“What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?” “A drummer.”
Musicians’ joke.
In this chapter I discuss the possible reasons for Pete Best’s sacking and hopefully reach a satisfactory explanation. This is not as easy as it sounds because even Pete Best doesn’t know why. “I wish I knew the answer. It would put a lot of heart-searching to rest. I may have been getting too much attention but it didn’t matter a dicky-bird to me. They said I was anti-social and non-conformist but each individual member had his own following and, when you added it together, the following was fantastic.”
Gerry Marsden praises the Beatles throughout his autobiography; I’ll Never Walk Alone, except when it comes to the sacking of Pete Best. “I thought it was a tacky thing to do for no apparent reason. I was very annoyed that when I’d asked Brian Epstein for a reason, he couldn’t give me a proper answer. I thought it was a sour way to start a recording career for the Beatles, firing a drummer who’d been with them for 2 years. I told Pete Best – who wasn’t particularly a mate of mine, but was an honest feller who got a bad deal – what I thought, but by then it was too late. The deed had been done. Ringo proved perfect, but the principle of Best’s sacking left a nasty taste in the mouth as the Beatles began their climb out of Liverpool to the world stage.”
The Ex-Files 1: Pete Best was a Lousy Drummer
First, the pro-Pete Best lobby. Excuse the repetition, but I want to emphasise that many musicians who heard Pete play with the Beatles had no reservations about his ability.
Johnny Guitar of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes: “I’d seen Pete playing for over 2 years with the Beatles and I’d never known anyone complain about his drumming.”
Brian ‘Noddy’ Redman, drummer with the Hillsiders: “There was no other group like the Beatles at the time and they were destined for the top all the way along. Pete Best was fine for the Beatles, but then nobody had seen any other drummer with them. At the time, we just accepted him so we were surprised when he was booted out.”
Wayne Bickerton, later to be part of the Pete Best Four: “Pete was a good drummer. All the stories of him not being able to play the drums properly are grossly exaggerated. There was nothing wrong with Pete’s drumming.”
John McNally of the Searchers: “I was surprised by the story that the record company didn’t think Pete was good enough. I somehow doubt it because he was superb. He was doing what all the punk bands did later – he was the first to do fours on the bass drum, bom, bom, bom, bom, which gives more power, as opposed to ba-bom, ba-bom, the jazz type drumming. It was powerhouse drumming with loads of cymbals and he was great. Ringo and Chris Curtis also did similar things and, if you listen to the Star-Club albums, you can hear that bass drum thump through everyone’s act.”
Chris Curtis (drummer with the Searchers): “You could sit Pete Best on a drum kit and ask him to play for 19 hours and he’d put his head down and do it. He’d drum with real style and stamina all night long and that really was the Beatles’ sound – forget the guitars and forget the faces, you couldn’t avoid that insistent whack, whack, whack.”
Earl Preston: “The Beatles had a unique sound and Pete contributed a lot to it. It was very, very raw rock ’n’ roll, a very fast driving beat that other drummers tried to emulate but never could. He had a unique style; he used both hands at the same speed. Most drummers play four with the cymbals and then one with the snare, but he doubled up so that both hands were doing the same rhythm which was a very effective, terrific sound.”
Beryl Marsden: “I didn’t see why the Beatles had replaced their drummer. When Pete joined our band, his drumming was great and he was also a great bloke.”
Steve Fleming of Mark Peters and the Silhouettes: “Although we knew the Beatles well, they weren’t very intimate or forthcoming about internal matters. All of a sudden when Brian Epstein took over, Pete Best disappeared. It was a tragedy as the Beatles sounded better with Pete Best than they did with Ringo.”
We’ll dampen this praise with a note of caution from Brian Epstein’s personal assistant, Alistair Taylor. “Brian told me that the other Beatles had come to him and told him that they wanted a different drummer. It was hard for Pete who had gone through all those years of rather dodgy venues with them, but I always told Brian that Pete’s drumming was a touch uneven and that he didn’t quite fit into the group.”
Pete, of course, wasn’t a lousy drummer as he could hold his own on stage with the Beatles as they were in 1962 even if not in the recording studio. However, if somebody’s personality fits, then they may be kept in the group even though they contribute little. The most famous example would be Gary Walker, who rarely played drums on the Walker Brothers’ recordings, and also there is Stu Sutcliffe with the early Beatles. But, with Pete Best, it is clear that the personality didn’t fit and so the quality of his drumming became another irritation.
The Ex-Files 2: Pete Best was not a Versatile Drummer
So far, we can conclude that Pete Best was not a lousy drummer, but there are indications that he was not a versatile one. He was a one-trick pony and Jackie Lomax of the Undertakers puts it succinctly, “Pete Best could only play one drum beat, either slowed down or speeded up.”
Brendan McCormack, classical guitarist, formerly with Rikki and the Red Streaks: “The role of the drummer wasn’t clear at that time. The vocalists were the important people, the bass didn’t really count and it is only in the 1980s that the bass came into focus. Drummers simply had to keep the band playing in time. It’s changed now, it’s changed radically. You should not view the sacking from today’s perspective.”
Fred Marsden, drummer with Gerry and the Pacemakers: “Pete Best was excellent for the Beatles – I don’t think you could have found a better drummer for the material they were doing, which was mostly Coasters-type stuff. But as they advanced, I don’t think he was technically good enough. I felt sorry for Pete Best because he was an excellent drummer in his field.”
Billy Hatton of the Fourmost: “His bass drum technique was four to the bar – bom, bom, bom, bom – which initially gave them that thumping sound, but when they started doing stuff that required more sophisticated drumming techniques, they needed a better drummer.”
There was no doubting the ability of the Beatles’ bass player. Bob Wooler: “Paul McCartney was the outstanding bass player on Merseyside. Perhaps Johnny Gustafson had the edge on him, but Paul was exceptional.”
Paul’s ability contributed to Pete’s downfall. Garry Tamlyn: “There was a very close association between the drummer and the bass guitarist in rock ’n’ roll bands. A bass guitarist would tend to base what he was doing on what the drummer was doing and forge a very close ensemble with the drummer, so Paul would pick up any fluctuation in tempo very quickly.”
This could cause friction. Bob Wooler: “The Beatles used to play the Cavern at lunchtime and sometimes they would stay behind and rehearse and just myself and the cleaners would hear them. One day, Paul showed Pete Best how he wanted the drums to be played for a certain tune and I thought, ‘That’s pushing it a bit.’”
Maybe, but it was typical behaviour. Ritchie Galvin: “Sometimes after a lunchtime session in the Cavern, we would spend the afternoon in the Mandolin Club in Toxteth. Paul was showing Pete the drum pattern that he wanted on a particular song. Pete tried to do it but he didn’t get it. He did argue quite a bit with Pete, and Paul was a frustrated drummer, which is unusual as so many drummers are frustrated front-liners. He always made for the drums on jam sessions at the Blue Angel – Gerry Marsden would be singing and Wally Shepherd would be playing guitar.”
From this we conclude that McCartney was the Beatle who was most aware of Best’s limitations and, unfortunately for Pete, he was also the Beatle who wanted to expand their repertoire. While the Beatles remained a rock ’n’ roll band – and John Lennon, to some extent, was always a rock ’n’ roller – there were no problems with Pete Best’s drumming. A contrast can be made with the drummers who worked in New Orleans for Little Richard and Fats Domino. They came from a jazz heritage and weren’t allowed to produce ornate drumbeats.
If Pete Best was not a good enough drummer, could he have taken lessons and improved? Garry Tamlyn: “Rock ’n’ roll drumbeats are quite simple in comparison with jazz beats, for example, and so, given time, it doesn’t automatically follow that a rock ’n’ roll drummer would be able to do that. From what I’ve heard, I can’t gauge how talented Pete Best was, so I don’t know if he would have been able to cut things as well as a practised session drummer.”
It is argued that Pete Best would not have been suitable for what the Beatles did later; the strange time signatures of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ come to mind, but that was new music and who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong? Ringo, as it were, wrote the book and became a very stylistic player. However, in 1962, Lennon and McCartney had no idea that they would be writing songs as innovative as that. Their musical aspiration was to be the next Goffin-King, i.e. to produce carefully-crafted pop songs along the lines of the Brill Building writers in New York. As Kingsize Taylor says, “There was no big change in their repertoire when Ringo joined, at least not at first, and so it was still the same songs.”
At McCartney’s instigation, the Beatles had added some middle-of-the-road ballads to their act, which can be viewed as a throwback to dance-band days. Ritchie Galvin, drummer with Earl Preston and the TTs: “Pete was a very basic drummer and not very technical. The Beatles, particularly Paul, were singing songs like ‘Till There Was You’, ‘A Taste of Honey’ and ‘Fever’, songs that called for a little more from the right hand than ticky, ticky, ticky. The bass drumming needed for those songs is quite intricate.”
The big show song from the Liverpool groups has to be ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ from Gerry and the Pacemakers, and how sophisticated is the drumming on that? Garry Tamlyn: “Even a show song like ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ when played by Gerry and the Pacemakers is only triplet rhythms on cymbals, and that’s no different from what Earl Palmer was doing in the 1950s with Fats Domino and Lloyd Price. Any competent drummer could play that. You’re only calling the song sophisticated because of the emotions it contains. It doesn’t require any complex drum beats.”
The Ex-Files 3: George Martin didn’t like Pete Best’s Drumming
Paul McCartney told Mark Lewisohn: “When we first came down in June 1962 with Pete Best, George Martin took us aside and said, ‘I’m not happy about the drummer.’ And we all went, ‘Oh God, well, I’m not telling him. You can tell him… Ooh God!’ and it was quite a blow. He said, ‘Can you change your drummer?’ And we said, ‘We’re quite happy with him, he works great in the clubs.’ And George said, ‘Yes, but for recording he’s got to be just a bit more accurate.’”
George Martin was unhappy with Pete Best’s drumming but he hadn’t suggested that Pete should be sacked. He could make the Beatles’ records with a session drummer and no-one need know – who knew, for example, that Gary Walker didn’t drum on the Walker Brothers but read comics in the control booth? Gary was kept in the Walker Brothers because he looked good, a reversal of the Pete Best situation. Then again, Dennis Wilson was forced into the family group, the Beach Boys, at the insistence of his mother. He was only a moderate drummer and was often replaced by session men, but he became essential as the heart-throb of the group.
However, the very fact that it was George Martin who said Pete Best wasn’t good enough may have been a deciding factor. The Beatles were desperate for a UK recording contract and George Martin was a London-based authority figure with an impressive CV as a producer. His opinions would carry more weight with the ambitious Beatles than Brian Epstein’s. George Martin’s views were, at the very least, the catalyst for the sacking of Pete Best. Hamburg record producer Paul Murphy: “I believe Pete Best was a casualty of George Martin. Getting that record contract was like getting the Holy Grail. It was like ‘We are not worthy’ when they went in the doors at EMI, so I do think George Martin had a lot to do with it.”
Ironically, there could be another dimension to this. Was George Martin good enough for Pete Best? Playwright and Cavern dweller Willy Russell: “I don’t think the recording industry could cope with the weight of the beat that the Beatles were capable of in those days. When we did John Paul George Ringo… And Bert, we included the Beatles’ recording of ‘Long Tall Sally’, but we overdubbed another bass line to try and capture the powerful bass sound that they had at the Cavern. George Martin never got near the way they could do rhythm ‘n’ blues, and even ‘Twist and Shout’ sounds thinner than it did live. I get irked when people say the Rolling Stones was the great rock ’n’ roll band; for me, the Beatles’ beat section – the bass and drums – was much stronger live than the Stones.”
Harry Prytherch of the Remo Four is of a similar mind. He feels that George Martin may have found a dominant bass drum seeping through the mikes of the other performers. Garry Tamlyn: “Charles Connor, who was in Little Richard’s touring band, wasn’t allowed to record with him for that reason, but that was in the 1950s. The studios were more advanced by the early 1960s. The drums in the Pete Best tracks for Parlophone are fairly mixed back, although the timbre of his executions suggests he was hitting the drums pretty hard. He was a hard and forceful drummer.”
The Ex-Files 4: Ringo Starr was a Better Drummer than Pete Best
Actually, Pete Best was given a reason for his sacking, but he chose not to believe it. “Brian Epstein said it was because I was not a good enough drummer, but that has never held water with me. Most of the drummers in Liverpool copied the style I had brought back from Germany. I was faster than Ringo but otherwise we were similar.”
Pete adds, “I had known Ringo for years. We met and talked when the Casbah first opened and Ringo used to play with Rory Storm. We became good mates in Germany and we knocked around in Germany, and also when we came back to Liverpool. I wouldn’t rate Ringo as a better drummer than me. I’m adamant about that and lots of people would support me.”
But certainly not Ringo Starr. “Ringo said I wasn’t a good enough drummer and a few other things in a Playboy interview. It took a long time but we got a settlement out of court and an apology as well.”
Nevertheless, Ringo’s still saying it. In a tetchy Q interview in June 1992, he said, “Did I ever feel sorry for Pete Best? No. Why should I? I was a better player than him. That’s how I got the job. It wasn’t on personality. It was that I was a better drummer and I got the phone call. I never felt sorry for him.”
Paul McCartney backs him up. “I wasn’t jealous of Pete because he was handsome,” McCartney told Hunter Davies, “That’s all junk. He just couldn’t play. Ringo was so much better. We wanted him out for that reason.”
In Many Years From Now, Paul gives an example. “There was a style of drumming on ‘What’d I Say’, which is a sort of Latin R&B that Ray Charles’ drummer Milt Turner played on the original record, and we used to love it. One of the big clinching factors about Ringo as the drummer in the band was that he could really play that so well.”
That Ringo Starr was a better drummer than Pete Best is the most obvious reason, the easiest to understand and the one Pete was given, but is it true?
Trevor Morais, drummer with Faron’s Flamingos and, later, David Essex: “There was an immense difference between them. Ringo was one of the best drummers in town, whereas Pete Best was just good for the job. I don’t know why they changed as Pete was ample for the job and very popular, but Ringo was an excellent drummer, no doubt about that.”
Bobby Thomson of Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes: “Pete was a good drummer, but he wasn’t as solid as Ringo and he was a little too heavy on the bass drum. All you could hear when Pete played was the bass drum, always four to the bar, but he was very good and I saw no reason for him being sacked. I preferred Ringo as a drummer but that is a personal preference. I felt so sorry for Pete – some people would have committed suicide.”
The Ex-Files 5: The other Beatles were Jealous of Pete’s Good Looks
The concept as to who is or isn’t good looking has changed with the years and it is, in any event, a subjective matter, depending on personal taste. On the one hand few people in the early 1960s thought Mick Jagger was handsome, but his looks became acceptable. On the other hand, Brian Epstein regarded Billy J. Kramer as one of the most handsome men in the world, but his looks seem too bland, too conventional now. I don’t think that anyone would deny Pete Best’s good looks, but did he look that much better than Paul McCartney or John Lennon? Beryl Marsden: “Pete was definitely the handsome one of the crew. Paul was baby-faced. George was not very attractive and John had his own kind of look. Pete was a really attractive guy and I’m sure there was a lot of jealousy on their part.”
Kingsize Taylor: “I think Pete Best was tossed out of the group because he was too good looking. You would see the Beatles on stage and all the girls wanted to see Pete Best. Pete was a swarthy, curly-headed feller and he looked much better than McCartney.”
Geoff Taggart: “Pete Best was a fine drummer. He had style and he was a hell of a good looking bloke. He reminded me of the actor Jeff Chandler who was very popular at the time. When they played the Plaza in St Helens, I noticed that all the girls stood at the front of the stage and were watching Pete Best. The other three were doing all they could to get their attention but he was the only one that they were bothered about.”
Ray Ennis (Swinging Blue Jeans): “If George Martin had seen a live performance, he’d have discovered that Pete was the star. When he came to the front to sing – and he couldn’t sing very well – they would scream at him. They used to tell the other Beatles to sit down so they could see Pete at the back.”
Mark Peters: “We used to go bowling with the Beatles and the groups late on a Saturday evening at the Tuebrook Bowling Alley. There was rivalry between us but also a lot of friendship, especially on Saturday nights, when we used to play bowls until four in the morning. The story went round that Paul and John thought that Pete Best was far too handsome, that was the joke at the time, but there seems to be a lot of evidence to show that this was true.”
Ian Edwards of Ian and the Zodiacs: “Pete Best was the star of the group, he was the good looking lad that all he girls went for – but I never thought it would come to that. I was very surprised when he went.”
Ritchie Galvin of Earl Preston and the TTs attributes the decision to Brian Epstein: “It was Pete Best’s misfortune to be such a good looking boy; the management wanted the front line to have the fans and so there was in-fighting going on.”
This is supported by Gerry Marsden in his autobiography, I’ll Never Walk Alone: “Musically, perhaps Ringo was slightly better than Pete Best. But the change wasn’t necessary for that reason, in my opinion. I was pretty sure it was a political firing which sprang from Pete being too handsome. He certainly attracted the girls and I think Brian saw his good looks as some kind of threat to Paul and John and George as they were beginning to climb to national fame. Hence, they got Ringo!”
The argument that after Pete Best the Beatles chose someone ugly is not wholly true – a frog to take the place of a prince, as it were. (And it was those frogs that suffered in Macca’s childhood.) Like Mick Jagger, Ringo had his own look and Eppy must have been very amused when the press said that Ringo looked Jewish. Ironically, Ringo grew to resemble Yasir Arafat. Also, Ringo with his nodding head was very entertaining to watch. Unlike the sullen Pete Best, who kept his head down, Ringo looked as though he enjoyed playing the drums. George Harrison admitted as much in a 1962 letter to a fan which was auctioned at Sotheby’s 20 years later: “Ringo is a much better drummer and he can smile – which is a bit more than Pete could do. It will seem different for a few weeks, but I think that the majority of our fans will soon be taking Ringo for granted.”
Jimmy Tushingham, who took Ringo’s place – and wore his stage suit – in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes: “Pete Best was a good drummer and I reckon he got pushed out of the Beatles because he was such a good looking guy. Everybody liked Pete Beat – Ringo was a nice feller but he wasn’t that cool.”
Pete’s mother became Moaner Best when it came to discussing Pete’s dismissal. “I asked Brian what the reason was and he said, “I can’t tell you.” I said, “Well, may I give you my reason? It’s jealousy, Brian, because Peter is the one with the terrific following.” I think that Peter had to be dismissed at that stage because, if they became nationally known, Peter would have been the main Beatle with the others just the props.”
In an 1980 interview with Patrick Doncaster entitled, ‘I Still Don’t Know Why I Was Sacked’(!) in the Daily Mirror, Pete Best said, “It was jealousy possibly, not that I was aware of it. But I was getting more fan reaction and some people had been tagging us Pete Best and the Beatles.”
It may be more than just fans screaming at you. Earl Preston is certain that Pete’s looks attracted “a tremendous number of women to the band”, and the Beatles had large sexual appetites. Did Paul resent the number of women who fell into Pete’s arms and more. Maybe Paul wasn’t the Number 1 pin-up from the Beatles, but when you read the large number of casual flings in his quasi-autobiography, Many Years From Now, you wonder if he could have found time for any more.
Also, by 1962, both Pete and John were dating their girlfriends seriously and both of them were warned against marriage by Brian Epstein, who thought it might detract from their fan following. John, however, had few thoughts of fidelity. Ritchie Galvin of Earl Preston and the TTs: “I remember one afternoon at the Mandolin Club in Toxteth. Paul was on the grand piano singing Sinatra songs and everyone else was lounging around in the big armchairs they had there. A couple of girls were there and one of them decided to suck John’s dick in front of us. John was talking about the lunchtime gig while all this was happening.”
I have a feeling that either all three Beatles resented Pete’s brooding beauty or none at all. If only Paul or George were jealous of Pete’s good looks they would have been teased mercilessly by John. For this argument to hold John must have been jealous of Pete himself.
The Ex-Files 6: Pete didn’t fit in with the Beatles
Pete Best had the fan base, but he could never claim to be the leader of the Beatles. George was young and inexperienced and the decisions were made by John or Paul, more usually John. John often got his way through belligerence, whereas Paul McCartney was the PR man of the group. They shared decisions about their repertoire, but McCartney had to put up with Lennon’s banter if he was forced to play something against his wishes. Bob Wooler says, “They often stood as Harrison, McCartney and Lennon on stage and that was Paul’s favourite position as it made him seem the leader.” Nevertheless, during the first taped interview with the group on 27 October 1962, Paul McCartney acknowledged John as the leader of the group.
Liverpool singer and Hamburg record producer Paul Murphy: “John Lennon was the leader of the Beatles. He had the stage presence and body language and he looked in control. Lennon’s attitude always was, “We’re going to be the biggest band in the world.” I remember meeting him at The Oasis Club in London, Shaftesbury Avenue, which was an all-night sauna and coffee bar, and he was talking about how his band was going to make it. He had a very powerful personality and he could appear dictatorial.”
Al Peters: “There’s no doubt that John Lennon was the leader of the Beatles. Paul McCartney had a lot to say but Lennon had it in attitude and presence. Pete seemed a loner compared to the rest of the Beatles, but it can be like that in a band. You can’t all be buddies.”
Ian Sharp: “I thought John Lennon was totally outrageous. I told him that he’d either end up in jail or be someone famous.”
Lennon’s impulsive, drunken wit could taunt people. Bob Wooler: “The setting is the Blue Angel and Paul McCartney is upstairs talking to some press people, while in the basement is John Lennon shooting his mouth off, well away with the drink or whatever. He said, “Hitler should have finished the job”, meaning that the gas ovens should have been more active than they were. His manager was Jewish and I prevailed upon him to be quiet because the press were upstairs, but he didn’t take any notice of me. I told Paul that John was shooting his mouth off and that the press must not get wind of it. That was an example of John’s indifference. He enjoyed the danger associated with some of his remarks, and, of course, he did say, “We’re more popular than Jesus now”. It’s on the cards that he made the Hitler remark to Brian, which certainly would have offended him, but Brian would have let it ride as he hated flare-ups. It was a terrible thing to say, even as a joke, and I put it down to his lackadaisical upbringing.”
Ritchie Galvin of Earl Preston and the TTs: “There was a floating beat night one night on the Royal Iris with Earl Preston and the TTs and the Beatles. We shared the captain’s cabin as our dressing room and John was helping himself to the whisky in the captain’s rack. Girls were coming in for autographs and you know what ship doors are like. One girl had her hand on the jamb and John just kicked the door on her hand and laughed. No one else laughed and the girl’s hand was dripping with blood. To be honest, I never liked him much.”
Lennon – and it is surely significant that so many musicians refer to him as ‘Lennon’ rather than ‘John’ – was indifferent to others, and many people didn’t like his sarcasm and arrogance. Earl Preston: “John was the first punk, in his attitude toward people. He was an educated Scouser and, if you put the combination together, you have someone who really believed in himself.”
Norman Kuhlke of the Swinging Blue Jeans: “John Lennon had his own circle of friends and I never spoke much to him. I thought that he had been instrumental in getting Pete out of the group, but I may be wrong.”
Norman Scroggie of the Lee Eddie Five: “In their own ways, both Paul McCartney and John Lennon were aloof, and Pete Best was always quiet and kept to himself. On the other hand, George Harrison was the most pleasant of the four. If you had a guitar in your hand, he’d talk to you for hours.”
Paddy Delaney, the doorman at the Cavern: “John could turn on you and he could be very short with anyone. He’d have a go at you if needs be. Paul was quiet, and he was called the Choirboy by the girls. George was the quietest of the lot, saying nothing until he was spoken to, but he had a kind heart. Pete Best was also very quiet, but he was the most popular of the group because he was so good looking.”
Bill Harry: “I always liked Pete Best. He never said anything, he was the most difficult person to interview. He’d sit by himself and he didn’t really fit in with them as a personality. When we were in the Jacaranda they’d sit and talk and he’d be in the corner by the window. If somebody talked to him he’d just grunt or whatever.”
Vocalist Cy Tucker: “The birds used to go crazy on Pete Best but he was very quiet and laid-back. He was not as full of life as the other three guys. Pete Best wasn’t doing their thing.”
It is not mandatory that all the members of a group should be close friends, although it helps. Gerry Marsden and Les Chadwick had totally different personalities and yet they jogged along happily together for several years in Gerry and the Pacemakers.
I shouldn’t think it was easy to fit into a group with John Lennon and Pete Best. If the truth be known, he did well to last 2 years. Paul and George did fortunately share some of John’s sense of humour. Paul McCartney told Mark Lewisohn, “Pete Best had never quite been like the rest of us. We were the wacky trio and Pete was perhaps a little more sensible; he was slightly different from us, he wasn’t quite as artsy as we were. And we just didn’t hang out that much together. He’d go home to his mum’s club, the Casbah, and although we’d hang out there with him, we never really went to other places together.”
Some light on Pete Best’s sacking comes from Cynthia Lennon: “As far as I knew, there was nothing wrong with Pete Best as a musician in any way. He was a very nice fellow, but I think overall, as far as I could see it from my position, their personalities were not in tune with Pete’s. Musically yes, but as four personalities they didn’t gel. They would have their jokes and Pete wasn’t involved in them. He was an outsider. Ringo was nutty enough to fit in with their unit whereas Pete was too serious for them. I think John felt a bit shy and embarrassed about him going, but it’s one of those things that happen in life.”
I showed these remarks to Liverpool songwriter Tony Hazzard, who is also a psychotherapist: “Both George Harrison and Pete Best were quiet, but they were quiet in different ways. Pete was on the outside whereas John, Paul and George could pick up on each other – they shared the same ethos, the same culture, the same sense of humour – and Ringo obviously did as well. There was something about Pete Best that didn’t fit. I’d say that Cynthia Lennon had it about right.”
John Lennon told their press officer, Tony Barrow, “Pete Best was a great drummer, but Ringo was a Beatle.” Tony knew what he meant and adds, “Ringo had a very dry sense of humour, but he had little to say and in the early days he sat back and let the others do the talking, partly because he was the new boy and the other three knew each other so well over the years. He became known as the Quiet Beatle, the silent one except that when he did come out with something it was pretty original and hilarious.”
Certainly, George Harrison preferred to have Ringo in the Beatles because they were such good friends. However, if Pete Best didn’t fit in with the Beatles, why did it take them 2 years of working together to find out?”
Alan Clayson, writing in his biography, Ringo Starr, Straight Man or Joker?, explains the sacking thus: “Pete was a Tony Curtis among the pilzenkopfs, a non-partaker of Benzedrine and Preludin, a swain whose intentions toward his Marks & Spencer girlfriend were honourable. Only on the periphery of their private jokes and folklore and as reliable as he was mature, there was no denying that, to his fellow Beatles, Best was a bit, well… you know. Anyway, he had to go.” This sounds impressive, but why should Pete be derided for having a girlfriend who worked at Marks & Spencer? Is it all that different from Ringo’s hairdressing girlfriend?
Compare this assessment with the February 1965 edition of Playboy where John Lennon says, “Ringo used to fill in sometimes if our drummer was ill. With his periodic illness,” and Ringo adds, “He took little pills to make him ill.” The implication was that Pete Best was a drug addict and Pete obtained damages and an apology.
That assertion was rich coming from John Lennon. Bob Wooler: “I left the table at the Black Rose one afternoon and when I got back there were two pills floating in my drink. I said, ‘What’s that?’ and Lennon said, ‘Oh, give it here’ and he knocked it back. It was two Preludin tablets and they had brought them back from Germany. They were in metal tubes and I used to say to them, ‘Anyone travelling by tube tonight?’”
The Ex-Files 7: Pete Refused to have a Beatle Haircut
We’ve dealt with this earlier and it would be dismissed for triviality were it not often cited. For example, Paddy Delaney, the doorman of the Cavern, believes it to be a major factor. As stated earlier, Pete’s hair was naturally curly and a Beatle haircut would have completely changed his look. In 1965 Pete was talked into having a Beatle haircut for some US appearances, ironically at a time when the Beatles’ looks were changing. However, I don’t feel that this is a factor as who could say in 1962 what a Beatle should look like? Besides, did Charlie Watts ever look like a Rolling Stone?
Surprisingly, Jimmy Nicol, the stand-in drummer for Ringo Starr when he had his tonsils out, said in a 1986 issue of Drumming magazine: “Best was like a cry-baby. He didn’t want to cut his hair like the rest of the group and he resented Brian telling him that he had to. He soon found out that Brian carried more weight in the Beatles than he believed. The crap he wrote afterwards about the rest of the band being jealous of his good looks was just wishful babbling. Paul McCartney was ten times the looker Pete Best was.”
Having said all that, the first thing John Lennon said to Ringo Starr when he became a Beatle was “Those sidies will have to go.” From a marketing point of view, Eppy was happier with four moptops.
The Ex-Files 8: Mona Best’s Interference
Allan Williams wrote a book, The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away, but the title was a nonsense. He had long since relinquished any management role in the Beatles and if anyone could be said to be the Beatles’ manager, or at least their agent, before Brian Epstein, then it would be Mona Best. Mona Best. She was The Woman Who Gave The Beatles Away.
Ritchie Galvin of Earl Preston and the TTs: “Mrs Best was a formidable lady. If she said it was Sunday when it was Tuesday, you’d say it was Sunday too.”
Mona Best was one of the few parents in the early 1960s who understood what Liverpool teenagers wanted. She was very pleasant and very organised, but she could be a harridan with the Best of intentions if she needed to push for the Beatles’ interests. To quote Philip Norman in Shout! The True Story of The Beatles, “Mona Best was a force one did not lightly provoke.”
Despite the fact that she was coping with a pregnancy late in life in 1962, it seems likely that she would have called Brian Epstein regularly with her ideas for the Beatles’ progress and advice on what he should do next. A case of mother knows Best. We know from Bobby Graham that Eppy resented calls from Mrs Best as he wanted to manage the Beatles in his own way, which included taking them well away from Liverpool. If Pete Best were no longer with the band, Eppy wouldn’t have to justify his decisions to Mona Best.
There was a flaw in this argument. Brian Epstein offered Pete a replacement job as a drummer with the Merseybeats and so he would still have to deal with Mona Best. I think he was taking a chance. He guessed that Pete Best would be so upset that he wouldn’t want to have anything further to do with NEMS. He primed his friend, Joe Flannery, from another agency, so Pete was instead put with Lee Curtis and the All Stars.
The Ex-Files 9: Pete Best Rejected Brian Epstein’s Advances
True, but Eppy was used to being turned down. After all, he could hardly expect most of the heterosexuals he approached to leap into bed with him. His advances were also rejected by John Lennon and Billy J. Kramer, so it is unlikely to have been a factor.
The Ex-Files 10: Pete Best was Unreliable
The first Anthology programme in 1996 suggested that Pete Best was unreliable. Pete comments, “That was the first time I’d heard it. It came as quite a surprise that I wasn’t reliable. I was never criticised for timekeeping as I am a prompt, punctual person. I only missed two gigs with them – one was when I had to go to court and the other was when I had flu. I missed the afternoon session at the Cavern but I pulled myself out of my sick bed to turn up for the evening one, but to my knowledge they were the only two I missed.” In case you’re wondering, the court appearance was for a minor traffic offence.
Bob Wooler, DJ at the Cavern: “It is absolute rubbish to say Pete was unreliable. The most unreliable person was Paul McCartney who was consistently late. I saw him on TV saying that Stevie Wonder was a bit unreliable, he turned up late, and I thought, ‘Look who’s talking’. I would say to Paul at Aintree Institute, ‘You’ve missed the middle spot and you’ll have to go on last, which is the going home time.’ He’d say, ‘Sorry, I was busy writing a song.’ That didn’t impress me at all at the time as I had a show to put on. John, surprisingly, was quite dutiful. Maybe Aunt Mimi was the one behind him, telling him to get out of the house.”
The Ex-Files 11: It was Just Hard Luck
Rick Wakeman: “When you know what the future is it’s easy to criticise the past. Nobody could have foreseen what would happen to the Beatles and Pete was just unlucky. Who knows why some people leave some groups? It can be something that doesn’t have a verbal explanation, something intangible, you know. It didn’t feel right and no-one knows why.”
Some years ago I broadcast an interview with Michael Clarke, the former drummer with the Byrds, on BBC Radio Merseyside. When I asked him why he left the Byrds, he answered, “Because I hated all of them.” Which seemed a good enough reason to me.
The next day I met Joe Butler of the Hillsiders and he said, “I’ve never heard anyone say that before and it’s so true. When you’re seeing so much of each other in a band, likes and dislikes get magnified out of proportion. There’s usually someone that everyone hates, then next week, for no reason at all, it’s somebody else.”
Could that have happened with the Beatles? Did it just happen to be Pete’s week, poor bloke? Probably not, as the plot had been simmering for months, but the only person who might defend him was preoccupied, and it was hard luck from that point of view.
The Ex-Files12: Instant Karma
The interview with George Harrison on the Anthology 1 video is revealing. When asked about Pete Best, he looks away from the camera and says, “Historically, it may look like we did something nasty to Pete. It may have been that we could have done it better but the thing was, as history shows, Ringo was a member of the band, it’s just that he didn’t enter the film until that particular scene.”
This suggestion, treating the Beatles as children of destiny, is typical of Harrison’s later, fanciful ideas and I’m sure he never felt that way in 1963. Nevertheless, it is not far removed from the views of the John Lennon biographer Paul Du Noyer: “Pete Best’s sacking is one of the great enigmas of musical history. Was it because he was too good-looking? You can say with hindsight that Ringo Starr fundamentally affected the chemistry of the group. Lots of things about the Beatles seem slightly magical, not quite explicable in ordinary terms and one of the magical things is the interaction of these four personalities. The presence of Ringo acted as a subtle counterbalance to the personalities of the other three and it was all part and parcel of what made the Beatles happen in the end. Had it not been Ringo they might not have taken off to the same extent. They might not have captured the subconsciousness of the population.”
In a similar vein, we have George Melly: “I think they were right in getting rid of Pete Best and recruiting Ringo Starr. Pete Best was tremendously popular in Liverpool and undoubtedly it was a great tragedy for him to be sacked at the very moment when they were breaking through, but whoever it was, be it Brian Epstein, George Martin or the Beatles, whoever it was, saw that Ringo’s personality was the perfect foil. He was plain, whereas the others were all rather good looking. He was thick, whereas the others were rather bright. He was working class, whereas the others were basically suburban. Ringo completed the Beatles and made them much more effective, not just musically but as personalities.” I think that’s a brilliant summary, but surely it’s a case of being wise after the event – I’m sure not even Epstein had determined that the Beatles needed a ‘plain, thick, working class’ drummer.
George Melly has made a good point well. Ringo has taken his fair share of knocks over the years but he was perfect for the job. George Harrison may or may not be correct but, metaphysics apart, Ringo did enable the band to become a powerful, self-contained unit. He could sense what each song wanted and it was to his credit that he wasn’t a flashy, showy drummer like Keith Moon. The good feeling between the four Beatles quickly spread over the footlights to the audiences.
The Ex-Files 13: Who Knows?
Some reasons may be kept private. I know someone who left a group because he wanted to bed one of his partners’ wives while they were touring and another who was sacked because he was stealing from his partners. I’ve no grounds for supposing there is anything untoward here, but no-one can ever know for certain.
I Look to Find a Reason to Believe
So, why did Pete Best get the Big E? We can summarise the reasons as follows (right) with the ticks marking the significance of each possibility. An (x) represents unlikely statements from the Beatles themselves.
Everybody wanted Pete Best out of the Beatles but for different reasons.
The prime mover is Paul McCartney. After moving to the bass when Stu Sutcliffe left, Paul realised Pete’s limitations. In unguarded moments after the sacking, he told Merseybeat musicians, “Pete wasn’t the best drummer in the world – he wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.” He was determined the Beatles should be as strong a musical unit as possible – hence his desire to remove Stu Sutcliffe and then Pete Best. He was not particularly close to Pete and things came to a head when Pete’s drumming was derided by George Martin; Pete would have to go now. Although he never said it, the boyish looking McCartney was also the Beatle who was most jealous of Pete’s good looks.
| Reason for sacking | John | Paul | George | Brian Epstein | George Martin |
| Poor drumming | √ | √√√ | √ | √√ | |
| No versatility | √√ | √ | √√ | ||
| George Martin disliked drumming | √√√ | √√√ | √√ | √√ | |
| Ringo preferred | √ | √√ | √√√ | ||
| Jealous of good looks | √ | √√ | √ | ||
| Didn’t fit in | √ | √√√ | √√ | ||
| No Beatles haircut | √ | ||||
| Mona Best’s interference | √√√ | ||||
| Rejected Eppy’s advances | √ | ||||
| Unreliable | (x) | (x) | |||
| Hard luck | |||||
| Instant karma | (x) | ||||
| Unknown factors |
George Harrison liked Pete Best, but as the months went by he found he would rather have his friend Ringo Starr in the group. He was pressing for Ringo once Ringo had depped for Pete in February 1962. He, too, was delighted when George Martin thought Pete was the weak link. The fact that George Harrison got the black eye suggests that he played a significant role.
John Lennon was more devil-may-care when it came to musical ability. He tolerated Stu Sutcliffe’s musical limitations longer than he should have done. He got on well with Pete, although they only had girls and rock ’n’ roll in common. At first he didn’t want to disturb the status quo of the band but, when distracted with a pregnant girlfriend and a forthcoming marriage, Paul and George seized the opportunity to decide that it was time for Pete to go. What’s more, Pete had to be replaced before that all-important first TV appearance.
John was not the instigator of Pete being sacked. If he was, he wouldn’t bother to cover it up and he’d have sacked Pete himself, perhaps bringing things to a head in an argument. The reason he felt embarrassed later is because he hadn’t done enough to defend him. As he told Hunter Davies from The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (1968): “We were cowards when we sacked him. We made Brian do it. But if we’d told Pete to his face, that would have been much nastier than getting Brian to do it. It probably would have ended up in a fight if we’d told him.”
Brian Epstein was happy to go along with the plan as it gave him a freer hand with managing the group, while George Martin, who disliked Pete’s drumming, was surprised they’d taken such drastic action.
Whatever the reason, Pete Best’s sacking had dramatic and unforeseen circumstances.