Fans recreate Beatles' Abbey Road cover shot 50 years on

Around a thousand The Beatles fans came together in London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band making their iconic zebra crossing picture for the "Abbey Road" album cover.

People take pictures as the Beatles cover band members walk on the zebra crossing on Abbey Road in London, Britain August 8, 2019.
Reuters

People take pictures as the Beatles cover band members walk on the zebra crossing on Abbey Road in London, Britain August 8, 2019.

It was 50 years ago today, The Beatles caused a traffic delay.

And hundreds of fans of the Fab Four gathered on Thursday at a crosswalk in London's St. John's Wood neighborhood immortalised on the "Abbey Road" album to recreate the cover photo half a century after it was taken.

At 11:35 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1969, Iain Macmillan photographed John, Paul, George and Ringo striding single-file across the black-and-white "zebra" crossing outside Abbey Road Studios while a police officer stopped traffic.

TRT World’s Simon McGregor-Wood joined the crowds of Beatles fans on Abbey Road.

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Used as the cover of the band's penultimate studio album, it became one of the most famous images in music history.

On Thursday spectators snapped photos on cellphones and lookalikes from a Beatles cover band crossed the street in tribute to the original image.

The spot remains a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans from around the world.

"Every hour of every day there are fans on the crossing," said Beatles tour guide Richard Porter, who organised Thursday's commemoration. "I've seen lots of different sights on the crossing, too, from couples having their wedding photos taken to people going across naked."

'Abbey Road', which was voted the best Beatles album by readers of Rolling Stone in 2009, was the only one of the group's original British albums to show neither the band's name nor a title on the cover. 

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