Studio Two, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
One of the highlights of the Rubber Soul album, Paul McCartney’s ‘Michelle’, was recorded on this day at Abbey Road.
There were two scheduled sessions, from 2.30-7pm and 7-11.30pm, although the day was effectively one continuous session. During the afternoon the group rehearsed and arranged the rhythm track, which was recorded in a single take onto several tracks of the multi-track tape.
The backing track contained McCartney’s Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar, George Harrison playing John Lennon’s Framus 12-string acoustic guitar, and Ringo Starr’s drumming. Each of the guitars on the rhythm track was capoed at the fifth fret. The recording was then given a reduction mix to free up extra tracks for overdubs.
In the evening Lennon filled track two with his Ramírez acoustic guitar, on which he played the descending notes in the song’s introduction and transitions, plus a bass guitar part by McCartney, and an electric guitar solo played by Harrison.
On track three were Lennon, McCartney and Harrison’s harmony vocals, and onto the final track McCartney recorded his lead vocals.
Because it was only on four little tracks, it was very easy to mix. There were no decisions to make, we’d made them all in the writing and in the recording. We would mix them, and it would take half an hour, maybe. Then it would go up on a shelf, in a quarter-inch tape box. And that was it. That was the only thing we ever did to ‘Michelle’.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Surprised to read that Lennon played the acoustic intro. I always thought it was Paul, and tbh, to me it sounds much more like Paul’s style. On the other hand John was into a lot of complex acoustic play at the time, eg, Norwegian Wood, which he played beautifully as he sang on that take.
Wonderful measured tour de force by all three guitarists. Great perfprmance.
[nb. I ought to mention That I read somewhere, maybe Macdonald ‘Revolution in the Head’ that actually it was Paul who played all the instruments, so there you go !! 🙂
Ian MacDonald’s book was sincerely wrong – not only was it impossible for Paul to play everything himself, given the limitations of 4-track at the time, but also session photography confirms that Paul, John and George were all on acoustic guitars.
I read in the 2009 reissue booklet of Rubber Soul that the recording process went down like this (with players added):
Track 1: acoustic guitars (Paul & George), drums (Ringo)
Track 2: Paul’s lead vocal
Track 3: backing vocals (Paul, John, & George)
Track 4: more backing vocals by the trio
— reduction mix moves both tracks of backing vocals onto track 3 of a new tape, instruments stay on their respective tracks —
New track 4: bass guitar (Paul), acoustic guitar (John), lead guitar (George)
Both George and John acquired their Epiphone Casinos between april 16 and 27 1966, so it’s impossible that George played that guitar for the solo! There are several pictures taken at Abbey Road studio 2 on november 3, 1965 and the only electric guitars present were two sonic blue Fender Stratocasters, John’s Rickenbacker 325 and George’s second Rickenbacker 360/12
Paul had his, the first one…you can see it at the day’s photos.
There are so many inaccuracies in this article I couldn’t even begin to address them. “ George distorted electric guitar . Where ? He played his Gretsch CG on neck pickup which cuts the highs , and pronounces the low and midrange . It’s totally clean , rather a faux jazzier tonality . I’ll let others respond , I don’t have the time at the moment .
The guitar is fully valve driven. It’s distorted and heavy compressed. I dont know if you think distortion as the death metals but it is, in this case, a clean-distortion. Its really not clean and you can hear the bumping drive with headphones.
Actually, George played the solo on his Gibson J-160E and even session photographs verify this. The composite of differing types of acoustic guitar (John’s classical guitar, Paul’s 6-string and George playing John’s 12-string) gave a very nice and interesting sound and feel.