Beatles fans get a rare chance to go inside Abbey Road

The Abbey Road Studios, most especially Studio Two, have been part of the legend —— the place where, by EMI’s count, 192 of the Beatles’ 202 songs were recorded. Its significance was enshrined when the Beatles named the last LP that they recorded Abbey Road, complete with iconic album cover of the four band members crossing the street the studio complex is named after. (Let It Be, recorded earlier, was the last album released.)

For years, pilgrims, fanatics and the mildly curious have traversed the crosswalk and stood outside the gates of the studios. But except for a brief stretch in 1982, its doors have remained closed to the public. Until now. Last Saturday, Abbey Road’s owners opened its gates for a film festival honoring the 25th anniversary of the studio’s work as one of the world’s largest producers of movie music. Nearly two dozen films are being shown over 16 days in Studio One, the cavernous, auditorium-like room where the movie scores are performed and recorded.

But for many, the main attraction is just across the hall: Studio Two is also open for festival-goers. EMI veterans say the studio looks much as it did when the Beatles worked there between 1962 and 1969. A soundproof iron door that looks as if it could have done service on a German U-boat still guards the entrance. Inside, white paint is peeling from panels on the walls, and the parquet floor is scuffed from hundreds of amplifiers and instruments that have been hauled over it.

Located in posh, leafy St. John’s Wood in north London, Abbey Road began life in the 1830s as an elegant, nine-bedroom estate house with a long, lush garden in the back. EMI bought it in the late 1920s and turned it into one of the world’s first recording studios.

Musical history was made here long before the Beatles arrived. Edward Elgar, one of Britain’s most distinguished composers and conductors, inaugurated the studio in 1931 with a historic recording of Land of Hope and Glory, Britain’s unofficial national anthem, by the London Symphony Orchestra.Violin prodigy Yehudi Menuhin, then 16, came to record the next year, followed by cellist Pablo Casals, violinist Jascha Heifetz and pianist Artur Schnabel. Hundreds of actors, musicians, singers and songwriters made their way to Abbey Road. Since 1980, the movies have come to dominate.

But the Beatles are still Abbey Road’s defining faces. In the early days they were considered just another musical act that needed to abide by the studio’s strict code of conduct. They wore coats and ties when they came to record, and the sessions were conducted in three-hour blocks, with long breaks for tea and lunch.

Gradually, as the hits came and the money started to flow, the Beatles took over. The coats and ties came off, and the band started pulling legendary all-nighters. With Beatlemania exploding just outside the studio gates, band members saw Abbey Road as a refuge where they could work uninterrupted, sleep when they needed to, then work some more.

The drugs flowed at times, too. In his 1979 memoir All You Need Is Ears, Martin recalls John Lennon freaking out and collapsing one evening in 1967 while making Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Martin helped him to the roof to get some fresh air, then feared Lennon might fall off. Martin stayed with Lennon until the crisis subsided. The first couple of Beatles albums were each recorded in one long sprint, never taking more than a few days. But Sgt. Pepper took several months.

The climax came with A Day in the Life, the album’s concluding song, when Lennon and Paul McCartney commandeered Studio One, hired 39 classical musicians and requested that they all come formally attired. McCartney provided funny hats for each player and a bright red nose for the conductor.

After the Beatles broke down and broke up in 1970, Pink Floyd took over as Studio Two’s unofficial house band. In recent years Radiohead, Ozzy Osborne, the Spice Girls and other acts have made the studio their home. McCartney was back last year with a slick, powerful band to lay down tracks for an album due later this year.

‘‘None of this stuff was supposed to have lasted,’’ novelist Nick Hornby, a pop music aficionado, writes in his introduction to the film festival guide. ‘‘The three-minute pop songs and the one-line jokes were intended for immediate consumption, but it didn’t happen like that.’’ Instead, the story of Abbey Road ‘‘must also be the story of 20th and 21st century popular culture, pretty much all of which is dependent on recorded sound.’’ —lat-WP