Beatles fans mark 50th anniversary of iconic 'Abbey Road' album cover photo

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

It's been 50 years since four lads from Liverpool took a short stroll across a London street and fans are marking the anniversary,

The image taken for the cover of The Beatles' "Abbey Road" album is legendary. It has become fodder for conspiracy theorists, who think that because Paul McCartney is barefoot, not in step with the other musicians, and John Lennon is dressed in white, that it could be a funeral procession, proving that McCartney is really dead and a stand-in has been performing for all these years, Biography reported.

The photo was taken by Iain Macmillan and was the fifth of only six shots taken that day, Reuters reported.

 

Not only is the photo iconic, the album, which was released on Sept. 26, 1969, was voted one of best Beatles' albums by Rolling Stone readers"Abbey Road" included the tracks of well-known Beatles hits like "Come Together" "Here Comes the Sun" "Maxwell's Silver Hammer and "Octopus's Garden."

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The studios where the album was filmed, and which were located by the famous crosswalk, were originally named EMI Studios, but later became Abbey Road Studios. Both the studios and the crosswalk were given protected status by the UK government in 2010, Reuters reported.

Fans came together at the crosswalk Thursday morning to mark the anniversary, according to Reuters.

Also, to commemorate the anniversary of the group's final studio album recorded, but not the final release, the Beatles will re-issue "Abby Road" in a box set, drummer Ringo Starr told Billboard Magazine earlier this month.

"I've loved all the re-releases because of the remastering and you can hear the drums, which got dialed down in the old days," Starr told Billboard.

Starr's also amazed at the sticking power that the band still has with fans young and old.

"We have a billion streams a year now, and every generation still has a listen to us Far out," Starr told Billboard.

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