Utah’s Famed ‘Sgt. Pepper Artist’ Responds To Keith Richards’ Anti-Beatles Broadside

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – October 17, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album sucks.

So says Keith Richards, rock-n-roll-bad-boy-turned-bad-grandpa, and longtime guitarist for the Rolling Stones.

Richard’s made the remarks during a recent interview with Esquire Magazine, calling the 1967 Beatles classic little more than “a mishmash of rubbish.”

But if anyone is an authority on selling a load of rubbish, it’s likely Keith Richards, especially when he’s promoting the release of his first solo album in 23 years.

So says renowned pop artist Jann Haworth, a Salt Lake resident who had a considerable hand in creating the Sgt. Pepper experience.

You see, Haworth, and her then-husband, pop artist Peter Blake, are the co-creators of Sgt. Pepper’s album cover.

Yes, that cover.

The one, that if you are of a certain age and disposition, you held in your hands for hours – literally hours – as you settled into a pair of oversized headphones and became absorbed in the music and the images that would define your lifetime.

The iconic work was considered a milestone in the world of commercial pop art with Haworth and Blake winning Grammy Awards in 1968 for Best Album Cover and Best Graphic Art.

Nearly fifty years later the album is still the stuff of legend.

“Everyone has highly differentiated taste when it comes to music,” Haworth told Gephardt Daily. “Music plays on our whole emotional system—no two of us will completely agree on our individual play lists of greats. If Keith was wise, therefore, worth listening to, he wouldn’t be slagging off or ranting about the Beatles work 50 years ago. He has always loved the role of enfant terrible, but it’s getting old and rather pathetic. The guy seems to be shutting down.”

Haworth created a Salt Lake version of the “Sgt. Pepper” cover as a mural for Salt Lake in 2004. “It was something of a reprise or a riff on the original that sought to capture the cultural and artistic changes since the 60’s, not just in the world but in ourselves,” she said. Haworth sees this as both a celebration and a comment on the original.

Haworth adds she doesn’t feel the Beatles need defending. She said she believes all icons risk feet of clay, and it’s good for us to remember they are human, after all.

“I’m not here to defend the Beatles Opus because I happened to co-design the ‘Sgt. P.’ cover,” she said. “All art works have their imperfections—album covers included—but to call the music a ‘mishmash of rubbish’ is simply a display of ignorance.

“Marianne Faithfull, says that the Stones referred to the Beatles as the Choir Boys. Presumably that means the Beatles were squeaky clean compared with the hard livin’ Stones. Some might say that the Beatles were smarter,” Haworth said.

“Keith’s little rant is like a bitter old man,” Haworth said. “Take away the out of date cool, the recognizable wreck of a face, and the mirage of ‘The Stones’ and just think of him as a bitter old geezer, standing destitute on his soap-box, ranting on a corner in some taggy part of town, saying word-for-word what we are told he said. How is what he has to say any different from that? Would you even stop to listen?”