I was on another message board for guitars, and they were discussing the Sex Pistols. Given the great-sounding guitar work (you’re welcome to disagree, but pro guitarists accept it as given that the guitar tones and rhythm work on *Never Mind the Bollocks *is first rate) and the fact that Chris Spedding - a UK guitar gunslinger - played some demo tracks for the producer Chris Thomas - leads some folks to assert that Spedding played on the CD. Spedding denies it, as does the SP’s guitarist, Steve Jones, but it is out there.
Anyway, a poster who often knows his stuff tossed off a parenthetical aside in a post along the lines of “sidemen are known for getting paid to be quiet (look at Bernard Purdie and the Beatles)”.
Hunh? Purdie - one of the all-time great drummers, most famous for his drum break in Aretha’s Rock Steady - is even mentioned in the “official” text, Lewisohn’s Abbey Road Complete history of the Beatles’ studio work.
Bernard Purdie overdubbed drums on the Polydor recordings that were issued in the US on budget labels. They were really obscure and hard to find until Bear Family in Germany put out a 2CD of all the known mixes of those recordings with and without Tony Sheridan, originally produced by Bert Kaempfert.
If you’ve never seen Bernard talk, he’s got a monster ego. I have a DVD on the making of Steely Dan’s “Aja”. He is interviewed in it, and starts running down a list of artists he’s worked with. At the point where he gets to “…The Beatles…” the engineer has faded him down to almost nil with new sound coming on top, so you can barely make it out. I suspect they figured it was a pretty ludicrous claim, too, seeing as how the closest he got to actually working with The Beatles was in a pair of headphones.
Got it - thanks, sir - I figured you might be the guy to chime in here.
My old drummer in my first-gen midlife crisis band took lessons from Purdie - said that his lessons primarily focused on how to review contracts and get paid. Not a bad lesson to get, for sure, even if it had little to do with drumming, per se…
Drum lessons from Purdie? Wow, that’s gotta be an experience!
As the legend is told, when he’d show up at the studio to play on records, he’d erect two signs by his drum kit, saying “YOU DONE IT! You done hired Bernard “Pretty” Purdie - THE HITMAKER!”
His playing may be understated and elegant, but that’s all.
Oh yeah - apparently they spent more time discussing gettin’ paid and where he bought his fancy shoes instead of drums, but when you’re sitting at the foot of a giant, you just go with it.
The same drummer went to school with Cindy Blackman - the woman who played with Lenny Kravitz - and he also was going to be in Billy Idol’s band when Thommy Price had a falling out with Billy - but he had second thoughts and re-joined…
Stories - lot’s of stories. My current drummer has even more given his producing work…
I hadn’t heard that Bernard Purdie ever played with the Beatles, but it’s no secret that session drummers appeared on several of the Beatles early singles. And it’s widely believed (though not by everyone) that, in the Beatles later years, Paul McCartney replaced a lot of Ringo’s drum tracks with his own.
And I hadn’t heard that Chris Spedding played guitar tracks for the Sex Pistols… but it’s pretty well known that Sid Vicious couldn’t play the bass at all (he usually just faked it on stage, as old Beatle Stu Sutcliffe did), and that Steve Jones and/or session bassists played his tracks on record for him.
Look, whether we like it or not, a LOT of our favorite records from the Sixties were recorded by session men, rather than by actual band members. Hal Blaine played drums on a lot more Beach Boys tracks than Dennis Wilson did.
Hordes of pop and rock standards were cut by studio musicians, usually uncredited. Just about any Top 40 song in the 60s and 70s not by a known performing group, was played by studio musicians, released under the name of the artist(s) who sang. That’s what Bernard Purdie did (does) for a living. There are ranks of players, and when you get to the best, go down the hall and to the left, up three flights of stairs, and there you’ll find Purdie. I’m sure he played on some dreck at some point, but he’s also playing on some of the world’s most beloved records. He’s just a stellar player.
“The Beach Boys” were those guys on the stage. In 1963, Brian Wilson started cutting records with The Wrecking Crew, who were Phil Spector’s studio group. When the group came off the road, Brian would bring them into the studio to learn the new songs and sing their parts. They were not called upon to play, although Carl would sometimes play guitar - although not often with the Crew. So, the group would sing over the previously recorded backing tracks. Then, they’d have to learn the records so they could play them live. This is the reason why The Beach Boys have never sounded much like their records except in the singing, because they didn’t play on many of them.
What I think Astorian is referring to is that Ringo did not play drums on the album or American single version of “Love Me Do”, for which George Martin substituted session man Andy White. (The English single version is another take with Ringo on drums). Also, Paul subbed for Ringo on a few White Album tracks when Ringo took a temporary leave during the sessions to mull over leaving the band. “The Billboard Book of Number One Hits” I own states Ringo did not appear on “Ballad of John and Yoko” or “Long And Winding Road”, but doesn’t say who did the drumming duties.
Paul did the duties on “TBOJ&Y” and “Back In The USSR” and a couple of others. But he is playing on the take of “TLAWR” that was used for the record, and he also overdrubbed drums on the orchestral tracking session of Apr 1st 1969.
Session legend Bob Babbit (bass) has reminisced how he was contacted sometime in the ‘70’s to come and play on some Kiss tracks that apparently were beyond Gene Simmons’ expertise on the instrument.
Yeah, I heard Shiny Toy Guns on local radio station Q101 the other day. They sounded pretty good.
As for Purdie, it’s funny because I was searching for Bernard Purdie videos and information a few weeks ago so I could teach myself how to play the Purdie Shuffle. Or at least some poor imitation of it. I found several passing references to him claiming he played drums on some Beatles tracks, but each of these claims were chalked up to his over-inflated ego. There was nothng I found substantiating these claims or even suggesting what songs he might have played on. I guess the Polydor records must explain where this claim comes from.
Purdie: Ringo never played on anything.
Weinberg: Ringo never played on anything?
Purdie: Not the early Beatles stuff.
(Max Weinberg, The Big Beat)
“I overdubbed the drumming on 21 tracks of the first three Beatle Albums”, maintains Purdie. “They paid me a lot of money to keep my mouth shut, but it’s been ten years, so fuck it. I guess I can talk about it.”
(Gig magazine, February 1978)
Of course Ringo didn’t play on the stuff that Purdie overdubbed–that was Pete Best on the Polydor recordings. Purdie wouldn’t have known that, though. The Gig article further fans the flames by assuming that the one song that Purdie identifies, “Yeah Yeah Yeah” [sic], is “of course” “She Loves You.” Purdie actually must have been remembering “Ya Ya” from the Beatles/Tony Sheridan tapes.