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List of people who performed on Beatles recordings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aside from John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, numerous musicians and other people featured on official recordings by the Beatles. These include friends and family of the group, the band's entourage, and numerous session musicians. Original members Pete Best (drums) and Stuart Sutcliffe (bass guitar) appeared on early recordings; the former on the group's recording of "My Bonnie" with Tony Sheridan, and both on various tracks released on Anthology 1.

The instruments contributed to Beatles recordings range from traditional orchestral instruments—such as violin, viola and cello[1]—to an alarm clock and a pile of gravel.[2][3]

The first half of the Beatles' career—from the early 1960s until 1966—rarely saw the band use any extra musicians, though George Martin (their producer) occasionally added keyboard instruments to augment their sound.[4][5] As their career progressed and their influences widened, the group began to experiment in the studio. Martin started to orchestrate for the band; his first major orchestration for the group was the string quartet on "Yesterday".[6] In 1966, the band stopped touring and concentrated on studio experimentation,[7] creating soundscapes and orchestrations that required numerous musicians (the orchestra on 1967's "A Day in the Life" was accommodated in Abbey Road's large Studio One, rather than the group's usual room in Studio Two[8]). It was also around this time that the Beatles visited India, and—particularly Harrison—became influenced by Indian culture and music,[9] leading to the group's use of traditional Indian instruments in their arrangements. Shortly before the group's demise at the end of the decade, keyboardist Billy Preston was brought in to add to their sound while they tried to return to their rock 'n' roll roots.[10] The group wanted what was to become their final album, Let It Be, to be raw with minimal overdubs.[11][12] After producer Glyn Johns left the project, Phil Spector hired in numerous session musicians to provide orchestral overdubs, in contrast to the group's original back-to-basics ideas.[13]

Omissions

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Session musicians' names and roles for some performances were not recorded or have been lost—this is the case for the recordings of "Good Night"[14] and "Yellow Submarine";[15] Phil Spector's orchestral overdubs for "The Long and Winding Road",[16] "Across the Universe"[17] and "I Me Mine";[18] the string sections on "Something",[19] "Here Comes the Sun",[20] "Carry That Weight",[21] "Golden Slumbers"[21] and "The End";[22] the orchestra on "Hey Jude";[23] the saxophonists on "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da";[24] the trumpeters and trombonists on "Mother Nature's Son";[25] the brass and string players on "Let It Be";[26] the cellist on "Blue Jay Way"[27] and the Asian Music Circle musicians on "Love You To" (performing on sitar and tambura)[28] and "Within You Without You" (performing on dilruba, swarmandal, tabla and tambura).[29]

In February 1978, session drummer Bernard Purdie claimed that he had overdubbed drums for 21 Beatles recordings in the summer of 1963. He stated that Brian Epstein paid him a five-figure sum to overdub a drum track at Capitol Records' West 46th Street studios in New York City, and that the payment also bought his silence.[11] Purdie has also implied that some guitar parts for early Beatles recordings were also overdubbed, and there are also suggestions that Purdie and Cornell Dupree overdubbed drums and guitar parts for the Tony Sheridan recordings.[11][30] His claim was repeated in Max Weinberg's 1984 book The Big Beat: Conversations with Rock's Greatest Drummers, where he refused to name which songs he had played on and stated that "Ringo never played on anything [...] not the early Beatles stuff."[31] Barry Miles wrote that Purdie was hired in 1962 to replace Pete Best's drumming from some of the band's recording sessions that had taken place in Hamburg.[32]

Also omitted from this list are the instances where people's voices are captured on the recordings, but do not constitute part of the musical performance, such as Geoff Emerick's announcement of "take two" at the beginning of "Revolution 1",[33] and the various announcers, interviewers and presenters on Live at the BBC.

Jimmie Nicol stood in for Starr for eight performances during the band's 1964 tour. He did not feature on record, but his performances were captured by audience bootlegs and broadcasts by AVRO in the Netherlands and 5DN in Australia.[34][35]

Indirect performances

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By the mid-1960s, the Beatles became interested in tape loops and found sounds.[36][37] Early examples of the group sampling existing recordings include loops on "Revolution 9"[37] (the repetitive "number nine" is from a Royal Academy of Music examination tape, some chatter is from a conversation between George Martin and Apple office manager Alistair Taylor, and a chord from a recording of Sibelius's Symphony No. 7 is also included[38]) and "I Am the Walrus", which contained a radio broadcast of the BBC Third Programme's production of King Lear.[27] The part of the broadcast included on the record features John Hollis as Oswald, John Rye as Edgar, and Brewster Mason as the Earl of Gloucester.[39][40]

For the introduction to "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill", a stock Mellotron sample of a Spanish guitar was used. The recording, performed by an unknown guitarist, was supervised by Eric Robinson.[41]

A

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B

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Pete Best in 2006

C

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Eric Clapton in 1975

D

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E

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F

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Marianne Faithfull in 2008

G

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H

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J

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K

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L

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M

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George Martin in 2006

N

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O

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P

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Billy Preston in 1974

R

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S

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T

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U

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V

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W

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See also

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ Production of Lynne's version of "Now and Then" was aborted and not finished for inclusion with The Beatles Anthology,[111] although Lynne's 1995 sessions were used by McCartney and Giles Martin for the song's 2023 release.[112]

References

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  4. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 87)
  5. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 88)
  6. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 157)
  7. ^ Julien (2008, p. 3)
  8. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 231)
  9. ^ Huntley (2004, p. 10)
  10. ^ Womack (2006, p. 91)
  11. ^ a b c Ingham (2003, p. 363)
  12. ^ Matteo (2004, p. 25)
  13. ^ Womack (2009, p. 60)
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewisohn (1988, p. 144)
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewisohn (1988, p. 81)
  16. ^ The Beatles Bible (2008a)
  17. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 276)
  18. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 368)
  19. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 348)
  20. ^ a b c MacDonald (2005, p. 356)
  21. ^ a b MacDonald (2005, p. 355)
  22. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 361)
  23. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 302)
  24. ^ a b MacDonald (2005, p. 294)
  25. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 305)
  26. ^ a b c d e MacDonald (2005, p. 337)
  27. ^ a b MacDonald (2005, p. 269)
  28. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 194)
  29. ^ MacDonald (2005, p. 243)
  30. ^ Spizer (2007, p. 90)
  31. ^ Vallance
  32. ^ a b Miles (2009)
  33. ^ Womack (2007, p. 235)
  34. ^ Greenwald (1995, p. 99)
  35. ^ Winn (2008, p. 199)
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Bibliography

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