Recording, mixing: Night And Day by Ringo Starr

Studio Three, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Phil McDonald, Geoff Emerick

Ringo Starr began recording his first studio album, Sentimental Journey, on 27 October 1969. He recorded ‘Night And Day’ in two sessions, with George Martin producing.

‘Night And Day’ was written by Cole Porter, and had been a 1937 hit for Tommy Dorsey. Starr’s version had an arrangement by Chico O’Farrill and was conducted by Martin.

In the first session, which took place from 2.30-5pm, the orchestra recorded the backing track. The 17-strong band featured saxophone, trumpet, trombone, bass guitar, piano and drums.

Following a two-hour break for dinner, Starr added his lead vocals in the evening session from 7-9.30pm. With recording complete, ‘Night And Day’ was mixed into stereo between 9.30 and 10.45pm.

The first session for Sentimental Journey was at EMI, recording the orchestra for ‘Night And Day’. Because I was no longer an employee, the Abbey Road staff did as little as possible to help; some of them even went out of their way to make my life more difficult. That very first night the maintenance engineer assigned to the session decided to stage his own little protest at the idea that an outsider was operating the console. I was well aware of the EMI policy, which stated that only maintenance engineers were allowed to touch the patchbays, so when I wanted an alteration made to the setup, I made the appropriate call upstairs. Normally they would respond within a minute or two – they knew that studio time was quite expensive – but this time no one appeared, even after repeated calls.

Neither Neil nor Mal was at the session that night, so I dispatched my assistant, John Kurlander, to try to find the missing maintenance man. Kurlander finally found him hiding in one of the stalls in the bathroom – he only managed to flush him out by banging on the doors and shouting, ‘I know you’re in there; come on out!’ The fellow hid for nearly twenty minutes, holding up the session and an entire orchestra, before he finally came out and sheepishly did what we requested. He never apologized for his unprofessional behavior, either.