Who was the first drummer to feature on a Beatles record?
On October 5th, 1962, The Beatles released their debut single to relatively little fanfare and had to wait several weeks for the record to climb its way gradually to number 17 in the UK charts. Nevertheless, ‘Love Me Do’ was a piece of plastic in the shops with the band’s name on it, and they’d released one of the 20 best-selling songs on a national scale.
Their next record, ‘Please Please Me’, would go on to top the UK charts and herald the beginning of Beatlemania on the eastern side of the Atlantic. The minor success of ‘Love Me Do’ was the moment the band’s four members felt they’d arrived, though. Their recording of the track signalled the moment that the band’s famous studio chemistry clicked into gear.
Ringo Starr was a recent addition to the group after longtime drummer Pete Best was unceremoniously dismissed during the summer of 1962. Paul McCartney has recounted the moment that the band first realised they’d hit on a magic formula with Ringo behind the kit during many an interview down the years. And they needed every bit of magic Starr could muster during the September 4th recording session for their debut single.
Yet, with just a few days to prepare for the session and very little rehearsal alongside his new bandmates, Starr couldn’t quite nail his part down for ‘Love Me Do’. His bass drum kicks were arriving a fraction of a second later than McCartney’s bassline. Producer George Martin wasn’t happy with what he heard, and he had his assistant Ron Richards call in a “professional” session player.
And who was this session drummer?
Starr’s temporary replacement was Andy White, a 32-year-old Scottish jazz drummer who had experience backing the likes of Chuck Berry and Bill Haley on stage. The Beatles re-recorded ‘Love Me Do’ a week after their initial session as well as its prospective B-side ‘PS I Love You’, with White on drums and Starr relegated to the tambourine. Richards helmed the recording with Martin away on other business, although Martin took care of the mixing himself at a later date.
This version was the one intended for release as the band’s first record, with 18 different takes laid down on tape in Martin’s absence. Martin himself claims that Starr didn’t play on ‘Love Me Do’ during the September 4th session either since he was so unhappy with Pete Best’s drumming during an earlier studio booking that he hired White to ensure he had a drummer he could trust from the get-go. This account contradicts Starr’s own recollection of events in The Beatles’ Anthology documentary, where he describes White entering the picture “a week later”. However, he concurred with Martin that the session drummer had been “previously booked” in advance due to Martin’s dissatisfaction with Best.
The identity of the drummer in the September 4th studio session for ‘Love Me Do’ holds particular historical significance. It was actually the session for the first Beatles record ever released.
White’s September 11th performance is what ended up on later pressings of the single, the album Please Please Me, and most compilation albums featuring the song. But this version was mixed and sent to manufacturers too late for the single’s first pressings, meaning that the September 4th version was the one used for most of the copies initially released, against Martin’s wishes. This earlier recording also features on the singles compilation Past Masters.
According to most Beatles historians, despite Martin’s claim that Ringo is the drummer on the September 4th recording, we can hear it for ourselves, with the drumming on this recording significantly looser and the bass kick coming in ever-so-slightly after the beat. So, Starr is the first drummer on a Beatles record, after all. Martin may have marked out Andy White for that role, and it’s White’s drumming on ‘Love Me Do’ that’s more familiar to us today. But Ringo got there first.
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