The Beatles' first Abbey Road recording session

Studio Two, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producers: George Martin, Ron Richards
Engineer: Norman Smith

6 June 1962 was the date of The Beatles' historic first visit to EMI Studios at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, London.

Taking place in studio 2 from 7-10pm, it acted as both an audition and recording session proper. They first ran through a number of songs, and then recorded four. Precise numbers of takes are unknown, but they were taped in the following order: Besame Mucho, Love Me Do, PS I Love You and Ask Me Why.

Most documentation for the session has long been destroyed, but we know it was produced by George Martin with assistant Ron Richards, and was The Beatles' only EMI session to feature Pete Best on drums; when the band returned to Abbey Road on 4 September, Ringo Starr was the group's new drummer.

Ron Richards was initially in charge of the session - George Martin was only brought in when balance engineer Norman Smith was struck by the quality of Love Me Do.

Smith instructed tape operator Chris Neal to fetch Martin, who took over the rest of the session. Afterwards he invited them to the control room to talk and listen to the playback.

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 hack, not a word, they didn't even nod their heads in agreement. When he finished, George 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.

Only the recordings of Besame Mucho and Love Me Do survive today - the former was discovered in a private collection in the 1980s, and the latter in 1994. Both appear on the Anthology 1 album.

The other recordings were destroyed after it was decided that nothing from the session could be commercially released - a practice not uncommon in the early 1960s.