Brighton author dons headphones, dives into the Beatles By Brian McCollum, Detroit Free Press Pop Music Writer

But his real revelation came in 2005. Donning a pair of headphones on a whim, he played his copy of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and discovered a whole new Beatles world to be explored, courtesy of an adventurous band that "understood the potential of the studio as an instrument in itself," Montgomery said.

"I was hearing stuff I didn't remember hearing over external speakers or in my car," he said. "So I listened again right away and started making some notes."

As he dove into the rest of the group's catalog, headphones on, Montgomery noticed more bits that hadn't registered on his prior "millions of listens." There was the "high trebly hiss of Ringo's drums" that dominates the Beatles' early work. The omnipresent hand-clapping on the first four albums. The spotty solos that crop up in George Harrison's guitar work.

And there were the true oddities, like the background voices buried on "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" that include John Lennon solemnly spelling out "H-O-M-E."

With a book deal locked up by early 2013, Montgomery plunged into a 16-month adventure, his weekends spent at a table with a notebook, an iPod and a pair of high-end Sony headphones. It was thrilling and painstaking — a process of constant rewinding and pausing as he logged what he heard: the positions of voices and sounds in the stereo spectrum, the precise time stamps for various sounds, the flubs and technical glitches.

"I'm blessed to have a wife who gave me wide berth," says Montgomery, associate director of communications for U-M's School of Education.

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