I've only been a drummer for 35 years and have been in and played in several different bands. Thanks for playing though.
If you've been a drummer for 35 years then how can you make some of the flippant comments you make. Time and again you try and dismiss Pete Best's contributions in the two years he was in The Beatles by just comparing Best's version of "Love Me Do" to Ringo Starr's version. Nothing else matters. Then when I point out that Ringo had the same timing problem that Pete had when he first attempted "Love Me Do", and that both George Martin and Paul McCartney were unhappy with it. You still don’t address the my original question of how can you so flippantly dismiss the contributions that Pete Best made during his 2 years playing live in The Beatles by comparing the original studio versions of “Love Me Do” with Pete Best on drums vs. the final version of “Love Me Do” with Ringo Starr on drums. You do so again here...
Ok great. They both tanked 'Love Me Do', but let me ask you something,,,who's version did you think was better?
I thought Ringo Starr's final version of "Love Me Do" was better than Pete Best's first attempt at "Love Me Do". For the record, I thought Lennon, McCartney & Harrison were much better on the final version too. Too bad Pete didn’t get another crack at it like Ringo did. It would be interesting to compare Pete’s final version with Ringo’s initial attempt. Too bad we can’t do that.
How convenient. A debate with no actual proof. Your in a no lose situation.
You say you have been drumming for 35 years and played in several bands. Yet, when I say things like
"Pete Best spent more time playing live for The Beatles in his 2 years than Ringo did in his entire career, at times drawing more paying fans to The Beatles shows than the other 3 put together, created a beat that became the new Liverpool sound, helped the group become the most popular group in 2 different cities in 2 different countries with record deals in 2 different countries and also helped manage the groups business affairs." You blow right by that and go right back asking to more questions or make more statements dismissing whatever fact I am pointing out as not important. When I comment on John Lennon complaining how The Beatles started getting worse after Brian put them in suits and they sold out, and he feels that The Beatles were at their best as a band when they were playing live in the clubs of Liverpool & Hamburg. You reply...
"Sure they were palying all the time and they felt competent at their instruments, but if I compare what they were doing then to say Sgt. Peppers, i'd say John was full of sh*t. Of course John complained about. He complained about everything because he's a miserable f***. "
At one point you said that because The Beatles replaced Best with Starr, that proves Pete sucked and contributed nothing during his time in The Beatles. I asked you if The Beatles were to have later coldheartedly sacked Ringo without even bothering to tell him then and replaced him with Anysley Dunbar or Mitch Mitchell, would that mean Ringo sucked and didn't contribute anything to The Beatles too? You said yeah. Now to your credit you've reconsidered your position there.
I tell you The Beatles with Pete Best were selling out places like The Cavern, where fans were queuing up days in advance for a chance to get in. They were being called
"a phenomenon unlike anything we will see again in our lifetime" a full year before Ringo Starr joined the group. You sarcastically dismiss facts like that with flippant comments like...
After he (Ringo) joined, they were the biggest band in the world. Big difference there.
or
Yeah, those groups of a hundred fans must have been on the edge of their seat.
I don’t know where you come from, but where I come from
"A phenomenon unlike anything we will see again in our lifetime" doesn't sound like just a couple hundred fans sitting on the edge of their seats. It sounds like
Beatlemania! It sounds like
The Beatles!!! A full year before Ringo Starr joined the group.
You say that Paul McCartney says The Beatles got Ringo Starr because he was known as Liverpool's greatest drummer so it must be true. McCartney didn't start saying that kind of thing until recent years. Heck, when John Lennon was asked if Ringo Starr was the best drummer around didn't he reply that Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in The Beatles (Paul McCartney was).
You ask...
Again with this age old question, if Pete was so good, why werent people and bands knocking down his door for his services? Did he pull a Brian Wilson and lay in bed all depressed for 2 or 3 years? This is the question I want answered the most.
I tell you that Pete's new band, Lee Curtis & The All-Stars instantly became The Beatles new rival as the most popular band in Liverpool and finished a narrow 2nd in the January 1963 Mersey Beat poll. You say...
We've been over this already. Nobody has ever heard of Lee Curtis so its irrelevant.
Lee Curtis & The All Stars were rivaling The Beatles as the 2nd most popular band in the city of Liverpool - just 4 months after Pete joined the group. That would have been very relevant to people living in Liverpool at the time.
I am not saying Pete Best is the greatest drummer in the world, or was even the greatest drummer in Liverpool at the time. All I am saying is that you can't believe everything you read in Wikipedia. Everybody knows that you can't trust Wikipedia because vandals can change it to say crazy things. They can change the page to make it say somthing daft like "Beatles guitarist John Harrison says that he wrote "While My Cigar Gives Me Creeps" after a panic attack from drinking too much coffee." Usually that type of vandalism is caught and corrected quickly. The real problem with Wikipedia is people with an agenda (like a publicist) can manipulate the information to give a position they favor and get away with it. All it takes it one referenced source for Wikipedia to look on something as a fact. You just find one crackpot book to use as reference or anyone making a statement that can be found on line, you reference it and PRESTO!!! It's an accepted Wikipedia fact.
There is a tread on theis website discussing the origins of the name "The Beatles". Right now if you go to Wikipedia, there is no mention of John Lennon having a role as in coming up with The Beatles name. NONE! And it's been that way on Wikipedia for a while. Because there is one reference to Bill Harry saying Stu thought of "Beetles" and no other references to anyone else saying anything else - including no references to The Beatles themselves saying anything on the subject - it becomes an undisputed Wikipedia fact that John Lennon had nothing to do with coming up with the name "The Beatles". Undisputed until someone disputes it.
See the problem there? That's the point I am trying to make tkitna. I am trying to shed light on facts you might not find in Wikipedia or in The Beatles own self serving Anthology. Anthology isn't the whole story. That's all I am trying to say. You say you spent 35 years playing drums and spent time in a band. How popular was YOUR band. How much did YOU contribute to the bands popularity? Pete Best, for whatever his limitations on drums, was the only person who wanted the job of drumming for that bum band, The Beatles, and he contributed a lot. He contributed a great deal to their success as did the others. He helped manage the affairs of the band; he was a reliable bandmate missing just 3 or 4 out of 750+ shows, no more than the others and a lot less than Paul McCartney; he developed a loud style of drumming others dubbed "The Atom Beat" that the other Liverpool drummers including Ringo Starr began copying; he was the biggest draw at their shows and he put more time in drumming live for The Beatles in his 2 years than Ringo Starr did in his entire career. He should get some credit for all of that.
When is the last time you saw any of that mentioned in Wikipedia or Beatles Anthology?