The Sheik of Araby

Written by Ted Snyder, Harry B. Smith,
and Francis Wheeler
(c. 1921) ¹

Recording Details

Decca Recording Studios, London – Studio 2
Recorded: 1 Jan 1962

John: backing vocal (lower “not arf”), guitar
Paul: backing vocal (higher “not arf”), bass
George: lead vocal, guitar ²
Pete: drums

After returning from their second stint in Hamburg in July 1961, the Cavern became firmly established as the Beatles’ home³ and to have a laugh, and keep their distance from other groups, they also found more fun numbers to add to their live set.⁴ Three vintage songs which were being performed by Joe Brown were added by George:
I’m Henery The Eighth, I Am (Written 1910, Issued by Brown in June 1961)
The Darktown Strutters’ Ball (Written 1917, Issued by Brown in February 1960)
The Sheik of Araby (Written 1921, Not yet Issued by Brown at this time but performed on TV) ⁵

“In those days a lot of the rock ‘n’ roll songs were actually old tunes from the Forties, Fifties or whenever, which people had rocked up. That was the thing to do if you didn’t have a tune: just rock up an oldie. Joe Brown had recorded a rock ‘n’ roll version of ‘The Sheik Of Araby’. He was really popular on the Saturday TV show Six-Five Special and Oh Boy!. I did the Joe Brown records, so I sang ‘Sheik Of Araby’.”

– George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology ⁶

Although I can only imagine that The Sheik of Araby would have been extremely fun and wacky live, in the setting of Decca Studios in the -7°C temperatures of New Year’s Day 1962 it sounds very odd on tape.

Instruments ⁷

John Lennon

1958 Rickenbacker 325 Capri with Bigsby vibrato

George Harrison

1957 Gretsch PX6128 Duo Jet with Gretsch Bigsby vibrato

Paul McCartney

1961 Höfner 500/1

Pete Best

1960 Premier Marine Pearl (14″ x 22″ bass drum/ 8″ x 12″ rack tom/ 16″ x 16″ floor tom/ 5.5″ x 14″ “Super Ace” snare); Zyn cymbals (16″ crash/ 18″ custom “sizzle” ride)/ Zildjian cymbals (18″ crash/ 14″ hi-hats)

Releases Overview

	Mono/Stereo?	Release Year	Remaster Year	Format	Release(s)	Recommended Listening?
The Sheik of Araby	Mono	1995	1995	CD/Vinyl	Anthology 1	❌⁸
The Sheik of Araby	Mono	2011/2016	2011	Digital/Streaming only	Anthology 1 (Remastered)	✅⁹
The Sheik of Araby	Mono	2017	1995 ¹⁰	Vinyl (DeAgostini)	Anthology 1 (Remastered)	❌
The Sheik of Araby	Mono	2025	2025	CD/Vinyl/Streaming	Anthology 1 (Remastered)

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheik_of_Araby ↩︎
To my ears, the intro is the only part where it sounds like there’s a second guitar doubling the riff in octaves. Once George starts singing I can only hear one guitar so I suspect this is John playing the bulk of the song on guitar and George only joining in on the intro ↩︎
Lewisohn, Mark, 2013, Tune In (p. 476) ↩︎
Lewisohn, Mark, 2013, Tune In (p. 475) ↩︎
Lewisohn, Mark, 2013, Tune In (pp. 476, 874) ↩︎
The Beatles, 2000, The Beatles Anthology (p. 67) ↩︎
Hammack, Jerry, 2017, TBRRM: Vol 1 (pp. 230-231) ↩︎
The wise folks over at the Steve Hoffman Forums have determined that the 2011/2016 remasters are different, newer transfers than the 1995 versions. The general consensus also seems to be that the 2011/2016 remasters are preferable and lack the amounts of “amateurishly applied noise reduction” the originals have ↩︎
There are other bootleg sources which I prefer the sound of but this is the best official source I’ve heard ↩︎
According to users of the Steve Hoffman Forums It would seem as though the 2017 DeAgostini vinyl pressings use the original 1995 masters and aren’t an improvement over them ↩︎