Thursday 17 June 1971 | Recording | Studio One, EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London, England
Producer: Paul McCartney | Engineers: Tony Clark, Alan Parsons
On Thursday 17 June 1971, the final recording session for Thrillington took place at Studio One, EMI Studios, Abbey Road — the largest of the Abbey Road studios, used for orchestral recording. Brass parts were added to complete the album's instrumentation. The sessions had run across three days: 15, 16, and 17 June 1971. Mixing was completed on the following day, 18 June. The album was then shelved for six years, eventually released in 1977 under the pseudonym Percy ‘Thrills’ Thrillington.
What Is Thrillington?
Thrillington is an orchestral version of Ram — the album Paul and Linda McCartney had released in May 1971, just weeks before these sessions. Ram was McCartney's second solo album, recorded in New York and Scotland, and had been a commercial success despite a critical reception that ranged from lukewarm to hostile. John Lennon had taken particular exception to it, reading personal attacks in several of the lyrics and responding with How Do You Sleep? on his Imagine album later that year.
The idea of an orchestral version of Ram was McCartney's own — a project conceived as a kind of parallel universe version of the album, reimagined through the language of light orchestral music rather than rock and pop. It was an unusual creative impulse, and one that McCartney chose to pursue quietly: he produced the sessions himself, commissioned the arrangements, and then put the finished album in a drawer for six years.
Richard Hewson: The Arranger
The arrangements for Thrillington were written by Richard Hewson, who had been given free rein by the McCartneys to rework the Ram songs in whatever way he saw fit. Hewson was paid £100 per song for his work — a flat fee that, given the quality and ambition of the arrangements, represented considerable value.
Hewson conducted the session musicians across the three days of recording. His brief was unusually open: rather than being asked to produce faithful orchestral transcriptions of the Ram tracks, he was encouraged to reimagine them — to find the orchestral character within each song rather than simply replacing the rock instrumentation with strings and brass.
Richard Hewson was not an unknown quantity in the world of Beatles-adjacent recording. He had arranged the strings on James Taylor's Carolina in My Mind, which had been released on Apple Records in 1968, and had worked extensively in the British pop and orchestral world. His work on Thrillington is among his most distinctive: the arrangements are witty, inventive, and genuinely musical, treating the Ram songs as raw material for something new rather than as templates to be reproduced.
The Repertoire: Ram Plus One
In addition to the twelve songs from Ram, Hewson also arranged a version of Oh Woman, Oh Why — the B-side of McCartney's debut solo single Another Day, released in February 1971. This brought the total number of tracks on Thrillington to thirteen, giving the album a slightly broader scope than a straight orchestral transcription of Ram would have provided.
The inclusion of Oh Woman, Oh Why is a small but telling detail. It suggests that McCartney and Hewson were thinking of Thrillington as a document of a particular creative period — the early months of 1971, when Ram was being made and McCartney was finding his feet as a solo artist — rather than simply as a companion piece to a single album.
The Musicians
The session musicians assembled for the Thrillington recordings were a distinguished cross-section of the London studio world of the early 1970s:
- Vic Flick — electric guitar, acoustic guitar. Flick was one of the most in-demand session guitarists in Britain, best known for playing the guitar riff on the original James Bond theme in 1962.
- Herbie Flowers — bass guitar, tuba. Flowers was among the most versatile and inventive session bassists of the era, later known for playing the bass line on Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side (1972) and for co-founding Sky.
- Steve Gray — piano
- Roger Coulan — organ
- Clem Cattini — drums. Cattini was one of the most recorded drummers in British pop history, having played on an estimated 44 UK number one singles.
- Jim Lawless, Chris Karan — percussion
- The Mike Sammes Singers — vocals. The Mike Sammes Singers were a professional vocal group who had appeared on numerous Beatles recordings, including I Am the Walrus and Good Night.
- The Swingle Singers — vocals. The Swingle Singers were a vocal ensemble known for their jazz-inflected interpretations of classical music, founded by Ward Swingle in Paris in 1963.
- Carl Dolmetsch Family — recorders. The Dolmetsch family were the leading figures in the revival of early music performance in Britain, and their recorders give several Thrillington tracks an unusual, slightly archaic quality.
- Unknown — strings, brass, woodwind
McCartney, as producer, was present at the sessions but did not perform. The album is entirely the work of Hewson's arrangements and the session musicians he conducted.
Alan Parsons: The Engineer
One of the two engineers on the Thrillington sessions was Alan Parsons — at this point a young Abbey Road engineer who had worked on Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970) as an assistant engineer, and who would go on to engineer Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) before founding the Alan Parsons Project. His presence on the Thrillington sessions is a reminder of how many significant careers passed through Abbey Road in this period.
The other engineer was Tony Clark, a senior Abbey Road engineer who had worked on numerous major recordings of the era.
Studio One: Abbey Road's Orchestral Room
The Thrillington sessions took place in Studio One — the largest of the three main recording spaces at Abbey Road, designed for orchestral recording and capable of accommodating a full symphony orchestra. It is a very different room from Studio Two, where The Beatles had recorded the vast majority of their work: larger, more reverberant, with the acoustic properties suited to strings, brass, and woodwind rather than to the close-miked rock and pop recordings that Studio Two specialised in.
The choice of Studio One for the Thrillington sessions reflects the orchestral scale of the project. Hewson's arrangements required a room that could accommodate the full complement of session musicians — strings, brass, woodwind, rhythm section, and multiple vocal groups — simultaneously, and Studio One was the only room at Abbey Road that could do so.
Percy 'Thrills' Thrillington: The Pseudonym
When Thrillington was eventually released in April 1977 — six years after it was recorded — it was credited not to Paul McCartney but to the pseudonymous Percy ‘Thrills’ Thrillington. McCartney had constructed an elaborate fictional biography for the character: Percy Thrillington was presented as a society figure, a man-about-town, a devotee of light orchestral music. Advertisements were placed in society magazines. A fictional persona was maintained with considerable commitment.
The pseudonym was an open secret — anyone who listened to the album and knew Ram would immediately recognise the source material — but McCartney maintained the fiction publicly for some time. It was, in retrospect, a piece of performance art as much as a commercial release: a game McCartney was playing with his own identity and with the expectations of his audience.
The album was not a commercial success on its release in 1977. It has since been reappraised as a genuinely interesting artefact of the early 1970s — a document of McCartney's playfulness, his love of orchestral music, and his willingness to pursue creative projects that had no obvious commercial rationale.
Key Facts: 17 June 1971
- Date: Thursday 17 June 1971
- Location: Studio One, EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London
- Producer: Paul McCartney
- Engineers: Tony Clark, Alan Parsons
- Session: Final of three (15–17 June 1971); brass parts added
- Mixing completed: 18 June 1971
- Arranger: Richard Hewson (£100 per song; free rein from the McCartneys)
- Source album: Ram (Paul and Linda McCartney, May 1971)
- Additional track: Oh Woman, Oh Why (B-side of Another Day, February 1971)
- McCartney's role: Producer only; did not perform
- Released: April 1977, credited to Percy ‘Thrills’ Thrillington
- Shelved: Six years between recording and release
Studio One at EMI Studios, Abbey Road — the orchestral recording room where Thrillington was recorded across three sessions on 15–17 June 1971.
The Beatles: Solo Years
After The Beatles, the music kept coming — in every direction, under every name, from Abbey Road to the Mull of Kintyre.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Thrillington?
Thrillington is an orchestral version of Paul and Linda McCartney's 1971 album Ram, arranged by Richard Hewson and produced by Paul McCartney. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studio One across three sessions on 15–17 June 1971, shelved for six years, and released in April 1977 under the pseudonym Percy 'Thrills' Thrillington.
Who arranged Thrillington?
Richard Hewson arranged all the tracks on Thrillington, having been given free rein by the McCartneys to rework the Ram songs. He was paid £100 per song and conducted the session musicians across the three days of recording. He also arranged a version of Oh Woman, Oh Why, the B-side of Another Day, in addition to the twelve Ram tracks.
Who is Percy Thrills Thrillington?
Percy 'Thrills' Thrillington is a pseudonym created by Paul McCartney for the 1977 release of Thrillington. McCartney constructed an elaborate fictional biography for the character and maintained the persona publicly, though the album's connection to Ram made the pseudonym an open secret.
Did Paul McCartney play on Thrillington?
No. McCartney produced the Thrillington sessions but did not perform on the album. All performances were by the session musicians assembled and conducted by arranger Richard Hewson.
Who engineered the Thrillington sessions?
The Thrillington sessions were engineered by Tony Clark and Alan Parsons. Parsons had previously worked as an assistant engineer on Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970), and would go on to engineer Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) before founding the Alan Parsons Project.
Why was Thrillington shelved for six years?
The reasons for the six-year delay between recording (June 1971) and release (April 1977) have not been fully explained publicly. McCartney has suggested it was simply a project he set aside and returned to when the time felt right. The album was eventually released on Regal Zonophone Records.
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