Pretty Shocking

I have a lot  of time for Drumhead magazine and its editor, Jonathan Mover – it's basically the best magazine that I know of for drummers. It has high standards and its content carries a lot of weight.

In its latest issue it carries an interview with the legendary Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie and eventually gets to his legendary claims about the fact that he played on quite a lot of Beatles tracks. Or 'fixed' them, to use his phrase.

But his claims become even more shocking here when he suggests that Ringo Starr's drumming did not appear on a single one of the Beatles' studio tracks. He claims there were three other drummers (including him, and excluding Andy White and Pete Best) who 'fixed' the drumming for the Beatles.

His only concession to Ringo Starr is that Purdie says Ringo played 'live' with the band (which seems beyond debate).

If this remarkable claim about the Beatles recordings is true, isn't it the most shocking revelation? If it is false, why is Drumhead printing it? And why aren't lawyers knocking at Purdie's door?

All sorts of rumours re Beatles drumming continue to circulate. Paul McCartney is said to have played drums on a number of songs (although Purdie claims McCartney wasn't a good enough drummer to do that – or even a good enough bassist) and there have been stories too of ace session drummer Hal Blaine doing some 'fixing' for the Beatles.

Whatever the truth, all of this seems to highlight a grim reality – that many hit records made by bands back in the day (and also today) probably often don't feature the bands themselves, but session musicians who could be relied on to get it right first or second time, rather than 47th time. Those unsung session musicians tend to keep their stories to themselves, but sometimes they play and tell, and maybe sometimes they don't tell it quite like it was but how they hazily recall it.