5.47am
19 February 2013
Greetings,
I have been getting a little confused about the first three recording sessions and what exactly went down. A few things I would love to know:
If the Ringo version was actually released instead of the White version, is this because the studio drummer version actually did not turn out to be much if any improvement? Has Martin ever clarified why the version released was the version released.
Which leads to, if they thought they chose the better sounding version for the single. And this makes sense as it was the first thing that they released by the Beatles, why did they put the other version on the album? If one was found to be better, why not use it in both instances?
Also, I realize that back in the day, singles music was released separately to albums. And this is true through much of the Beatles career from early on. But why did this not apply to PPM and LMD which both do appear on the first album?
Regarding the sessions. If Pete Best was clearly not liked, why didn’t Martin have the studio drummer lined up for the second session? I have read that he did not know that the Beatles replaced before the second session. If they were spending studio time/money on this why was he not prepared to make that change right away. I actually found one source that seemed to think maybe this is what happened. But there are too many sources indicating that the third session was the one with White for me to believe that. So, I do think that Ringo played the second session.
Also I feel conflicted about when PPM was first played for George Martin, and when he decided to tell them to change the arrangement/tempo. I have been reading Emerick’s book, and I know that it has inaccuracies, but I trust some of it, and he seems to imply that they played this for Martin on the third session and records Martins suggestions per the arrangement. But I also have heard that the arrangement had already been sped up and changed some by the third session. And of course there is the controversy regarding if White possibly played on the tune. Seems like even the people who were there are not the best chroniclers of things. What have any of you decided was the order and reasons for any of this?
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