CTS Studios, London
Producer: George Martin
Following their record breaking concert at New York’s Shea Stadium on 15 August 1965, it was decided that extra recordings would be needed if the footage was to be released to the public.
The concert performance suffered for The Beatles’ problems hearing themselves against the screams of 55,600 fans, and the mobile recording facilities had left the sound quality of the recordings below standard.
A secret booking was made for The Beatles to re-record some of the instrument parts on this day. The session took place at CTS (Cine Tele Sound) Studios at 49-53 Kensington Gardens Square in London.
Paul McCartney overdubbed new bass parts onto ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘Baby’s In Black’ and ‘I’m Down’. The latter song – the finale to the concert – also featured a new organ track from John Lennon.
The Beatles then made entirely new recordings for ‘I Feel Fine’ and ‘Help!’, as the quality of the concert recordings couldn’t be salvaged. The songs were taped quickly, as they required the necessary live feel, although care was taken to match the on-screen images to the music.
The group also recorded overdubs for ‘Ticket To Ride’. For ‘Act Naturally’, however, the EMI studio recording was used.
Although George Martin wished to have a new version of ‘Twist And Shout’, there was no time to record one. Instead, the recording of The Beatles’ 30 August 1965 version from their third and final Hollywood Bowl concert was used to enhance the sound.
No work was done on ‘She’s A Woman’ and ‘Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby’, which were omitted from the final production.
The concert film was first broadcast in black and white on BBC 1 on 1 March 1966, as The Beatles At Shea Stadium.
Act Naturally was taken from the studio recording.
Yes, Act Naturally is absolutely the album version, not even a “re-creation.” Just listen to it. You can even hear the edits
Yep, my mistake. I’ve corrected it now – thanks for pointing it out.
I think they may have actually re-recorded some songs if I remember the story. The studio they used was especially for dubbing music or sounds to film.
I’ve got a bootleg that surfaced a few years ago that has the raw feed from the PA…no edits and great sound. I’m listening to it right now, in fact, and it’s a realy joy. I’ve never liked it when bands clean up live recordings.
Where did you get it? I really want to listen it!
Sorry guys, but no way was Act Naturally the studio version. TO begin with, Ringo starts off single clearly off pitch, which he did not do in the studio, and no, there were no “auto pitch” devices then. Also, as a guitarist, I can tell you that George’s solo is played using different notes than the studio version. I would ask the author of this thread to please site his source.
You don’t cite your source either, but I suspect you’re listening to the undoctored Shea audio. Ringo was off-pitch and Paul’s harmony vocals weren’t recording due to a microphone problem.
This article is about overdubs recorded for the film, which clearly contain the album version of Act Naturally. It was edited terribly with jumps in the audio and mismatched a/v, but clearly nobody really cared too much at the time.
Act Naturally was the studio version, you can plainly hear Lennon’s acoustic in it…
So what! Every concert release is cleaned up alittle, or quite a bit in some cases. If any concert in the history of rock and roll needed a bit of cleaning up,The Beatles at Shea Stadium probably did more than any other. With the thousands of non-stop screaming fans,the 1965 era amplifires and stadium monitors they used for sound,The Beatles themselves not being able to really hear themselves too well,etc. etc.
The original Shea tracks from what i have ever heard are really good and what Howard gives us in the film is overdubbed crap on my opinion
John farted audibly on stage and that had to erased from the final mix.. True story.
There’s a source of The Beatles At Shea Stadium known as “the 1991 remaster” which is probably the cleanest source available in full to the public. But the reason why I’m mentioning it is because for ‘Act Naturally’ they use the studio recording plus the raw Shea audio overdubbed together. It gives it a double tracked vocal feel.
This source of the concert can be found on the TMOQ GAZETTE DVD/CD bootleg
I was there! Despite an inadequate sound system, I am so glad to have the ABC broadcast video of A Midsummer’s Night in New York City to relive that historic concert event. I still get goosebumps every time I watch The Beatles walk across the field to the stage! And it’s fun to see them react and try to perform throughout the chaos!