As has been noted earlier, Bernard Purdie had (and probably still has) a tremendously huge ego... he's also been a consistently brilliant musician for several decades. As a rhythm and blues and funk drummer he's one of the all time greats. I can pick him out on records almost every time, even weird obscure shit where he isn't credited. He has a sound. Whatever bluster and bullshit he puts forward, he has absolutely contributed a hell of a lot to the language of drums, and music in general, and that cannot be denied.
My take on it is this:
I came to the conclusion that the truth - as he believes it - in his story of playing on early Beatles records lies in this overdub session, which WAS for Beatles songs, and WAS done by him. He was doing sessions for ATCO and Atlantic in the mid 60s and those Tony Sheridan era things were (if memory serves) released on ATCO at some point.
Loads of studio musicians talk about being called in to replace lackluster band members and play with the rest of the band on sessions... but the best ones also used to do 'sweetening' or 'ghosting' sessions where they overdub or replace parts on records and sometimes the original band members never know it's happened. Bass player Chuck Rainey talks about doing ghosting sessions, and Bob Babbitt (the second bass player at Motown in the 60s and then a Philly soul and New York first call guy in the 70s) talks about replacing all the bass parts on a Gene Simmons solo album. It became a lot more common as technology allowed for more separation.
Guys like Purdie were doing two or three or four 3-hour sessions a day for years upon years. He could be doing a soul jazz album in the morning and afternoon, and then a session for Don Covay or Aretha Franklin at night. Or a jingle, or a movie soundtrack.
I wouldn't be surprised if he'd done the Tony Sheridan/Beatle overdub session, and then a few days later done a session where he was asked to replace drums on an album by some pop group, got paid by an English manager, and then around the same time played on some session for a cash-in album of all Beatles covers. Take those three things together, add another decade and a half of 20+ sessions a week, add his ever growing ego, then add a decade and a half's worth of shit hot New York studio cocaine... and you've got a whole new truth as he sees it.
I don't think he's deliberately setting out to make shit up, I think he's just misremembered a bunch of stuff and then over time believed that's the way it actually went down. And part of being a great studio musician in New York or LA in the 60s and 70s when it was seriously high pressure and very competitive was being confident. In some cases, extremely confident, sometimes to the point of arrogance.
Put it another way: A drummer friend of mine saw Bernard Purdie play at Smoke in NY probably 15 years ago. Outside on the set break my friend went up to Bernard and said "Hey man, was it you who played on Donny Hathaway Live?"
Now my friend knew full well that Purdie recorded with Donny, but not that record (which is Fred White).
Purdie thought for a minute and said "Yes. Yes! I believe it WAS me!"
Make of that what you will
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