6/6/62

On this day in 1962 The Beatles walked into EMI Studios, later of course to be renamed Abbey Road Studios after those very Beatles of course, for the very first time and while they'd change the world from that very room, and according to studio session engineer Norman Smith it wasn't all smooth sailing:

The Beatles didn’t make a very good impression, apart from visually. I mean, we heard nothing of John and Paul’s songwriting ability. They had tiny little Vox amplifiers and speakers, I got nothing out of The Beatles’ equipment except for a load of noise, hum and goodness-knows-what. Paul’s was about the worst – in those days we had echo chambers to add onto the reverberation, and I had to raid the Studio Two echo chamber in order to fix him up with a sound so that we could get something down on tape.

We actually had to tie string around John Lennon’s guitar amplifier to stop the rattling. There were also problems with Pete Best’s drums – his cymbals, I believe. But we eventually got everything sorted out and finally we started to record.

And of course I've already posted this a million times but what the hey:

We gave them a long lecture about their equipment and what would have to be done about it if they were to become recording artists. They didn’t say a word back, not a word, they didn’t even nod their heads in agreement. When he finished, George Martin said ‘Look, I’ve laid into you for quite a time, you haven’t responded. Is there anything you don’t like?’ I remember they all looked at each other for a long while, shuffling their feet, then George Harrison took a long look at George and said ‘Yeah, I don’t like your tie.’ That cracked the ice for us and for the next 15-20 minutes they were pure entertainment. When they left to go home George and I just sat there saying ‘Phew! What do you think of that lot then?’ I had tears running down my face.