Fact #190896
When:
Short story:
The Beatles release a new single, I Want To Hold Your Hand / This Boy, on Capitol Records in the USA. Up to this point, Capitol had turned down all offers to release music by The Beatles.
Full article:
George Martin : When The Beatles started to get really big in Britain, and in some parts of Europe, I felt they should get a shot at the States, or at least a release of their recordings. I was constantly told that Capitol Records, our company in the US, had turned The Beatles down. I got increasingly frustrated because our American counterparts had always been slightly superior, saying, 'Well, of course, you don't really know about rock'n'roll in England.'
Every time a record was rejected by them, I told myself they must be right. By the third time, I knew damn well they weren't right and I got increasingly hard about it. The Beatles records issued on the Swan and Vee-Jay labels (in America) were getting more and more prominent. So by the time I Want To Hold Your Hand came along, Capitol realized they had to get behind it before the dam burst.
And so this breakthough of I Want To Hold Your Hand was enormously significant, not just for The Beatles and me, but for the whole record industry and indeed the economy of Britain.
Richie Havens : I was in the living room and my radio was on the refridgerator in the kitchen. And I heard this music coming into the room and I went, 'Uh-oh, everything's changed now.' That was my basic statement to myself. 'Everything's changed now. Something has happened.' And it was I Want To Hold Your Hand.
Bernard Purdie (US session drummer) : I overdubbed the drumming on twenty one tracks of the first three Beatle Albums. They paid me a lot of money to keep my mouth shut, but it's been ten years, so fuck it. I guess I can talk about it.
I had never heard of The Beatles, but their manager, Brian Epstein, called me (allegedly in the summer of 1963) and took me down to Capitol's 46th street studio (New York City). I did all the overdubbing on the twenty one songs in nine days.
(She Loves You) was one of the big things coming out at the time, and was the one the engineer brought my attention to.
The only people in the studio were me, the engineer, and Brian Epstein and a few of his people.
We were only doing eight track recording. We weren't doing sixteen or twenty-four track at the time. They had four tracks and they put me on two separate tracks. I would listen to what Ringo had played and then overdub on top of it to keep it happening.
After I was finishing up one day, the engineer said they had another guitar player coming in later to do overdubs and they were paying him good money to keep his mouth shut too. I asked him who it was, and he said "keep out of that Purdie.' I never did find out who it was.
You listen to the guitar parts on the early records. There's a different sound to a lot of them.
I got paid in five figures and that was the largest amount of money I'd ever gotten in my life. Epstein called me into his office and gave me an additional check. I thought they were paying me all that money because they liked what I played. Then he told me I was being paid to keep my mouth shut.
The contract was the check that I signed and I cashed it! On the back of the check, it was spelled out what I did - 'payment for services rendered'. I took up half the check. But I didn't think about making a photostated copy. It didn't mean anything to me.
The manager did everything. Epstein instigated everything that had to be done. He was the one who told me to keep my mouth closed. He was the one. I didn't even meet George Martin until 1969 when I went to England to do some work.
(Bernard Purdie's quotes originally appeared in Gig magazine, February 1978, in a feature headlined "Bernard Purdie - the REAL fifth Beatle?")
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Every time a record was rejected by them, I told myself they must be right. By the third time, I knew damn well they weren't right and I got increasingly hard about it. The Beatles records issued on the Swan and Vee-Jay labels (in America) were getting more and more prominent. So by the time I Want To Hold Your Hand came along, Capitol realized they had to get behind it before the dam burst.
And so this breakthough of I Want To Hold Your Hand was enormously significant, not just for The Beatles and me, but for the whole record industry and indeed the economy of Britain.
Richie Havens : I was in the living room and my radio was on the refridgerator in the kitchen. And I heard this music coming into the room and I went, 'Uh-oh, everything's changed now.' That was my basic statement to myself. 'Everything's changed now. Something has happened.' And it was I Want To Hold Your Hand.
Bernard Purdie (US session drummer) : I overdubbed the drumming on twenty one tracks of the first three Beatle Albums. They paid me a lot of money to keep my mouth shut, but it's been ten years, so fuck it. I guess I can talk about it.
I had never heard of The Beatles, but their manager, Brian Epstein, called me (allegedly in the summer of 1963) and took me down to Capitol's 46th street studio (New York City). I did all the overdubbing on the twenty one songs in nine days.
(She Loves You) was one of the big things coming out at the time, and was the one the engineer brought my attention to.
The only people in the studio were me, the engineer, and Brian Epstein and a few of his people.
We were only doing eight track recording. We weren't doing sixteen or twenty-four track at the time. They had four tracks and they put me on two separate tracks. I would listen to what Ringo had played and then overdub on top of it to keep it happening.
After I was finishing up one day, the engineer said they had another guitar player coming in later to do overdubs and they were paying him good money to keep his mouth shut too. I asked him who it was, and he said "keep out of that Purdie.' I never did find out who it was.
You listen to the guitar parts on the early records. There's a different sound to a lot of them.
I got paid in five figures and that was the largest amount of money I'd ever gotten in my life. Epstein called me into his office and gave me an additional check. I thought they were paying me all that money because they liked what I played. Then he told me I was being paid to keep my mouth shut.
The contract was the check that I signed and I cashed it! On the back of the check, it was spelled out what I did - 'payment for services rendered'. I took up half the check. But I didn't think about making a photostated copy. It didn't mean anything to me.
The manager did everything. Epstein instigated everything that had to be done. He was the one who told me to keep my mouth closed. He was the one. I didn't even meet George Martin until 1969 when I went to England to do some work.
(Bernard Purdie's quotes originally appeared in Gig magazine, February 1978, in a feature headlined "Bernard Purdie - the REAL fifth Beatle?")