I recently came across the following quote from Norman Smith (who was The Beatles recording engineer from Please Please Me through Rubber Soul)

I don’t want to take anything away from anyone, but production of the Beatles was very simple, because it was ready-made. Paul was a very great influence in terms of the production, especially in terms of George Harrison’s guitar solos and Ringo’s drumming. The truth of the matter is that, to the best of my memory, Paul had a great hand in practically all of the songs that we did, and Ringo would generally ask him what he should do. After all, Paul was no mean drummer himself, and he did play drums on a couple of things. It was almost like we had one producer in the control room and another producer down in the studio. There is no doubt at all that Paul was the main musical force. He was also that in terms of production as well. A lot of the time George Martin didn’t really have to do the things he did because Paul McCartney was around and could have done them equally well… most of the ideas came from Paul.

I find this perspective (coming as it does from someone who knew what he was talking about from personal experience) very interesting and it definitely fits in with my belief that Paul is not given the credit he deserves in relation to John Lennon. Don’t get me wrong, I love Lennon and I think the John vs. Paul argument is a bit silly because I think they were both essential in the creation of The Beatles music but I really do think that Paul doesn’t get enough credit (and conversely John probably gets a bit too much) for what made The Beatles recordings so great.

I should also point out that this “Paul as the main musical force” idea is reinforced by Geoff Emerick (who took over recording engineering duties from Norman Smith beginning with Revolver in 1966) in his book which is titled Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles (this book is highly recommended, by the way.) He talks a lot about how Paul was the easily the best musician amongst The Beatles and how he was behind many of The Beatles musical ideas.

Paul McCartney, 60s, The Beatles

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