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| What's The Truth About Bernard Purdie? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 22 2013, 11:03 PM (527 Views) | |
| meaning-less | Dec 22 2013, 11:03 PM Post #1 |
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Level 3
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Once and for all, what are we to think of the Bernard Purdie claims of playing drums on 21 Beatles tracks? |
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| RockySassoon | Dec 22 2013, 11:15 PM Post #2 |
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Read this: http://www.jimvallance.com/03-projects-fol.../pg-purdie.html Unfortunately I don't have a clue about american pressings, but I don't think that the drum tracks are different as they got the masters from the UK (Frank may be able to correct me) In my opinion it's definately not true and I don't know why a highly regarded drummer like Purdie makes claims like this. |
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| namralos | Dec 23 2013, 01:15 AM Post #3 |
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The Bernard Purdie connection was solved many years ago (c. 1992). Yes, he is the ghost drummer on the recordings that were released by Atco in the United States. Some of the recordings have additional guitar, too. "Sweet Georgia Brown" is very noticeable. "Take Out Some Insurance on Me, Baby" was censored by Atco, too. Frank |
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| muffmasterh | Dec 23 2013, 01:23 AM Post #4 |
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I agree with the sentiments in that link totally. If he did do anything then it might possibly be on the Polydor tapes and being charitable he is then simply getting confused, it wasn't Ringo but it was Pete Best he was adding to.....i've no idea what the status is with the polydor recordings releases in the USA, if anybody can spot a difference to the UK recordings let us know... In Germany these were mixed in two track stereo I think, its possible i guess to play the two track stereo recordings in the studio, add his drums then remix it most likely for Mono....so i guess it might be the mono USA releases that could most likely be affected, but its all if if if if if.............. |
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| namralos | Dec 23 2013, 01:52 AM Post #5 |
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Purdie worked for Atlantic, who owned Atco. There's no Purdie on the original German or British releases. |
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| muffmasterh | Dec 24 2013, 02:32 AM Post #6 |
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ah our messages crossed Frank, I sent my message before yours came in... so my theory was right on the bloody money, it is the USA versions of the Polydor recordings.....what a clever buggar i am sometimes hehehe !! Back of the Net !! Maybe he thought it was Brian Epstein but actually it was Bert Kampfert...or even James Last lol !! |
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| AurelianDE | Dec 31 2013, 05:23 AM Post #7 |
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The Purdie myth as a whole has been rightfully laid to rest as a technological and chronological impossibility as far as the claims '21 tracks', 'Beatles' first 3 albums' and 'replacing Ringo' are concerned. See link further above plus what immediately comes to your mind. IIRC (I'm not a specialist in US issues, so please correct me if I'm wrong), the Atco recordings amount to 4 titles, mono only (I'm discounting the mock stereo variants). If you want to give Purdie the benefit of the doubt (aka failing memory), it is indeed possible that Bert Kaempfert (not Brian Epstein) oversaw the enhancements (he was a producer and had strong ties to the US), but it is highly improbable. His production company in Germany was independent (the Beatles initially signed to his company, not to Polydor). The US deal was by Polydor (via Deutsche Grammophon) and independent of the production of the original recording that had become the property of Polydor. Contrary to what you often read, the Hamburg Polydor recordings were not 'twin-track recordings' in the sense EMI used that term. Twin track refers to two separate parallel tracks on a 2-channel-machine that can be simultaneously recorded (or, rarely) one after the other. Twin track is the format of PPM and WTB. If the two available tracks are recorded simultaneously (as on PPM and WTB), there may be some 'bleeding' of one channel into the other, depending on microphone position, creating a pseudo-stereo effect (because shared signals appear 'in the middle'). The stereo versions of PPM and WTB were enhanced by additional panning and reverb, which is the best you can make of a twin-track 2-channel recording. If you need overdubs, you will have to mix the original twin-track recording together with a second primary source onto a second 2-channel machine (Taste of Honey is an early example, the stereo Money on WTB almost sounds like a true 4-track recording). The Polydor recordings were most probably recorded on a 2-track machine used for true stereo (the earliest and, as far as I know, the only Beatles recordings done that way). That is, two microphones captured the soundstage, and one or several additional 'support microphones' were used to get a clear signal from a specific source, usually the singer. The stereo soundstage and the support mics were fed into a mixing console and balanced. The result was a stereo recording that was unalterable. Consequently, mono issues of those tracks could only be (balanced) fold-downs of the stereo (Joe Brennan's work on variations confirms that mono issues of the Polydor tracks do not differ from the stereo contents). It follows that an American company that decided on enhancing the original recordings -- could not eliminate the Pete Best drumming from the original recording; -- would have to use another 2-channel recorder for overdubs or transfer to 4-channel to make alterations. Let's assume it is Purdie who did the enhancements on the US Polydor releases (there must be some foundation to his exagerated claim), then the whole thing boils down to the following, or, as Henry asked : Ain't She Sweet: The drums have been clearly enhanced. There are new very fluent drum fills, especially noticeable on the last verse. Surely reverb added on the vocals. Take Out Some Insurance On Me (that's the correct title, apparently, the added 'Baby' as well as the 'If you Love Me' on many Hamburg and post-Hamburg issues is a mistake): The drums are clearly enhanced, a hi-hat mistake by Pete Best near the end has been edited out, there's a new sound on 2 sustained notes which could pass as a synthethiser (joke!) but is probably a harmonica. (I wouldn't have noticed the deletion of a Sheridan expletive at the end if I hadn't been alerted by Joe Brennan). Nobody's Child: Drums are subtly strengthened -- which makes the guitar (by Sheridan) sound much more messy and off-beat than on the original (have to check this further); Sweet Georgia Brown: Drums enhanced, additional guitar licks especially in the 1st verse and near the end. I don't think that any of Purdie's claims beyond these four contributions can be substantiated |
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| namralos | Dec 31 2013, 03:23 PM Post #8 |
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Right. Those are the tracks on which Purdie -- who had a contract with Atlantic -- worked. American companies had arrangements with DGG to release their music in the United States. Through that arrangement, Decca issued the "My Bonnie" single in April, 1962, to deafening silence in both the USA and Canada. In 1964, immediately after Beatlemania struck in the States, MGM had the arrangement with DGG. When they inquired about Beatles releases on Polydor, they were told that four songs had been released on an EP. They obtained a copy of that EP (in mono), swiped its cover graphics, and blew it up to an LP in the USA and Canada -- by filling it in with already-issued material by the Titans. MGM was unaware that there were four other Sheridan/Beatles tracks in the "can" awaiting release. In the months that followed, Atlantic made a bid for the DGG contract and those four songs. The songs were mixed for mono and were being scheduled for a German LP release, to be called Beatles First. It was in May in the USA that copies of three of the "four new songs" were sent to Atco Records. It's quite possible that the wrong version of "Nobody's Child" was sent to the US at this time (see below). Oddly, Atco assigned two of the songs the same matrix number, and so an "X" had to be added to one of them. May 29th gave us the British release of "Ain't She Sweet" and "Take Out..," with the German catalog number of NH 52-317. The b-side still had the incorrect title, but no author credits were shown. In early June, German Polydor was pressing initial copies of the Beatles First LP. A first label correction gave the LP its proper title. "Take Out..." had no author credits and was listed with both the correct and incorrect titles. Something was about to change. Some time near the end of May, in the USA, as labels were being printed for the Atco release of "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Take Out Some Insurance on Me, Baby," someone realized which title was correct and retrieved the correct author credits. They let German Polydor know, around June 2nd. During these few weeks, someone at Atlantic decided that the recordings were unsuitable for release in the United States in their existing form. That's when they called in session musicians to doctor the drumming and to add some guitar work. These additions were made to mono mixes, not to the original session tapes. As a result they are found only in mono. |
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| muffmasterh | Jan 1 2014, 10:18 AM Post #9 |
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well it looks like i think between us we have this fairly nailed down.....one thing though - and i am no recording engineer - in order to add more things to a track the beatles would ' bounce ' down takes at emi ( i am sure everybody else did too ) which i guess probably involved playing the take back through the studio speakers as they made any add on's that may have been required. OF course if it was 2 track or four track thats all you would still have when it came to the mixing. It was standard practice at emi i think to keep one track free for the main vocal which is apparently why it often ended pushed out to the side.....i don't think it had to be that way but stereo was such a small selling niche option that i guess they were not too concerned about it...indeed we are lucky to have early Beatles stereo records at all, the stones didn't nor did the who or the small faces, nor Jimi Hendrix's first LP either ( at last originally )..if the Beatles had not signed to EMI / George Martin we would have not been as lucky as we are.... |
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| AurelianDE | Jan 2 2014, 05:40 AM Post #10 |
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A bit OT but since you asked... The vocals were 'pushed to one side' (on the first 2 LPs) for mixing purposes only. When mixing the mono, you could adjust the voice levels against the music. If you had, say, lead guitar and voice on the same channel, you could not have a louder singer without having louder lead guitar. That's why George Martin recorded the vocals separately from the instruments during the first recordings. He didn't have a stereo image in mind, he wanted a proper mono recording. If you wanted to add an overdub such as a second vocal to a 2-channel-recording, you had to play back the recorded tape so the singer could hear it over headphones (not studio speakers). That signal was at the same time fed into the mixing console, together with the input from the singer's microphone. Levels were adjusted, and the combined result was then recorded by a second tape machine. That happened on Taste Of Honey and Misery, for example. (You couldn't record on the same tape as that would have meant that one of the existing two tracks would be erased). With four tracks, you could do either of two things. You could have 4 separate parallel tracks and mix them into either stereo or mono. Alternatively, you could do a 'reduction mix' or 'bounce down' two or more tracks. Again, that would involve a second tape machine. The signals from the tracks in question were sent to the mixing console, respective levels were adjusted and the mixed signal was then recorded on one track only of the second machine (which then had three empty tracks that could be filled with more instruments). When these tracks were filled, you proceeded with method one and mixed them into either stereo or mono. The 'bounced-down' signal, however, could not be changed. It was only on Yellow Submarine Songtrack, when the engineers went back to the original multitracks (and not the final 4-track that already contained combined tracks from the previous generation), that the 8 string instruments that were combined on Eleanor Rigby or the two sitars on Love You To could be disentangled and sent to separate places in the stereo image. There is no obvious reason why the singing on Rubber Soul should be on one side only. George Martin claims that he did it in order to get a better mono out of it. If the singers were recorded on both channels (that is, in the middle of the stereo picture), the (voice) signal of both channels combined would have been too loud. (I would have to look up the 1987 interview to quote him correctly.) That's not convincing, IMO, since vocals on BFS and Help had already been recorded in the middle and had not at least affected the mono mixes. And in the same interview George Martin said that the fact that HDN and BFS were issued in mono only in the '87 CD series was a simple misunderstanding as the stereo was ok on both of them. It's a sad thing to say, but EMI were, well, very conservative, to say the least. They were well behind the state of the art, to put it more bluntly, at least with their recordings of non-classical music. They didn't see the advantages of 4-track recording (and later of 8-track recording) until late, they missed the possibilities of stereo recordings (even for mono issues) until other countries had explored them, they were afraid of bass notes or didn't know how to record them when American records and others had a clearly defined bass. In comparison to American singles of the period (or listen to Tony Sheridan's first Polydor LP or those recordings with the Beatles in which every bass note is clearly present) the early Parlophone recordings sound muddy, ill-defined and timid in the high as well as the low frequencies. The Hamburg recordings (trying to grope my way back to the topic of this thread!) were true stereo. That means, there were signals that were mostly to the right, mostly to the left, or shared between channels. That combination of vocals and instruments could not be changed in any way. It is one of the early examples of popular music recorded in the 'classical way'. If you wanted to create a mono from them, you could only combine the channels (a 'fold-down mix'). You could boost the left side or the right side a bit, but that was all you could do. If you wanted to add overdubs (as Atco did), you would have to feed the stereo master into a mixing console together with a live recording of the overdubs and record the result on a 2nd generation tape, as described above for some of the early Parlophone tracks. If Atco used the mono masters from Polydor, as Frank said in his post, they could transfer it to one track of a new tape and record overdubs on a second track. Two drum rolls, eight guitar notes, and an enhanced hi-hat wouldn't have made a convincing second stereo channel, so they had to mix down the result for mono. And just for the record: Sweet Georgia Brown is different, because the instrumental track (with an edit, seemingly in mono, for the slowed down ending) was recorded separately from Sheridan's voice. That's why the vocals were mixed in the middle and could be replaced with new vocals (in which Tony mentions the Beatles) in 1964. But that recording was done in the Hamburg studio 'Studio Rahlstedt' and may have been recorded on a 4-track machine from the start. All the earlier Hamburg tracks -- sorry, I can't resist, but there's another myth that seems to be alive and well up to the Anthology liner notes and should be put to rest -- were recorded on the stage of the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle (not Friedrich-Eberts-Halle, as Joe Brennan has it) in Hamburg-Harburg, and that hall is a multi-purpose hall equipped with stage facilities and suited for concerts that doubled as a school hall for the neighbouring school. It's not a school hall. Many middle-sized towns or suburbs of the bigger cities in Germany (as Harburg was before it became part of Hamburg) had such halls. Not having a theatre or an orchestra of their own, communities such as Harburg provided facilities that served professional purposes for guesting theatre companies or orchestras and, during the time they were not used, served as assembly halls for schools that staged their amateur theatre performances there or end-of-term festivities. It was chosen by Polydor (or by Kaempfert) for its good acoustics. You can hear that on the Polydor tracks, if you listen carefully: The image (on the right channel) of Sheridan's voice (recorded on the left channel) is not the 'bleeding' of the left channel onto the right, but a pick-up of the ambient acoustics, that is, the echo of the voice in the room. Kaempfert knew what he was doing: Sheridan and the Beatles were stage acts, so he put them on a stage to get the best out of them. Simple as that; no denigrating 'only a school hall' comments needed. (Don't get me wrong: That is not to say that Kaempfert could have been the producer of the Beatles-as-we-know them. No way. His musical ideology ('music that doesn't disturb', see his greatest hit 'Strangers In The Night') was the opposite of what the Beatles wanted. It's a blessing that he misjudged them and left them to Brian Epstein's plans. Still, give him his due. The Polydor recordings, mediocre as they are in terms of music, are head and shoulders above the first Parlophone recordings productionwise.) |
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| Garfield | Jan 2 2014, 06:29 AM Post #11 |
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We should note, that the MONO version of AIN'T SHE SWEET with the overdubbed drums was used on several issues in Germany during the 60s, so it's very unlikely it was done in the US. Also the other 3 tracks sound different to me and have not only drums added. |
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| muffmasterh | Jan 2 2014, 08:54 AM Post #12 |
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Not at all i found that very informative thank you. Rubber Soul was very strange, almost a regression, but some of Revolver and Pepper is also the same, AHDN, BFS, Help and, as you said earlier, even Money on WTB are all fairly centred Maybe the growing complexities of recordings from Rubber Soul was the indirect cause of this, and that, of course it was the mono mix that would have been regarded as the most important, the stereo was regarded as an unimportant sideshow in terms of sales...but at least they did a stereo which is more than can be said of many other artists and labels ! And thank you for clearing that up about going direct into the mixing console ! |
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| servi | Jan 2 2014, 01:34 PM Post #13 |
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His "Afrikaan Beat" is a masterpiece IMO. |
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| AurelianDE | Jan 2 2014, 10:07 PM Post #14 |
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That's an interesting point. As far as I know, the 1964 GDR Amiga Single of Ain't She Sweet also had the overdubs (I don't have it -- anybody?). And what about the GDR Sweet Georgia Brown? The question is why several VA compilations had the new mix whereas the official Polydor Beatles First didn't. If Polydor had decided that the original tape was insufficient (and had supervised the overdubs), why didn't they publish the 'corrected' mixes? |
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