27 Who Stole The Heads?
The mysterious case of John, Paul & the Sgt Pepper cutouts.
After my Robyn Hitchcock interview, which has smashed through 600 views already, this week’s instalment is a bit of a detective story. We’ll be diving into the Sgt Pepper photo-shoot, and beyond, to help clarify the question of John & Paul’s affection for Alice. We’ll be scrutinising this photo of John — at home in Kenwood — and sharing some insider intel on the choice of heroes for the cover.
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So back to our tale…
It’s 30th March 1967, in a studio in Chelsea.
Jann Haworth, Peter Blake and their team have been readying the backdrop for the historic Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover. In an age before digital libraries and on-demand printing, an assemblage of cutouts, 71 heads and other objects that have taken weeks to source or make, are being gathered.1 It’s a job and a half!!
Now the team, especially Jann Harworth, busy themselves on hand tinting the photos and prepping the heads:
Next step - assembling the backdrop. Sticking the heads onto cutouts. ‘Our man’, Lewis Carroll, is visible bottom right in this shot, looking suitably palid:
Peter Blake scowls at the camera while Jann Haworth grooms a wax work. Is Blake having fun? It’s hard to tell!
Now it’s time to test the lighting.
Finally, the Beatles arrive and survey the scene (Carroll in evidence again):
And then don their military uniforms so they can take their places in the scene.
There’s been a lot of uncertainty about the choice of “heroes” on the cover. Some sources state that The Beatles, mainly John & Paul, plus some gurus chosen by George, account for around 20 of the people, with Jann Haworth and Peter Blake selecting the rest.
And of course, Lewis Carroll is ‘in that number’, which has led many to assume John as the instigator. But Carroll guru, and esteemed collector, Mark Russell Richards has an alternative story to tell, which I asked him to document for us:
“Some years ago, probably in late 1990s, I was chatting to Peter Blake about the Sgt Pepper album cover, amongst other things, and I was curious to know how those particular people were chosen to be represented.
He told me that The Beatles themselves, particularly John and Paul, provided suggestions – from which he and Jann made a selection, and added a few extras.
He also told me that it was Paul McCartney who chose Carroll – and he mentioned about Paul having a sort of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ garden”
-Mark Russell Richards, private correspondance with the author, 2025.
Well, well, well…
It’s yet another piece of evidence in our growing set of Paul connections to Carroll, from our first post on the Alice statues referenced by Blake, to the Apple logo inspiration via Magritte (which we discuss here).
But one of the real mysteries is what happened to all the bits and pieces from the photoshoot. We know the giant bass drum head was auctioned at Christies in 2008 and fetched over £540k.2
Of the rest, most seems to have been binned:
‘When the shoot was over, much of the set was simply thrown away. We had no idea it would be part of rock ’n’ roll history.” — Nigel Hartnup, Michael Cooper’s assistant
And yet John & Paul both seem to have ended up with prototype Sgt Pepper drum-heads in their homes, based on photographic evidence from Kenwood, but also Cavendish Avenue, as we can see here.
And that’s not the end of it…
Fast forward to 1968 and John is still living at his Weybridge home. In full view here are the famous ‘sunroom’ and the swimming pool where Paul used to write songs while John was still stirring (think ‘Here, There & Everywhere’…).
But the mystery thickens in this photo — taken by a fan in 1968 — apparently showing John signing a copy of Magical Mystery Tour. It’s hard to be sure what’s real v potentially superimposed, but assuming it’s bona fide, there he is. We can clearly see the Carroll / Dodgson head behind John, implying that he took the image home with him from the Sgt Pepper photoshoot, which would make sense given his affection for the author.
Perhaps John had first dibs, maybe it was brought later, maybe John & Paul arm-wrestled for it…?
This photo is one of a kind, only available on one or two blogs, with little clarity on provenance. And I’m indebted to Heather Simmons of www.aliceiseverywhere.com for bringing it to my attention.
The head itself appears to be on a bookshelf in the entrance hall that we know was filled with bookcases — a logical home for a Carroll.
Carroll’s on the most famous album cover in history. He also inspires some of its music. And contrary to received wisdom, that inspiration is equally shared, between John & Paul. If Paul chose it, and John stole it, that only goes to prove what Paul has repeatedly said of late - that Alice brought them together, became their shared passion.
See you next time.
“Jann Haworth and Peter Blake did the majority and mostly used specialised photo libraries such as the BBC Radio Times Hulton Picture Library, but sometimes we had to source directly from friends or family. John arranged for former Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe’s photo to come by special delivery from his parents. The Liverpool football player, Albert Stubbins came by post from LFC. As they arrived, we photographed the head shots and enlarged them to life size on 20 x 16 paper and sent them off to be professionally mounted on hardboard. Some of the characters were very beautiful full-length figures, such as Marlene Dietrich and Tom Mix, so we decided to get a photo lab to print and mount them full size, as we didn’t have such equipment in Chelsea Manor Studios. We then hired a carpenter to come with his jigsaw and carefully cut them out.” Source: Sgt Pepper Photos – Discovering the source photos for The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band