One of The Beatles’ most thrilling rock ‘n’ roll performances, ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey’ was recorded for Beatles For Sale in a single take in October 1964.
Disc, 14 November 1964
‘Kansas City’ had been written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1952. It was first recorded in the same year by Little Willie Littlefield that same year, under the title ‘KC Lovin’’. Under its correct title, it was popularised by Wilbert Harrison in 1959, after which a number of cover versions followed.
Among these was Little Richard’s version. When performing the song live, it usually became part of a medley with his own song ‘Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’, which was first released in 1958 as the b-side to ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’.
The Beatles saw Little Richard perform the medley in concert, and adopted it for their own set in 1962. They performed twice with him in England in October that year, and became friends with him during a two-week stint at Hamburg’s Star-Club in November.
I could do Little Richard’s voice, which is a wild, hoarse, screaming thing; it’s like an out-of-body experience. You have to leave your current sensibilities and go about a foot above your head to sing it. You have to actually go outside yourself. It’s a funny little trick and when you find it, it’s very interesting.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Granada Television filmed The Beatles for the first time at the Cavern on 22 August 1962, performing ‘Some Other Guy’ for the Know The North programme. Their sound technician Gordon Butler returned to the venue on 5 September to make a better-quality audio recording.
Butler used three microphones rather than one. He made an hour-long recording of The Beatles, of which performances of ‘Some Other Guy’ and ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ survived. He made five acetate discs of the two songs, one of which was sold at Christie’s auction house in August 1993.
The sound engineer ran me off an acetate of ‘Some Other Guy’ and ‘Kansas City’, and he gave another to Ray McFall and a couple to Brian Epstein. I kept mine in my box of records and I should have been more careful. When The Beatles became famous, the record disappeared. In 1993, a copy turned up at Christie’s and was sold for £15,000. I don’t know if it was my copy and anyway, I couldn’t prove it if it was.
The Cavern, Spencer Leigh
An audio fragment of the Cavern recording appeared in the Anthology series, although was partially obscured by interview speech. The complete undubbed audio later surfaced.
A recording from the Star-Club, Hamburg, taped in December 1962, is also available on bootlegs.
Paul McCartney recorded a solo version of ‘Kansas City’ in 1987 for the Choba B CCCP album, which was released in the Soviet Union the following year, and worldwide in 1991.
In the studio
Despite having mostly dropped it by 1963, The Beatles revived the ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ medley when their first American tour arrived at the Municipal Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on 17 September 1964. It was rapturously received by the crowd, leading the group to consider recording it in the studio.
This they did a month later, when a shortage of original material for their fourth album Beatles For Sale led to the revival of a number of older songs.
‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ became one of The Beatles’ most successful cover versions. Perfected in just one take, it was one of the first songs to be taped during a mammoth session on 18 October 1964, which also saw the recording of ‘Eight Days A Week’, ‘Mr Moonlight’, ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘I’ll Follow The Sun’, ‘Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby’, ‘Rock And Roll Music’, and ‘Words Of Love’.
The Beatles did record a second take of the medley during the session, although this remained unissued until 1995 when it was the final song on Anthology 1.
BBC recordings
The Beatles had mostly dropped ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ from their live set by 1963, although the medley was performed for a BBC radio session that year on 16 July, first broadcast on 6 August.
Recorded for Pop Go The Beatles, this first BBC version was released in 1994 on the Live At The BBC collection. Also recorded for the show were versions of ‘I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)’, ‘Crying, Waiting, Hoping’, ‘To Know Her Is To Love Her’, ‘The Honeymoon Song’, and ‘Twist And Shout’.
A second BBC radio recording of ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ was made on 1 May 1964 for From Us To You.
The show was first broadcast on 18 May, and also included versions of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘I Forgot To Remember To Forget’, ‘You Can’t Do That’, ‘Sure To Fall (In Love With You)’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘Matchbox’, and ‘Honey Don’t’ with John Lennon on lead vocals.
The Beatles recorded a third BBC version of ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ on 17 July 1964, for the 3 August edition of From Us To You. The show also featured ‘Long Tall Sally’, ‘If I Fell’, ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’, ‘Things We Said Today’, ‘I Should Have Know Better’, ‘Boys’, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, and the From Us To You theme song.
The fourth and final BBC recording of ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ was made for Saturday Club on 25 November 1964, and was first heard by listeners on 26 December. It was included on the 2013 album On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2.
The version of ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ was one of the show’s two new recordings, the other being ‘Rock And Roll Music’. The episode featured four other Beatles recordings – ‘I’m A Loser’, ‘Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby’, ‘I Feel Fine’, and ‘She’s A Woman’ – made for Top Gear on 17 November 1964.
Lyrics
Ah, Kansas city
Gonna get my baby back home, yeah, yeah
I’m going to Kansas City
Gonna get my baby back home, yeah, yeah
Well, it’s a long, long time since
My baby’s been gone
Ah, Kansas City
Gonna get my baby one time, a-yeah, yeah
I’m going to Kansas City
Get my baby one time, yeah, yeah
It’s just a-one, two, three, four
Five, six, seven, eight, nine
Hey hey hey hey (hey hey hey hey)
Hey, baby (hey, baby)
Ooh, now girl (well, girl)
I said, yeah, now, pal (well, pal)
Now, now, now, now, tell me baby
What’s been wrong with you?
Hey hey hey hey (hey hey hey hey)
Hey, baby (hey, baby)
Ooh, now girl (well, girl)
I said, yeah, now, pal (well, pal)
Now, now, now, now, tell me baby
What’s been wrong with you?
Well, I said bye (bye bye, bye bye, bye bye)
Bye bye, baby, bye bye (bye bye, bye bye, bye bye)
Whoo, so long (so long, so long, so long)
Bye bye, baby, I’m gone (bye bye, bye bye, bye bye)
Yeah, I said bye bye, baby
Bye, bye, bye, bye
Bye now, bye (bye bye, bye bye, bye bye)
Bye now, baby, bye bye (bye bye, bye bye)
Handclaps are missing (you hear them the last half minute of the song).
It might be worth mentioning the Kansas City concert where the promoter paid The Beatles a huge amount of extra money in order to play this song at the show. I’m not sure about the details, but it’s a fairly significant story about the song imo
Good point. Thanks Andrew. There’s an article on the extra concert date here: https://www.beatlesbible.com/1964/09/17/live-municipal-stadium-kansas-city/
The concert took place Kansas City Athletics (now Oakland) Memorial Stadium. Owner Charles Finley had his picture with a Beatles wig printed on the tickets with this quote:
“Today’s Beatle Fan is tomorrow’s baseball fan”. I did not go, but my best friend did.
I saw the Beatles in Kansas City and it was unbelievable. l also was lucky enough to see them two years later in St. Louis just about five concerts before they quit touring for good. great times!
I love the Beatles version of Kansas City Hey-Hey-Hey. I didn’t know that this is a cover of Little Richard’s recording. But I heard Richard’s song for the first time today. I noticed that Richard says: “yeah now child” and the Beatles say: “yeah now pal”, which never made sense to me. Now that I’ve heard Little Richard’s song, I wondering if the Beatles just misunderstood what Richard was saying, and thought he said “pal” instead of “child”. At first I thought Richard was saying “gal”, which rhymes with “pal”.
One of the Beatles’ greatest rock covers, with a fantastic raw vocal by… Paul?!
Seriously, though, this track is why I’ve never understood the general perception that John was the rocker and Paul was the balladeer. Paul could rip it up with the best of them.
oh gosh you are going to hate be big time, but except for George Martins piano and George Harrisaons lead guitar i never really like this verson of the song. much prefered the orginal one.
It is a myth that John is the only Rocker. Paul could Rock Out Too!
I don’t think anyone is or was surprised by Paul’s rocking credentials. After all, it was he who opened their first album with the punchy rocker I Saw Her Standing There, and had already sung many rockers up to the time of Kansas City. Long Tall Sally is, IMO, the best performed, tightest, hardest rocking cover they ever did, again fronted by Paul, and had been released on an EP a few months before they recorded Kansas City.
I remember when this first came out, it only listed “Kansas City” and then later pressings added “Hey Hey Hey Hey” — was there a lawsuit or was this just cleared up? I remember being confused when I first saw it, because I thought it was just one song.
The American album Beatles VI just listed as “Kansas City”. One good thing about the US versions is this turned out to be a great opening to that album. Pure adrenalin.
Well, first off, the concert was in Missouri, not Kansas. Second correction is that it was held in Municipal Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri not Memorial Stadium.
Another fun fact. This song is played at Kauffman Stadium, in Kansas City, Mo, after every win by the Kansas City Royals baseball team. Its great hearing it blasted from the stadium PA while the team shakes hands and celebrates a victory. When the team loses, they play ‘Kansas City’ by Wilbert Harrison.
As someone else said this is one of The Beatles greatest rock covers. Paul McCartney’s vocals are amazing with the classic early Beatles back up vocalists, (in this case John and George), answering the lead singer, Paul.George Harrison’s Lead Guitar work is wonderful. I instantly loved this song from the first time I obtained “Beatles For Sale”.
Agreed! I found George’s guitar playing a bit hit-and-miss at times, but this was definitely a good one, as was his solo on the other Little Richard cover, Long Tall Sally.
Anybody else remember seeing the Beatles live on the 60s American music show “Shindig”,
doing a great version of this song?
Also did “Boys” and “I’m a loser”. Its on YouTube, search for Beatles, Shindig
There was a book published in the mid 1970s covering Beatles songs and recordings and Apple Record releases. The book properly documented the writer credits. Apparently, for over a decade, it had been missed that Little Richard deserves royalties. Someone working for him or his songwriting company noticed this because of that book. And Little Richard started receiving royalty payment.
On all Beatles releases to date, no credits are given to “R. Penniman” for his “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey” as part of “Kansas City”. It’s highly inlikely that Penniman’s music publisher did not press on the button to claim his part of the publishing rights.
What’s the official explanation for the “mistake”?
As John noted in one of his interviews, the number 9 appears in all kinds of places, and this record is one of them.
Joe- I didn’t think this was a one take recording and then I found this in beatlebooks.com-“All four Beatles played this live, including all vocals, in two complete takes. The first take was determined to be the better one, therefore a couple overdubs were recorded onto this take. George Martin added a piano part throughout the song, although it ended up being quite low in the mix. The Beatles then added handclaps to the closing measures of the song, beginning with the “bye-bye, baby, bye-bye” section. The whole song was probably completed within a half hour, from approximately 3:30 to 4:00 pm.’
hanks