For many in the United States, "Abbey Road" immediately calls to mind the Beatles album and its iconic cover of the band strolling single file across a London street. However, in England, Abbey Road is recognized as the name of the most famous recording studio in the world. Over the past 80 years, the home of EMI (Electric and Musical Industries) has been at the vanguard of modern recorded music--inventing much of the technology that made it possible. In this lavish archival photo-history of the studio, Alistair Lawrence has not only chronicled the long list of other performers who did their best work at Abbey Road (e.g., the London Philharmonic, King George VI, Glenn Miller, Peter Sellers, Pink Floyd and Elton John), but also illustrated the recording innovations developed at Abbey Road: everything from microphones to vinyl cutters to 16 track stereo mixers. Imagine a world without Abbey Road Studio--no Beatles, no "King's Speech." --Bruce Jacobs