By Melinda Newman

The album’s impact on other artists was immediate. A few weeks after its release, Jimi Hendrix began playing the title track in concert. By year’s end, Johnny Rivers had immortalized the album in his wistful hit, “Summer Rain,” which included the line “All summer long we spent groovin’ in the sand/Everybody kept on playin’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

As Spizer says, “there are two kinds of musicians today: those influenced by The Beatles and liars.”

The record spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart and is as noteworthy for its iconic cover as for its music. It features the Liverpudlian lads in bright band uniforms surrounded by stand ups of world figures ranging from Fred Astaire and Karl Marx to Mahatma Gandhi (obscured behind a palm tree, after EMI objected) and Mae West, who first refused to be included until The Beatles wrote her a personal note.

Sgt. Pepper, which became the first rock effort to win the Grammy Award for album of the year, emerged as a sea change was underway: the United States was shaken by the ongoing war in Vietnam and the reaction by many people was to come together in a peaceful way.

“The Beatles did not create the Summer of Love but were an important part of its soundtrack,” Spizer says. “They were influenced by the world around them while, at the same time, they influenced the world. Their songs both reflected our culture and changed our culture.”

Forty years later, the Summer of Love is being commemorated around the world: The BBC recreated the album on June 1, the day of its British release, with such artists as Oasis, The Killers, The Fray, and Razorlight taking part. Even “American Idol” got into the spirit on this season’s finale with the contestants performing songs from the album.

“At The Mirage, we’re celebrating the Summer of Love in our own way,” says Scott Sibella, the resort’s president.