Artists including the Stereophonics and I Am Kloot are due in Abbey Road studios today (February 11th) to recreate the mammoth 10-hour recording session undertaken by The Beatles for their debut album ‘Please Please Me‘ exactly fifty years ago.
The vast majority of the legendary band’s first LP was recorded on 11th February 1963 and consisted largely of tracks which had been a part of their live set during the previous few years of relentless touring.
One of the album’s standouts, a feisty cover of ‘Twist and Shout‘, used John Lennon‘s first and only vocal take as the sessions drew to a close.
“Trying for a second take, Lennon found he had nothing left and the session stopped there and then – but the atmosphere was still crackling,” Ian MacDonald, the late chronicler of Beatles recordings, once wrote. “Nothing of that intensity had ever been recorded in a British pop studio.”
Prior to their Abbey Road visit, the Stereophonics recorded an acoustic version of ‘I Saw Her Standing There‘ for BBC Radio 2 (below) who are reporting on the unfolding events with a live blog.