328: Meat – The Beatles with Erika White

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On March 25, 1966, photographer Robert Whitaker – a surrealist – took The Beatles into his studio to capture a concept piece he called “A Somnamulant Adventure,” envisioned as a triptych commentary on the group’s fame.

But the project slid away from him when one frame, depicting The Beatles with slabs of meat and doll parts, was sent to the US for Capitol to use on their latest compilation album. The blowback was fierce and Whitaker never got to complete his work, but the so-called “butcher cover” became an interesting piece of folklore (and collectible), the first of many controversies for the group that year.

Beatles scholar Erika White details the entire history of not just the shoot, but Whitaker’s association with The Beatles, as well as the path that made the group amenable to his concept and what the repercussions were in her forthcoming book, Meat The Beatles: The Butcher Cover – The Complete, Untold Story of the Fab Four’s Most Controversial Album Artwork.