A Purdie Girl Is Like A Melody

[Lord Reith]

For those of you who've always wondered exactly what Bernard Purdie is doing on Aint She Sweet...

https://tinyurl.com/expires-May-the-1st

I think he did a better job than Pete!

[Rubberswan]

That’s nice to hear. My first experience of the Polydor recordings was when my Grandad, knowing I liked The Beatles, bought me an LP on the Contour label in about 1977. Fast forward to The Beatles Anthology and listening to Ain’t She Sweet - I don’t remember those drums being on there! So I learned that there were two versions, one with the drum overdub, and one without. And then I heard Bernard Purdie’s story, and reckoned this was the work he was referring to when he claimed to have played on early Beatles recordings. Talked himself up a bit, didn’t he?

[beatlesnyttigt]

Four Sheridan mixes (Ain't She Sweet, Sweet Georgia Brown, Take Out Some Insurance and Nobody's Child) have overdubbed drums by Bernard Purdie, added guitar by "Insurance" [Cornell Dupree] and harmonica parts by an unknown player. There was also some editing done to the latter two tracks. These "Purdie" versions exist in mono only, whereas the original tracks are in stereo.

When the Beatles hit it big in the US in 1964, and MGM was getting ready to release a cash-in album of the Sheridan stuff, Atco thought the drumming was dull, and brought in a studio player, Bernard Purdie, who has for years been claiming to have dubbed Beatles recordings, to liven up the Pete Best drumming. I (sorry, can't remember who wrote this) dug out a pressing of the undoctored version and made a comparison with the Anthology CD - and sure enough, they used the embellished one. It's quite interesting: after the first verse, and indeed, after most of the verses, there's a deft little roll; and heading into the bridge, the high hat is introduced. Neither of these touches are on the pure-Best version. So if it's that kind of detailing that impresses you, that's fine, but it's not Best's work.

This is an excerpt from Gig, a New York magazine February 1978 (by Dean C), article called Bernard Purdie - the REAL fifth Beatle?
According to Bernard Purdie, a substantial amount of the drumming on the early Beatle albums was done by him, not Ringo Starr. Purdie is a New York based session drummer, best known for his seven years with Aretha Franklin.
"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 f*ck it. I guess I can talk about it."
Not many other people are talking about it however, not surprising considering what's at stake. Reached through his lawyer Bruce Grakal, Ringo "does not wish to comment". Beatles producer George Martin would only say "I did not use another drummer," and no one at Capitol-past or present-knows anything or is willing to talk about it.
"I got paid in five figures," Purdie adds, "and that was the largest amount of money I'd ever gotten in my life."
It's actually been 14 1/2 years now. Purdie told Gig that in the summer of 1963, six months before the first Beatle album was release in the U.S.,he was contacted to do a session-which initially seemed like al the others he was doing at the time.
"I had never heard of the Beatles," he says, "but their manager, Brian Epstein, called me and took me down to Capitol's 46th street studio. I did all the overdubbing on the 21 songs in nine days."
After Purdie was paid his double session fee of $130 an hour, he says, "Epstein called me into his office and gave me the additional (five figure - smallest would be $10,000) check. I thought they were paying me all that money because they liked what I played. Then he told me I was being paid to keep my mouth shut."
Purdie says he signed a "contract". Does he still have it?
"The contract", he explains, "was the check that I signed and I cashed it! On the back of the check, it was spelled out what I did -'payment for services rendered'. I took up half the check. But I didn't think about making a photostated copy. It didn't mean anything to me." a
He says he worked on finished tapes. The early Beatle albums had already been released in England. This could mean the original English copies have Ringo doing the drumming while the American counterparts have Purdie on some tracks, Ringo on others, and, Purdie suggests, both of them on others.
"We were only doing eight track recording. We weren't doing sixteen or twenty-four track at the time. They had four tracks and they put me on two separate tracks. I would listen to what Ringo had played and then overdub on top of it to keep it happening."
He doesn't remember specific titles except one he calls "Yeah Yeah Yeah", which would of course be "She Loves You."
"I remember that one well", Purdie says. "That was one of the big things coming out at the time, and was the one the engineer brought my attention to."
He says he never met any of the Beatles at the time. "The only people in the studio were me, the engineer, and Brian Epstein and a few of his people."
Not George Martin?
"No. I didn't even meet George Martin until 1969 when I went to England to do some work." Purdie says he doesn't even think Martin knows what he did.
"The manager did everything", Purdie stresses. "Epstein instigated everything that had to be done. He was the one who told me to keep my mouth closed. He was the one."
Purdie, who says he did the same thing for the Animals and the monkees, suggests that other alterations were done to the early Beatle albums.
"After I was finishing up one day, the engineer said they had another guitar player coming in later to do overdubs and they were paying him goodmoney to keep his mouth shut too. I asked him who it was, and he said "keep out of that Purdie.' I never did find out who it was.
"You listen to the guitar parts on the early records," Purdie adds. "There's a different sound to a lot of them."

Which just goes to prove, don't believe everything you read.

Richard Bell commented on this January 26th 1996 :
This whole Purdie thing is a total "crock" and here's why. At the time Purdie says that he was doing these overdubs The Beatles music had already been released in America on VJ Records (and other small lables) and those of us with these original releases can compare with the Capitol releases. I did and you know what? THEIR EXACTLY THE SAME. Not only are they the same as the VJ releases but their also exactly the same as the Parlophone releases. And Purdie himself says that the sweetening was for the Capitol releases.

Finally an excerpt from Max Weinberg's book The Big Beat, where he interviewed Bernard Purdie :
MW: You played on the Beatles' tracks?
BP: Twenty-one of them.
MW: Do you remember which ones?
BP: Ummmhmmm.
MW: Which ones?
BP: That's information I don't disclose.
MW: Why won't you name the tracks?
BP: Because, if I need that information to get me some money, then I'll have what's necessary. I also played on songs by the Animals, the
Monkees
MW: Everyone knows the Monkees were a fabricated band, but the Beatles
BP: Ringo never played on anything
MW: Ringo never played on anything?
BP: Not the early Beatles stuff.
Anyway, Weinberg takes him to task on it and the up shot is that he says Brian Epstein was the one who arranged it and also paid him off to keep his mouth shut. I had the opportunity to talk to Max Weinberg about Purdie's claim and his reply was that he felt embarrassed for him.

So do I, that's most of what I had on Purdie. Cheers Robert

[annlieb97]

I heard he is one of many Beatles recording sessions dreamer, aside from Andy White.

[El_Garnatí]

Wow...But then is Purdie's story true or is it another legend? I do not know what to think.

[AllTogetherNow]

But then is Purdie's story true or is it another legend? I do not know what to think.

Purdey is a legend but thats another story

Humble regards

ATN

[Lord Reith]

The guy is clearly mad as a hatter. Why do these people think they can pull the wool over Beatles fans eyes? Do they really think we are that dumb?

[mojofilter]

There's a scene in the DVD on "The Making Of Aja" by Steely Dan where Purdie is listing artists whose records he played on. By the time he gets to The Beatles, his volume has been turned almost all the way down. He's a helluva great drummer, but it's well-known in the music biz that his ego sucks all the atmosphere out of any room he's in. He doesn't have anything complimentary to say about anyone but himself. Too bad.

This is the guy who bought two movie projection screens and put them on either side of his kit in the studio. When he pulled them down and locked them into place, they said "YOU DONE IT" and "YOU DONE HIRED BERNARD PRETTY PURDIE. THE HITMAKER!

That he felt compelled to make up this obvious lie and perpetuate it for all these years to embellish his greatness as a drummer... wow.

[Claude_de_Faux]

Thank you.

[Lord Reith]

This seems to be a "thing" among musicians. Lorne Gibson was saying that he sat in on a bunch of Beatles numbers (in Pop Go The Beatles 1). The audio screams otherwise. At other times he's claimed that his band recorded the PGTB theme, even though it sounds 100% like The Beatles and nothing remotely like The Lorne Gibson Trio (and the apparently deaf guys who put the Apple cds together believed him enough to actually leave off this important instrumental... was Gibson looking for royalties?) And there have been others... their names escape me at the moment.

For some reason I'm also reminded of a section in Rolf Harris's biography (hey, I just skimmed the Beatles bits, okay!) He says some not nice things about Yoko because at some point in the 80s he wrote to her asking for a copy of his BBC duet with The Beatles and she never replied. Like she'd have the slightest idea what he's talking about, or who Rolf Harris is.