Recording overdubs for "The Beatles At Shea Stadium" TV special

About

The Beatles’ concert at New York’s Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965, had been professionally filmed – no less than fourteen cameras had been used to capture the euphoria and mass hysteria that was Beatlemania in the USA in 1965. But the Beatles’ performance was negatively impacted by their inability to hear themselves due to the loud screams of the 55,600 fans in attendance. Also, the sound quality of the recordings made using mobile recording facilities was below standard.

As NEMS Enterprises, via the Beatles company Subafilms, wanted to produce a TV special around this special concert, The Beatles, on this day, went to CTS (CineTeleSound) Studios, a film-dubbing studio, to overdub some instrument parts onto the live tracks.

Paul McCartney recorded new bass parts for “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Baby’s In Black,” and “I’m Down,” while John Lennon added a new organ track to the latter song.

The Beatles re-recorded “I Feel Fine” and “Help!” from scratch because the quality of the concert recordings couldn’t be improved, but they made sure to capture the live feel of the songs and match the music to the on-screen images.

They may have recorded some overdubs for “Ticket To Ride“, but they were not used on the TV Special.

There wasn’t enough time to improve “Twist And Shout” or “Act Naturally“. For “Twist And Shout“, the recording of their August 30, 1965, Hollywood Bowl concert was used instead. For “Act Naturally“, the studio version was used, with some additional crowd noise added.

“She’s a Woman” and “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” were not included in the TV Special and no work was done on them.

[…] To fix Act Naturally the Beatles did nothing: the film’s post-production team merely replaced the Shea recording with the Beatles’ disc version (recorded 17 June 1965), sync-ing it to the picture by means of audience cutaways and even, in places, cuts in the music. (Intentionally or otherwise, one moment – where Ringo’s vocal is evident but his mouth is closed – was left in the film uncorrected.)

Documentation also suggests that John wished to record a new version of Ticket To Ride, and that it was done during this CTS session, but close study of the film indicates that the original Shea version was used (although perhaps a little instrumental overdubbing was effected).

Additionally, George Martin desired a new recording of Twist And Shout, but there wasn’t time to do this. Instead, the post-production team used the unreleased 30 August 1965 Hollywood Bowl concert recording to bolster the sound, causing – in one place – John’s live vocal to be double – tracked. In fact, the Bowl recording was used extensively during the film’s post-production processes for recordings of the screaming audience, especially on the two all-new London recordings.

No doctoring appears to have been done to either She’s A Woman or Everybody’s Trying To Be Baby, suggesting that, by this time, they had already been excluded from the film. They were, however, included in an early print which Epstein received from Sullivan Productions around 5 November 1965, which then ran to 54 minutes. By January, as it would be for the transmission, the film’s duration had been cut to just under 48 minutes. […]

From “The Complete Beatles Chronicles“, by Mark Lewisohn, 2004

The TV Special, simply entitled “The Beatles At Shea Stadium” was screened for the first time on March 1, 1966, on BBC1.

Last updated on January 3, 2023

Songs recorded

Staff

Musicians on "Can't Buy Me Love"

Paul McCartney:

Bass

Musicians on "Baby's In Black"

Paul McCartney:

Bass

Musicians on "Help!"

Paul McCartney:

Performed by

Ringo Starr:

Performed by

John Lennon:

Performed by

George Harrison:

Performed by

Musicians on "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"

Paul McCartney:

Bass

Musicians on "I Feel Fine"

Paul McCartney:

Performed by

Ringo Starr:

Performed by

John Lennon:

Performed by

George Harrison:

Performed by

Musicians on "I'm Down"

Paul McCartney:

Bass

John Lennon:

Organ