The Beatles’ third Abbey Road recording session

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From Wikipedia:

Concerned with Starr’s drumming, the producers hired session drummer Andy White for another attempt at recording the Beatles’ first single. In Studio 2, they recorded three songs with White drumming. The best takes of “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You” were mono mixed. An unknown number of takes of “Please Please Me” were also recorded but none was used. The session tapes were later destroyed, thus there are no true stereo versions of the songs, although at least one mono recording has been discovered. Although the previous session’s version of “Love Me Do” was originally released as the single, following the release of The Beatles’ Hits EP, it was replaced with the version from this session and destroyed. “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You” were mixed in duophonic “fake stereo” on 25 February 1963, in Studio 1. Although they were originally released in duophonic stereo on the stereo version of Please Please Me, the 2009 remastered stereo version contains the two songs in mono.

From Anthology 1:

One week after recording How Do You Do It the Beatles made a third visit to Abbey Road in what proved to be the final attempt at polishing off their debut single. To this end, George Martin had arranged for Andy White, a session drummer, to occupy the beat seat, which came as quite a shock to the Beatles and especially to Ringo, who had joined the group less than four weeks previously and wondered if this was a sign of things to come. As it happened, this was to be the only occasion that Ringo was replaced in such a fashion.

With so much thought already invested in Love Me Do it took very little time for the Beatles, with White, to complete a third recording. Quickly moving on, they also started and finished a re-make (following the 6 June attempt) of the song which would be issued as its B-side, Lennon-McCartney’s PS I Love You, they committed to tape a third number, Please Please Me. Believed wiped, the earliest available recording of the song re-surfaced in 1994 and is being released here for the first time. It varies from the master take in a number of ways, the most obvious being the absence of harmonica, always regarded as the released recording’s trademark feature. The lead and harmony vocals, and the drum track, also differ.

Last updated on July 9, 2017

Songs recorded

Staff

Musicians

Paul McCartney:

Bass, Vocals

Ringo Starr:

Maracas, Tambourine

John Lennon:

Vocals, Harmonica, Rhythm guitar

George Harrison:

Backing vocals, Lead guitar, Acoustic guitar

Andy White:

Percussion, Drums

Production staff

George Martin:

Producer

Norman Smith:

Engineer