BEATLES – Day By Day – 9/4/62
Tuesday, 4th September, 1962
The Beatles flew from Liverpool airport to London on this morning, checking in to a small Chelsea hotel before heading to the EMI Studios on Abbey Road for a their first official recording session. The previous visit having been classed as an “audition.” The aim of this session was to try and record a debut single.
Between 2:00pm and 5:00pm the group rehearsed six songs from which two were selected as possible candidates for recording, one was the studio supplied “How Do You Do It“, the other being Lennon & McCartney’s own “Love Me Do.”
After George Martin took the group to dinner they returned to the studio and recorded several takes of “How Do You Do It” and over 15 takes of “Love Me Do.” The “Love Me Do” takes were less than perfect with Paul showing some nerves and Ringo employing some strange percussion techniques that included hitting the hi-hat with a maraca instead of a drum stick!
By the end of the session acetates of the two songs had been cut for George Martin and Brian Epstein to review the following morning.
Photographer Dezo Hoffmann was on hand to record The Beatles first official recording session. Hoffmann was requested to try and only photograph George from the right side as he still retained the remenants of the black eye he had recieved in the scuffle with irate Pete Best fans outside the Cavern on August 19th. (You can just about see the black eye on the photo below.)
