photos taken to people going across naked.”
