Lennon has ragged on Pete Best's playing ability during recorded interviews (spending all that time performing in Germany only to come back barely able to move his arms up & down at four to the beat... or something to that effect). So, if there was any replacing it would be Pete and not Ringo. Ringo could swing his ass off and had incredible time - PERIOD.

Did they fly Purdie over to England for any of this overdubbing?

Was not a single high echelon British studio musician up to the task of dubbing material?

Seems rather expensive to send masters overseas tto N.Y. (Purdie was now based in N.Y around the early '60's), hire a producer and Purdie the session man, send the tapes back... etc. I just don't see the value there with notoriously cheap record producers/companies footing the bills.

I'm curious if he just got his Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band soundtrack credits mixed up with the Beatles catalog.

EDIT: Oh yea, on other thing... How common was overdubbing in that era? I think it was rather difficult as multi-tracking that we know today wasn't that common until the mid-'60's. The three-track recorder was fairly popular, but I think it would have been extremely difficult to just go for some drum over dubs with that technology as it would have wiped out other recorded content and that I think a producer would have just said at the time of the original recording let's do another take (rather than going through the process of hiring a guy to overdub).

With all due respect to Mr Purdue, prove it,if not you're a legend in you're own mind

I thought it was alan White who did the early drumming in the studio

I think you mean Andy White. I had the pleasure of studying Scottish pipe band drumming with him several years ago. If I understood correctly, he immigrated to New Jersey and finally became a U.S. citizen. I think he said he taught at the same music store as Joe Morello at some point. He wrote a book called Roll Control. I believe he has passed on but what a talented and gracious gentleman. I also remember a wonderful story about him performing on a cruise ship with a fan dancer whose husband was the band leader. I leave it to your imagination...

Speaking of Andy White... here's an MD article on him with relevant info on this topic:

https://www.moderndrummer.com/article/june-1986-andy-white/

Purdie - great drummer, but really bad storyteller.

i recorded with a gentleman called John Eden years ago and he said that he started working around London's various studios with George Martin.... Maybe if i contact him, he could have some valuable info on this topic...I will keep you posted.

Purdie is a liar. Whether he’s demented is immaterial because he was telling the lie before he got old and lost his mind.

This comes up on DFO all the time. It's right up there with conspiracy theorists and Paul Is Dead wackos, the people who see Occam's Razor and run the other way. It's been around since the late 70's, I believe, and somehow picked up speed on and off ever since. Why? I can't say.

Dan