Dismantling the bullshit conspiracy that The Beatles never played on their own records
Yes, there are claims that The Beatles, in fact, didn’t play on their own records.
The drums, at least. Unfounded rumours and weird conspiracies are nothing new to the Fab Four, accusations of subversive backwards messages, ‘Paul is Dead’ mania, and ‘Helter Skelter’s prophesied race wars all firing up the crazies during The Beatles’ countercultural peak. Less entrenched in pop lore, however, is famed R&B and soul percussionist Bernard ‘Pretty’ Purdie’s insistence that he laid down drum parts for as many as 21 Beatles numbers.
Now, Purdie comes from a seriously respectable pedigree. Boasting countless session credits and collaborations with everybody from James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and BB King to jumps into rock with Steely Dan and Todd Rundgren, the funk drummer has plenty to show off about with nearly 70 years in the drummer and band leader business.
But could it be that Purdie’s sticks are heard on those early Beatles records? It’s a claim he’s made more than once, first dropping a passing hint to The New Yorker in 1967, before divulging further details 11 years later to Gig, suggesting he’d been hired across the summer of 1963, three months ahead of the Meet the Beatles! US release.
“I had never heard of The Beatles,” he said, “But their manager, Brian Epstein, called me and took me down to Capitol’s 46th Street studio. I overdubbed the drumming on 21 tracks of the first three Beatles albums.”
“I got paid in five figures [$10,000 or more],” Purdie added, “And that was the largest amount of money I’d ever gotten in my life. I thought they were paying me all that money because they liked what I played. Then [Epstein] told me I was being paid to keep my mouth shut.”
Never able to remember exactly what he played, except for one number he called “Yeah Yeah Yeah”, an eyebrow can’t help but raise to Purdie’s claims. However, with scant documentation across those early years before Beatlemania had struck the world, what proof can we glean?
Thankfully, Canadian singer-songwriter and frequent Bryan Adams lyrical partner Jim Vallance has laid a pretty solid dismantling of the Purdie conspiracy. Off the aforementioned statements as well as the extra claims made to other press over the years, including The Big Beat, Red Bull Music Academy, Drum!. Several key discrepancies were raised, for one, that Epstein had booked Purdie’s services in the studio. This was highly irregular. The Beatles’ manager rarely ever concerned himself with the creative day-to-day and possessed next to no recording nous.
Then there’s the “Yeah Yeah Yeah” song. Alleged overdubs just don’t align with the meticulously documented list of Beatles studio session dates, ‘She Loves You’ recorded at EMI on July 1st, 1963 and mixed three days later ahead of its release on August 23rd, rendering no time at all for Epstein to rush over to the States to lay down Purdie’s drum cuts on the sly ahead of the impending August release. Further irregularities are highlighted. Suggesting producer George Martin was none the wiser of his percussion contributions, which is absurd considering how well he knew the material, plus the extraordinary claim that Ringo Starr never played a thing despite numerous live show footage of his competent beat.
The only officially recognised outside drummer on a Beatles recording was Scottish drummer Andy White, who played on the Please Please Me and US single version of ‘Love Me Do’, Ringo amiably playing the tambourine. It’s also understood that Paul McCartney sat on the drum stool for ‘Back in the USSR’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ during Ringo’s brief departure during The Beatles sessions.
At best, Purdie may well have been called up to enhance original drummer Pete Best’s beat when Polydor reissued Tony Sheridan’s recordings with a pre-fame Beatles as his backing band via the Atco/Atlantic label, Purdie known to be in demand for session work by Atlantic at the time. This is, at a push, however. The funny fact throughout the soul drummer’s fanciful Fab Four drumming contributions is that the only faintly Beatles touch he ever had was a credit on the terrible 1978 musical of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
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