Abbey Road to offer studio time to wealthy hotel guests

Guests at London’s Savoy Hotel and other luxury hotels will be able to visit and record in Abbey Road Studios’ famous Studio Two, where The Beatles recorded the bulk of their songs.

The commercial partnership between the studio and the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts group, both of which are owned by EMI, is the latest in a series of moves designed to shore up the finances of the ailing record company.

Up to 60 guests a year, chosen from Fairmont’s President’s Club loyalty scheme, will be given behind-the-scenes studio visits, which will end with a recording session. They will be allocated a producer and session musicians.

Guests of the Fairmont hotels will be able to come and record a song at Abbey Road. They’ll have access to the famous studios and be given help to record their song with vocal coaches and session musicians. They’ll get a CD of their recording as a souvenir.

It won’t be a week-long session, they will have to complete the recording within the working day.

The studios will also be available for corporations hire for team-building days, in which up to 100 staff will be given musical tuition and performance advice before recording a song.

The new initiatives will not affect the musicians working in other studios elsewhere in the building.

The studio building, located at 3 Abbey Road in St John’s Wood, London, was built in 1813 as a Georgian townhouse. It was acquired by the Gramophone Company in 1931, just a few months before it merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electric and Musical Industries Ltd. EMI converted it to house studios to be used for the recording of classical music.

Studio Two, in which The Beatles recorded the majority of their songs, is perhaps the most famous studio in the world. The scene of the majority of The Beatles’ sessions, it has a large space able to accommodate up to 55 musicians.It also has a range of upright pianos and a Steinway Model D concert grand.

The Beatles’ EMI audition took place at Abbey Road’s Studio Two on 6 June 1962. The majority of their music was recorded in the building, which was made world-famous by their final recorded album, Abbey Road.