Abbey Road Recording Studios are world famous, and for good reason. In 1929 EMI bought a large home at 3 Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, to be converted into studios, and two years later they had the first purpose built recording studios in the world.

Yehudi Menuhin, Fats Waller, Paul Robeson, and Gertrude Lawrence were just a few of the performers that recorded at the studio in its early days.

During the 1940s, the studios were used for the war effort to record propaganda and BBC broadcasts, and artists like Glenn Miller and his band recorded there.

In the 1950s, George Martin joined the studio and started recording comic plays and songs by artists like Peter Ustinov, Peter Sellers, and Spike Milligan. This era saw the very beginning of Britain’s home grown rock and roll movement when Cliff Richard and the Drifters began recording at the studios.

Of course, you can’t talk about Abbey Road Studios without mentioning their most famous clients, The Beatles. They worked with George Martin at the studios from 1962 to 1970 and over 90 percent of their songs were recorded there.

The Beatles work schedule was gruelling; they would enter the studios to record an album and not emerge until it was complete, and this changed the way Abbey Road scheduled recording sessions.

The Beatles also were the catalyst for many technological changes at the studios. Their recording requirements often pushed or exceeded the existing capacity at the studios; in fact the linked multi-track recording system they brought out in 1968 was originally developed to meet the demands of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album.

The Abbey Road Studios became famous and a very popular place for rock artists through the 1970s.

In the 1980s, the studios branched out to specialize in movie scoring, mixing, re-mastering, archiving, and DVD authoring.

Abbey Road Recording Studios are still on the cutting edge of recording technology and are positioned to retain their spot as one of the pre-eminent recording locations in the world.

Visiting Abbey Road Studios

3 Abbey Road, Kilburn, NW8 0AY

Telephone: 020 7266 7000

Photo courtesy: Ethan Prater

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