Up to the 1980s, very few performances of the Beatles with Pete Best were available. The following, with one possible noted exception, are now known to exist:
First Session
Tony Sheridan and the Beatles with Pete Best
In June 1961, Tony Sheridan and the Beatles with Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney recorded at the Friedrich Ebert Halle, Hamburg (not at an official recording studio but on location in a school hall). At first, the records were credited to Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers. Produced by Bert Kaempfert, the recordings were:
‘My Bonnie’
(Traditional, arranged by Tony Sheridan)
‘My Bonnie’ is about a claimant to the throne, Bonnie Prince Charles, who landed in Scotland in 1745 to start a rebellion. His troops were overwhelmed at Culloden and he spent 40 years as a fugitive in Europe. Ray Charles gave ‘My Bonnie’ an R&B treatment in 1958 and Duane Eddy recorded the instrumental ‘Bonnie Came Back’ in 1960, a UK Top 20 hit.
Sheridan recorded two versions of ‘My Bonnie’, one with a slow introduction in German and another with one in English. Often the record is issued without either introduction. In a new variation, Paul McCartney talks over the English introduction on Anthology 1.
‘Nobody’s Child’
(Cy Coben/Mel Foree)
In 1948, Mel Foree, a song-plugger for Acuff-Rose had the unenviable task of trying to stop Hank Williams from drinking. Around that time, he wrote the country weepie, ‘Nobody’s Child’, which was recorded by Hank Snow in 1949. Lonnie Donegan recorded the song in 1956 for his ‘Lonnie Donegan Showcase’ album. His slow, bluesy treatment was Sheridan’s template, although Sheridan omitted his narration.
In the main, Tony Sheridan was a wild rock ’n’ roller, but John McNally of the Searchers recalls him at the Star-Club: “Sheridan was always best late at night when he’d got a few drinks inside him. He’d become very melancholy and do the blues. He was the best guitarist around and I’d watch him every night. He did a great version of ‘Nobody’s Child’ which was very slow and dynamic.”
Perhaps the Beatles should have brought ‘Nobody’s Child’ back to Liverpool. Lonnie Donegan: “I find the people in the North of England are much more emotional than in the South. I can bring people in Liverpool to tears with ‘Nobody’s Child’ and I couldn’t do that in London where they are more cynical.”
Although only two verses and choruses, the original recording by Tony Sheridan and the Beatles lasts 3 minutes 45 seconds, and their version has been truncated on some compilations. Accompanying himself on guitar, Sheridan recorded a 6-minute version in 1964. George Harrison encouraged the Traveling Wilburys to record the song for a charity single in 1990.
‘The Saints’
(Traditional, arranged by Tony Sheridan)
‘When The Saints Go Marching In’ was a favourite with jazz bands and was taken up by some rock ’n’ rollers – Bill Haley and His Comets (1955), Fats Domino (1958), Jerry Lee Lewis (1958) and the Isley Brothers (1959). Bill Haley’s version is usually quoted as the source for Sheridan’s version, which is unlikely as Haley changes the worlds to showcase his band, e.g. ‘When ol’ Rudy begins to play.’ Because the Comets’ drummer is given a solo, I wish Sheridan had followed Haley’s arrangement.
Normally, the song is repetitive with a slight change for each verse – Fats Domino, with a walloping bass drum, sings, ‘When the Saints go marching in’ four times and ‘When the sun refuse to shine’ once. Jerry Lee Lewis offers a variant with a different melody and gospel-styled verses about Paul and Silas. Sheridan sings, ‘When the Saints go marching in’ three times, ‘When the sun begin (not ‘refuse’) to shine’ twice and ‘When the ol’ Lord calls me there’ once and this places his version closer to the Isley Brothers.
One of Sheridan’s early groups was called the Saints and so he was very familiar with the work. On the recording, Tony Sheridan sounds very like Conway Twitty, but this impersonation is of his own doing as Twitty never recorded ‘The Saints’.
In 1963, the Searchers revived ‘The Saints’ as ‘Saints and Searchers’ for the B-side of their second hit, ‘Sugar and Spice’.
‘Take Out Some Insurance On Me Baby’ (Sometimes shown as Charles Singleton/Waldenese Hall, but more likely Jesse Stone, who was also known as Charles Calhoun. Confused? You should be.)
The blues guitarist Jimmy Reed introduced many songs into the beat groups’ repertoire: ‘Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby’, ‘Bright Lights Big City’, ‘Baby What You Want Me To Do’ and ‘Big Boss Man’. He recorded ‘Take Out Some Insurance On Me Baby’, which is also known as ‘If You Love Me Baby’ after its first line, in Chicago in March 1959.
Tony Sheridan gives a creditable performance but his reference to “goddamned insurance” has been removed on a doctored version, which adds guitar, drums and harmonica.
‘Why (Can’t You Love Me Again)’
(Tony Sheridan/Bill Crompton)
Tony Sheridan wrote this song with the British rock ’n’ roll performer Bill Crompton in 1958. Crompton recorded for Fontana and had considerable airplay on ‘A Hoot and a Holler’. Crompton also wrote a Top 20 instrumental, ‘The Stranger,’ for the Shadows. The clumsily-titled ‘Why (Can’t You Love Me Again)’ is an echo-drenched doowop ballad with a forceful middle-eight that sounds as though it belongs in another song.
Gerry Marsden: “I thought ‘Why’ was a nice song and I wanted to record it, but Tony said, ‘Hang on, I’ve got a better one’ and gave me ‘Please Let Them Be’, which I recorded some years later. It was one of the biggest flops in the history of records, but it was a lovely song.”
Line up as previous, but without Tony Sheridan.
‘Ain’t She Sweet’
(Jack Yellen/Milton Ager)
Jack Yellen and Milton Ager were a successful pre-war songwriting partnership, their most enduring songs being “Happy Days Are Here Again’ and ‘Ain’t She Sweet’. The lyricist Jack Yellen had emigrated from Poland and this 1927 success was daring for its time as it used American slang (‘ain’t’) in its title. Umpteen recordings of the song have been made with no one version predominating.
‘Ain’t She Sweet’ was a standard by the time Gene Vincent recorded it in 1956. Effectively, the Beatles followed Vincent’s direction, but upped the tempo and omitted the whistling. Possibly Bert Kaempfert advised against whistling as Germans considered it insulting.
There is also a 1959 single by UK rock ’n’ roller Duffy Power. He says, “Larry Parnes heard the Gene Vincent version and asked me to do it with Ken Jones’ Palais de Dance orchestra. They were good musicians but they knew nothing about rock ’n’ roll.”
John Lennon took the lead vocal on the Beatles’ version, which has been overdubbed (with additional drums!) on some releases. Duffy Power: “It sounds to me like the Beatles hadn’t worked anything out. They were just chugging through the chords and adding a Chuck Berry blues walk. Nice guitar solo though.”
‘Cry For a Shadow’
(George Harrison/John Lennon)
While the Beatles and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were in Hamburg, the Shadows made the UK charts with the theme from the film The Frightened City. Rory was wondering how it went and George Harrison and John Lennon told him they had heard it and improvised the instrumental which became, with gentle humour, ‘Cry For a Shadow’. For some time, Rory believed that their instrumental was the Shadows’ hit single.
Geoff Taggart, a St Helens musician who wrote ‘Breakthru’ on the best-selling album The Sound of The Shadows says, “This is a riff in E with a chord sequence over the top rather than a melody, and as such, it is more reminiscent of the fillers on the Ventures’ albums than the Shadows. It starts like the Shadows’ ‘Man of Mystery’ but it’s really a quicker version of the John Barry Seven’s ‘Rodeo’, which came out in 1958. The George Harrison solo is as dry as a plank, which is more like Joe Brown than Hank Marvin. Indeed, Joe gave Hank his echo unit because he couldn’t come to grips with it and Hank used it on ‘Apache’. The chord sequence is the same as Joe Brown’s ‘Shine’ and, incidentally, Bruce Channel’s ‘Hey! Baby’ although that wasn’t released until 1962. And there’s nothing wrong with Pete’s drumming on the track – he’s a good drummer.”
Second Session
The Beatles
New Year’s Day, January 1962, Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London. The producer was Mike Smith who made hit records with Billy Fury, Georgie Fame and the group Dick Rowe signed instead of the Beatles, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes.
Irrespective of the standard of the performance, this is a representative cross-section of their repertoire at the time. There are three oldies, a show song, three originals and eight rock ’n’ roll covers. The talents represented remained, by and large, the Beatles’ favourites – Chuck Berry, the Coasters (twice), Goffin/King, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Phil Spector and Tamla Motown.
Pete Best: “Decca was a major label, the company to be with, and we thought hard about the material we were going to play at the audition. It was a good cross-section of numbers, and we recorded them like a live set with just one or two takes on each number. We were trying to be cool, calm and collected about it but there were frogs in our throats. We weren’t on form and we could have been a lot better.”
The Beatles’ performances are often described as uninspired, but bear in mind:
They had travelled overnight for ten hours in a van with their equipment in a snowstorm.
They were travelling back the same way.
They were miffed that Brian Epstein had come to London by train and had stayed overnight with relations.
They had missed out on New Year’s Eve festivities.
Mike Smith arrived late because he had been to a party.
This was a recording test, never intended for public release.
They were cutting 15 songs in an hour.
However, I can’t accept Mark Lewisohn’s assertion that they were ‘nervous’ and ‘ill at ease’ (The Complete Beatles Chronicle, Octopus 1992). The Beatles were familiar with making records through their work with Tony Sheridan, they had been in the German charts, they had previously met Mike Smith at the Cavern and they had played in far more ominous places than this. I think their performances were uninspired (thought they have their moments) because they were thoroughly pissed off and their tiredness dulled their voices.
The fifteen songs include seven lead vocals from Paul and four each from George and John. It is odd that George was singing as much as John, but perhaps not surprising that Pete didn’t do his party piece. What did Mike Smith and his boss, Dick Rowe, miss? Well, the three original songs became chart hits (one for a Decca group), two songs were featured on With the Beatles and two became hits for Decca artists.
Mike Smith says, “I thought the Beatles were absolutely wonderful on stage and I should have trusted my instincts. They weren’t very good in the studio and really we got to the Beatles too early. Nothing against Pete Best, but Ringo wasn’t in the band, and they hadn’t developed their songwriting. Had I picked up on them 6 months later, there was no way I couldn’t have recognised the quality of their songs. I went with Brian Poole and the Tremeloes because they had been the better band in the studio. So much in this industry depends on being in the right place at the right time and whether I did the right thing or not, I’ll never know. In fairness, I don’t think I could have worked with them the way that George Martin did – I would have got involved in their bad parts and not encouraged the good ones. When I met them later on they gave me a two fingered salute.”
‘Besame Mucho’
(Consuelo Velazquez/Sunny Skylar)
The opera Goyescas was written in Paris in 1914 by the Spanish composer, Enrique Granados. Because of the Great War, the opera was premiered in New York in 1916. After the performance, its cast and composer returned by ship to Europe, but it was torpedoed by the Germans and no-one survived. I wonder if the film director of Titanic James Cameron knows this story. ‘The Nightingale Aria’ from the opera was luckier: two pop writers converted it to ‘Besame Mucho.’
‘Besame Mucho’ became the ‘La Bamba’ of the 1940s. It was a million-selling record for Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra with vocalists Kitty Kallen and Bob Eberle in 1943 and the song is featured in the 1944 film musical Follow The Boys. The Coasters gave the song a straight treatment in 1960, unfortunately allowing their bass singer to take the lead vocal. Pete Best: “‘Besame Mucho’ was Paul’s idea. He may have been influenced by the Coasters but it was very much our arrangement and I like it very much.”
Paul McCartney in Many Years From Now: “It’s a minor (key) song and it changed to a major, and where it changed to a major is such a big moment musically. That major change attracted me so much.”
The Beatles often performed ‘Besame Mucho’ returning to it during the filming of Let It Be. The Decca recording is hurried and was slowed down by George Martin for inclusion on Anthology 1. Despite the ‘cha-cha-boom’, it is a novelty that doesn’t quite come off. Often they performed it on stage as a nod to Liverpool impresario, ‘Besammy Leacho’, which does amuse me.
In April 1962, Jet Harris, formerly of the Shadows, took a throbbing instrumental treatment of the song into the Top 30 for Decca. Celebrations took place in Guadalajara in August 1962 to celebrate the song’s 20th anniversary. This is where Consuelo Velazquez lived and many artists who had recorded the song took part in the festivities. No one knew then that the Beatles had also recorded it.
‘Crying, Waiting, Hoping’
(Buddy Holly)
The British singer-songwriter Harvey Andrews says, “All the great songwriters of my generation came from Buddy Holly. When rock ’n’ roll started, there was something about Holly that got to us. He was the first singer-songwriter, although we didn’t know it at the time. We don’t go back to Little Richard, we don’t go back to Fats Domino, and we don’t go back to Elvis, though we liked all of them. Buddy Holly was the one that the young songwriters could relate to.”
The Quarry Men recorded ‘That’ll Be The Day’ at their first recording session, the Beatles recorded ‘Words of Love’ on The Beatles For Sale album and Paul McCartney liked Holly’s songs so much that he bought the catalogue.
Shortly before his fatal tour, Buddy Holly recorded six new songs in his New York apartment – ‘Crying Waiting Hoping’, ‘Learning The Game’, ‘Peggy Sue Got Married’, ‘That Makes it Tough’, ‘That’s What They Say’ and ‘What To Do’. They have been released with overdubbed instruments but the unadorned tapes remain the best, largely because of the intimate nature of the songs.
George Harrison sang ‘Crying Waiting Hoping’ with vocal back-up from John and Paul, and it is one of the most successful of the Decca tracks.
‘Hello Little Girl’
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
John Lennon wrote ‘Hello Little Girl’ around 1958, and it was one of the first original compositions that the Beatles included in their performances. They had tired of the song by the time they recorded for Parlophone, and Brian Epstein offered it to his other signings. Gerry Marsden turned it down as he preferred to be seen as independent from the Beatles, although his run-through is included on Gerry and the Pacemakers – The Best of the EMI Years (1992). The Fourmost had no such reservations and took the song into the Top 10 in 1963. I once asked Tony Barrow why Gerry Marsden hadn’t been invited to the Civic Reception for the Beatles in Liverpool in July 1964 and he responded, “Do you really think Gerry would have wanted to be there?”
‘Like Dreamers Do’
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
The influence of ‘Besame Mucho’ can be heard in this early Paul McCartney composition. Again, it was one of the first original compositions to be included in Beatles’ performances. It’s a naïve song – ‘I’ve waited for your kiss, waited for your bliss’ – is banal. Nevertheless, the song was passed to the Applejacks who took it into the Top 20 in 1963. As luck would have it, the Applejacks recorded for Decca and were produced by Mike Smith.
‘Love of the Loved’
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
‘Love of the Loved’ is another Paul McCartney composition and one he considered passing to Beryl Marsden. Epstein insisted on giving it to his protégé, Cilla Black, and it was her first single. Says Cilla, “Paul McCartney wrote it and I’d heard the Beatles do it many times in the Cavern. I wanted to do a group arrangement and I was ever so disappointed when I got to the studio and there was brass and everything. I thought it was very jazzy and I didn’t think it would be a hit. I preferred the B-side, which Bobby (Willis, her future husband) wrote, ‘Shy of Love’. ‘Love of the Loved’ made the NME Top 30 in October 1963.
‘Memphis Tennessee’
(Chuck Berry)
In Chuck Berry: The Autobiography (Faber and Faber, 1987), the rock ’n’ roller explains that he developed ‘Memphis Tennessee’ from a line in a Muddy Waters blues where he was talking to a long distance operator. He writes, “My wife had relatives there but, other than a couple of concerts there, I never had any basis for choosing Memphis as the location for the story.”
The song about Chuck Berry trying to establish contact with his 6-year-old daughter was released in 1959. It was not a UK hit – indeed, Chuck Berry had only one Top 20 hit prior to 1962 – but it was recorded by the Beatles with John Lennon’s vocal. The British beat boom sparked an interest in Chuck Berry’s work and he had a Top 10 hit with ‘Memphis Tennessee’ in late 1963. At the time, he was then in prison for corrupting a minor.
‘Money (That’s What I Want)’
(Berry Gordy Jr/Janie Bradford)
At first, Berry Gordy Jr, the founder of Tamla Motown, had success as a songwriter, writing ‘Reet Petite’ for Jackie Wilson and ‘You Got What It Takes’ (Marv Johnson). Gordy is quoted in Motown: The History (Guinness, 1988) as saying, “When people asked me what I did for a living, I would say, ‘I write songs.’ They would have sons and daughters becoming doctors and lawyers, and my mother and father were embarrassed. Even though I had many hits, I didn’t have any money. I came from a business family – my mother and father always talked about the bottom line, and the bottom line is profit.”
‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ was recorded by Barrett Strong for Gordy’s new Anna label in 1959 and made the US Top 30. Although it did not chart here it became a staple song for beat groups. The Beatles, the Searchers, the Undertakers and Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes recorded Liverpool versions and other covers came from Bern Elliott and the Fenmen and the Rolling Stones, who both recorded for Decca. Elliott made the UK Top 20 around the time that George Harrison, the most money conscious Beatle, wrote a companion song in ‘Taxman.’
The balance on the Decca audition tape puts Pete Best’s drums in the background, but it is easy to imagine how they would be thundering out in the Cavern. The various versions enable us to hear the drumming techniques of Pete Best, Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts on the same song. Garry Tamlyn: “There’s a similarity in drumbeat among them all. At the beginning of the verse, we have emphasis on either tom-toms or snare drum in quaver patterns, but by the time you hit the chorus section, we have a standard rock beat. There are some differences in rhythm, Pete Best was performing the typical late 1950s, early rock umpapapa, and in the beginning of the verse, he was using tom-toms in semi-quaver rhythm – it is a bit like Jerry Allison’s drumming in Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue’. Ringo didn’t adopt that semi-quaver tom-tom rhythm, he was playing quaver rhythms on a snare drum, maybe with some tom-tom activity. Charlie Watts employed a standard rock beat, backbeat on beats two and four, even quavers, but he did have some tom-tom activity in the verse section. Very much like Ringo Starr and all of them are very good and competent”
‘Searchin’’
(Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller)
In 1957 the Coasters recorded ‘Searchin’’ in 10 minutes toward the end of a session. Their producers and songwriters, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, discuss the song in the CD booklet for 50 Coastin’ Classics (Rhino 1992). Stoller says, “I had worked out an old-timey piano lick that struck me as being kind of fun, and it worked.” Leiber adds, “Everybody was together. It was one of those moments that rarely happen and it turned out to be their biggest hit.” Although ‘Searchin’’ made Number 3 in the US, it was only in the UK Top 30 for one week. The B-side was another rock classic and Beatles’ favourite, ‘Young Blood’.
The Beatles were performing this tribute to a fictional detective as early as 1958, with Paul McCartney on lead vocals. The Manchester group, the Hollies, were strongly influenced by the Beatles and their first two hits were Coasters’ songs – ‘(Ain’t That) Just Like Me’ and ‘Searchin’’.
In 1982 Paul McCartney chose the Coasters’ ‘Searchin’’ as one of his Desert Island discs.
‘September in the Rain’
(Al Dubin/Harry Warren)
Harry Warren was an award-winning songwriter who once told the equally impressive Harold Arlen, “You walk two Oscars behind me”. Many of his best-known songs were written in Hollywood with the lyricist Al Dubin and include ‘I’ll String Along With You’, ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’ and ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’. ‘September in the Rain’ was written for the 1937 film musical Melody For Two. When the tempestuous jazz singer Dinah Washington revived the song in 1961, it made the UK Top 50, and was a success at the time of the Beatles’ recording.
It is mooted that the Beatles held themselves in check at the Decca audition and ‘September in the Rain’ is a good example. As the song draws to a conclusion, you expect Paul McCartney to go for a big ending but he decides otherwise and the final notes are ragged.
‘The Sheik of Araby’
(Harry B. Smith/Francis Wheeler/Ted Snyder)
In 1921, Rudolph Valentino starred in The Sheik and a ragtime number was written in his honour, ‘The Sheik of Araby’. This, in turn, was used to accompany his silent films. It was featured in a 1940 film musical, Tin Pan Alley.
Many regard the Beatles’ treatment of ‘The Sheik of Araby’ with George Harrison’s lead vocal as their worst performance and it was singled out by critics hostile to the Anthology concept. Although hard to defend it is not without interest. To me, it sounds like an attempt to emulate Joe Brown performing pub favourites like ‘Darktown Strutters Ball’. Joe Brown did include ‘The Sheik of Araby’ in his stage act and on his 1963 live album, but his version is more relaxed.
Pete Best says, ‘The Sheik of Araby’ was a very popular number and we nearly did it on the BBC shows because of the demand. George loved those kind of numbers and we got it from Joe Brown and the Bruvvers. We rocked it up a bit.”
‘Sure To Fall’
(Carl Perkins/Bill Cantrell/Quinton Claunch)
The rockabilly singer Carl Perkins, when asked what he thought of the Beatles performing his songs ‘Matchbox’, ‘Honey Don’t’, and ‘Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby’, replied, “When I look at the Beatles, I see great big dollar signs.” He maintained a long friendship with each Beatle and his 1996 album, Go Cat Go! included duets with Paul, George and Ringo and, through modern recording technology, John.
Several Merseyside guitarists (Billy Hatton of the Fourmost, Kingsize Taylor) owned Carl Perkins’ 1959 Dance Album and one track was the slow country song, ‘Sure to Fall’. The lead vocal is taken by Carl’s brother, Jay, with Carl singing harmony and playing a very distinctive guitar solo. The Beatles’ version is livelier and as close to country harmonies as they could get.
‘Take Good Care of My Baby’
(Gerry Goffin/Carole King)
Diana Mothershaw, who worked at Rushworth’s, remembers Paul McCartney coming into the store regularly in 1962: “He loved Carole King’s ‘It Might As Well Rain Until September’ and he would go on about Goffin and King. He and John wanted to be songwriters like that.” The 1997 film Grace of My Heart presented a thinly disguised version of the Goffin/King story and showed how Goffin always wanted to write something more substantial than teenage pop songs. But, as Bobby Vee says, “Those Brill Building songs have endured. We used to think of them as simple songs but they are profoundly simple.”
‘Take Good Care of My Baby’ was a transatlantic Number 1 for Bobby Vee in 1961. He remembers, “The first song of theirs that I recorded was ‘How Many Tears’ and they flew to Los Angeles to be at the session. During one of the breaks, Carole sat down at the piano and sang ‘Take Good Care of My Baby’ and it was like, Wow, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Dion had already done a version of it, but my producer Snuffy Garrett had asked her to write an intro and she had come to California to present it in its finished form.”
The Beatles, with George on lead vocal, recorded the song with the intro. Pete Best: “George tried a couple of Bobby Vee numbers, and he, more than the others, thought we should do one or two from the Top 20.”
‘Three Cool Cats’
(Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller)
‘Three Cool Cats’ was the B-side of the Coasters’ transatlantic hit ‘Charlie Brown’ from 1959. In the CD booklet for 50 Coastin’ Classics (Rhino, 1992), Jerry Leiber says, “We tried to make a kind of Afro-Cuban sound that Mike used to dig a lot in LA in the early 1950s – but fitting into a Coasters-type format with a funny setting and all of that.”
The song had been performed memorably on ITV’s Oh Boy! by Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde and Dickie Pride. An intriguing feature of the Beatles’ good-humoured version is their cod-Indian accent on one line, which would not be PC today. Mike Smith: “They did black R&B songs like ‘Three Cool Cats’ and it wasn’t very good. They were overawed by the situation and their personalities didn’t come across.”
‘Till There Was You’
(Meredith Willson)
Fifteen songs were taped at the Decca auditions and only two were subsequently recorded and released by Parlophone. One, inevitably, was ‘Money’, but the other, quite surprisingly, was the show song ‘Till There Was You’.
The Music Man was a 1957 musical about a conman who persuades small town locals to buy band instruments and uniforms but, after falling in love with the librarian, he settles down and becomes the bandleader. Its best-known songs are ‘Seventy-six Trombones’ and ‘Till There Was You’, the latter being a Top 30 hit for Peggy Lee in 1961. Paul McCartney was the Beatle most enamoured by musical theatre and film, although, strange to report, he has yet to write a musical himself. He did, however, write and produce a song, ‘Let’s Love’ for Peggy Lee in 1974.
Paul McCartney sounds unsteady and the Beatles play uncertain notes, but this was a sophisticated song being recorded on a one-take audition. George Martin reworked the song with acoustic guitars and put Ringo on bongos, but the Anthology version features Ringo on drums. I asked Garry Tamlyn to compare all three: “There’s very little drum activity from Pete Best, just even quavers on the hi-hat. There are some tempo fluctuations, he pushes the beat a little bit and then pulls it back and so he gets a little out of ensemble with the rest of the band, but he had no tom-tom or snare drum activity, like Ringo Starr’s version. It sounds like Ringo was implementing the same beat as he performed on his bongo-drum recording, and that is very good drumming, quite creative, with lots of responses to the phrasing, and very accurate too.”
‘To Know Her Is To Love Her’
(Phil Spector)
When Phil Spector attended his father’s funeral, the tombstone read, ‘To know him is to love him’ and, almost immediately, a song was born. He recorded the song in 1958 with his friends, Annette Kleinbard and Marshall Leib, as the Teddy Bears and with Sandy Nelson on drums. It was a US Number 1 and a UK Number 2.
The song’s construction is similar to Buddy Holly’s, so it is easy to see how it appealed to the Beatles. John took the lead vocal, now calling the song ‘To Know Her Is To Love Her’ and, again in the heat of the moment, he takes the song too fast – the Live At The BBC version is superior. In 1965 the song, as ‘To Know You Is To Love You’, was a Top 10 hit for Peter and Gordon. Another variant would be ‘To Know Me Is To Love Me’ – perhaps Liam Gallagher could record that.
Third Session
The Beatles
7 March 1962, Playhouse Theatre, Manchester, BBC Light Programme Teenager’s Turn. This was the Beatles’ first radio appearance for which they were paid a total of £30.
‘Dream Baby’
(Cindy Walker)
Cindy Walker, the writer of such country hits as ‘When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again’, ‘You Don’t Know Me’, and ‘Distant Drums’ met record producer Fred Foster and was asked to submit some songs for Roy Orbison. ‘I came home and wrote ‘Dream Baby’, ‘Love Star’ and ‘Shahdoroba’, she told Craig Baguley in Country Music People (November 1997), “and I put them in a little box to mail to Fred Foster. Then I took out ‘Dream Baby’ as I thought it was too repetitious, the same thing over and over. My mama said, “If you don’t send that, you haven’t got anything at all to send”, so I put it back in the box. About a week later, Fred Foster called me and played ‘Dream Baby’ by Roy Orbison. It sounded wonderful and if it hadn’t been for my mama I wouldn’t have sent it.”
‘Dream Baby’ was released in February 1962 and entered the UK charts on 8 March 1962, climbing to Number 2. At the BBC audition, the producer Pete Pilbeam wrote “John Lennon, yes: Paul McCartney, no”, but Paul was still allowed to perform the song he had just learnt, on their radio debut. Within 15 months, Roy Orbison would be conceding top billing to the Beatles.
‘Memphis Tennessee’
(Chuck Berry)
As before.
‘Please Mr Postman’
(Brian Holland/Robert Bateman/Berry Gordy Jr/William Garrett/Georgia Dobbins/F Gorman or Gorman/Brainbert)
If you have ‘Please Mr Postman’ in your collection, check out the writers. Like ‘Why Do Fools Fall In Love’ and ‘Louie Louie’ it is a song whose authorship is in doubt. I have listed the seven names that I have found on various versions, but perhaps Gladys Horton, the lead singer of the Marvelettes has the true story: “The original ‘Please Mr Postman’ was a blues written by William Garrett,” she told me, “It was something like (sings) ‘Please please please I want a letter from my baby,’cause she gone and left me.’” One of the girls in the group, Georgia Dobbins, who was a very good writer, asked William if she could use the title but change the song as we were too young to be singing the blues. BB King could have done the original song, but not us. Williams has heard that Berry Gordy had picked our group to record at Motown and he said, “You can do anything with the song, but make sure I get a writer’s credit.” She reconstructed the song and made it about a girl waiting for a letter from her boyfriend, and the only two names that should have been on ‘Please Mr Postman’ were William Garrett and Georgia Dobbins. We then took it to Motown.
Somewhere along the line, the label’s owner, Berry Gordy Jr, and the group’s producers, Brian Holland and Robert Bateman, were added to the credits, along with two names I can’t identify. “It happened a lot at Motown,” says Gladys, “I was the only person who wrote ‘Playboy’ but the producers’ names were added to the credits. Why should I have to share the credits?” ‘Playboy’ was a US Top 10 hit and the credits are particularly significant with ‘Please Mr Postman’ as the song has become a much-performed rock ’n’ roll classic.
In December 1961, the Marvelettes’ ‘Please Mr Postman’ was the first Tamla Motown single to top the US charts, although it failed to make the UK Top 30. “Sometimes you don’t pay attention to the mail till someone you love moves away from you, then you’re looking for the postman and you think of the Marvelettes, “says Gladys, and I have another 10 minutes of her praising the US postal system. If she is not paid to publicise their services, she should be.
John Lennon took the lead vocal on the Beatles’ version and the song was included on their second album With The Beatles.
Fourth Session
Tony Sheridan and the Beatles
In May 1962, Tony Sheridan, Roy Young (piano) and the Beatles (Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney) recorded at Studio Rahistedt (also known as Studio Wandsbek), Hamburg and were produced by Bert Kaempfert and his assistant, Paul Murphy. According to Pete Best’s autobiography Beatle! he recorded ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ and ‘Skinny Minnie’ at this session, but no tapes of the latter exist and it is more likely that Pete Best has confused it with a later recording of Sheridan’s.
‘Swanee River’
(Stephen Foster)
Writing for minstrel shows, Stephen Foster (1826–64) became the first major pop songwriter and his compositions include ‘The Old Folks at Home’, ‘Camptown Races’, ‘Beautiful Dreamer’, ‘Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair’ and ‘Swanee River’. Ray Charles updated the last-named as ‘Swanee River Rock’ in 1957.
Again, Sheridan recorded the song without the Beatles in December 1961, and the later version without the Beatles has a slow introduction, which is sometimes omitted on reissue. The first version has not been released.
‘Sweet Georgia Brown’
(Ben Bernie/Maceo Pinkard/Kenneth Casey)
This song from the 1920s was associated with Pearl Bailey and Bing Crosby, but had been revived by the Coasters in 1957. Their stop-start arrangement is quite different from Sheridan’s.
Sheridan had recorded the song without the Beatles in December 1961, but this version lacks vocal harmonies and lasts 2 minutes and 25 seconds. The version with the Beatles has vocal harmonies and lasts 2 minutes. In 1964 the Beatles’ version was remixed and Sheridan added a new verse, written by Liverpool musician Paul Murphy, about the Beatles’ fame – and hairstyle. “We didn’t take that seriously,” says Sheridan. “I just thought the words were witty and I sang them.”
Live Recording
The Beatles
A recording made by a Beatles’ fan at the Cavern around June 1962 was bought by Paul McCartney at Sotheby’s in 1985. He only paid £2,310 for the tape and bootleg versions do not exist.
The Beatles’ set list was ‘Words of Love’, ‘What’s Your Name’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Ask Me Why’, ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’, ‘Till There Was You’, ‘If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody’, ‘Please Mr Postman’, ‘Sharing You’, ‘Your Feet’s Too Big’, ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, ‘I Forgot to Remember to Forget’, ‘Matchbox’, ‘I Wish I could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate’, ‘Memphis, Tennessee’, ‘Young Blood’ and ‘Dream Baby’.
The Beatles
6 June 1962, EMI, Abbey Road, London.
‘Besame Mucho’
(Consuelo Velazques/Sunny Skylar)
Another version of the song recorded at the Decca auditions. Again, it is taken too fast, but this was the way the Beatles performed it. It was a strange choice as Jet Harris’ version was still in the charts. Garry Tamlyn: “The snare rhythm that Pete Best plays is similar to ‘Love Me Do’ and it is very tight drumming, which goes against my comments on ‘Love Me Do’. Maybe he just didn’t have enough time rehearsing that song.”
‘Love Me Do’
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
Garry Tamlyn: “This is slower in tempo than the Ringo Starr and Andy White versions. The cymbals are only audible in the breaks and the middle eights and it is really interesting to hear what Pete Best does. The first time he plays a shuffle rhythm all the way through, and the second time he reverts to an even quaver rhythm on cymbals with a syncopated snare drum rhythm – a Latin beat, really. He has some tempo variations, particularly in the second break. Even his quaver rhythms on cymbals are uneven. On this showing, it doesn’t surprise me that George Martin was critical of his drumming.”
Pete Best: “I did what I thought was right for the number at the time. The idea was to make the middle eight different from the rest of the tune which is something we had tried and tested in Germany. It is slightly slower and different from the other versions, but we were going to put some finishing touches on it.”
I also played Garry the Ringo Starr and Andy White versions. “You can’t hear the bass drum clearly on Ringo’s recording but the snare is very audible. It sounds as though he is playing a swing rhythm on the hi-hat or cymbals. The bass drum is very audible on the version with the session drummer and aligns with the bass guitar riff very well. The session drumming is very tight and very accurate, the best of the bunch.”
‘PS I Love You’
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney
EMI have not confirmed that this version of ‘PS I Love You’ still exists.
Sixth Session
The Beatles
11 June 1962, Playhouse Theatre, Manchester, BBC Light Programme, Here We Go.
‘Ask Me Why’
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney
With ‘Ask Me Why’, John and Paul were trying to write in the style of Motown, albeit with a slight Latin-American influence. It is a fairly simple song but Lennon takes it for all it is worth with the way he stretches and bends words. It became the B-side of ‘Please Please Me’. Possibly John wrote it for Cynthia, although “You’re the only one that I’ve ever had” hardly fits this interpretation.
‘Besame Mucho’
(Consuelo Velazquez/Sunny Skylar)
‘A Picture of You’
(John Beveridge/Pete Oakman)
After a succession of steady sellers, Joe Brown topped the NME charts in July 1962 with the country-styled ‘A Picture of You’ written by two of his Bruvvers. At the time of the Beatles’ BBC recording, the song had just entered the Top 10.
Encouraged by George Harrison, the Beatles performed Joe’s hits ‘Darktown Strutters Ball’, ‘What A Crazy World Were Living In’ and ‘A Picture of You’. Geoff Taggart of St Helens’ group the Zephyrs says, “George was heavily influenced by Joe Brown who, in turn, had taken so much from Carl Perkins and Paul Burlison of the Johnny Burnette Trio. Often I hear George Harrison solos on Beatle records and I think, “He’s doing Joe Brown again.” George now lives near Joe in Henley-on-Thames and they have had private sessions recording George Formby songs for their own amusement.