https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Best


Pete Best, 2nd from left, as The Beatles drummer

Randolph Peter Best (born Randolph Peter Scanland; 24 November 1941) is an English musician, songwriter, and civil servant. He is best known as an original member and the first drummer of the Beatles. After he was dismissed from the group in 1962, he started his own band, The Pete Best Four, and would later join many other bands over the years. He is one of several people who have been referred to as the Fifth Beatle.

Best was born in the city of Madras, then part of British India. After Best's mother, Mona Best (1924–1988), moved to Liverpool in 1945, she opened the Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the Bests' house in Liverpool. The Beatles (at the time known as the Quarrymen) played some of their first concerts at the club.

The Beatles invited Best to join on 12 August 1960, on the eve of the group's first Hamburg season of club dates. Ringo Starr eventually replaced Best on 16 August 1962, when the group's manager, Brian Epstein, exiled Best under the direction of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, following their first recording session at Abbey Road Studios in London.

After working in a number of commercially unsuccessful groups, Best gave up the music industry to work as a civil servant for 20 years, before starting the Pete Best Band. He has been married for over 50 years to Kathy Best; they have two daughters and four grandchildren.

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Decca, Parlophone and dismissal
Brian Epstein, who had been unofficially managing the Beatles for less than a month, arranged a recording audition at Decca Records in London on New Year's Day, 1962. The group recorded 15 songs, mostly cover versions with three Lennon–McCartney songs. John Lennon later admitted they were "terrified and nervous". A month later, Decca informed Epstein the group had been rejected. The band members were informed of the rejection except for Best. Epstein officially became the manager of the Beatles on 24 January 1962 with the contract signed in Pete's house.

Epstein negotiated ownership of the Decca audition tape, which was then transferred to an acetate disc, in order to promote the band to other record companies in London. In the meantime, Epstein negotiated the release of the Beatles from their recording contract with Bert Kaempfert and Polydor Records in Germany, which expired on 22 June 1962. As a part of this contract, the Beatles recorded at Polydor's Studio Rahlstedtin on 24 May 1962 in Hamburg as a sessions band, backing Tony Sheridan. Less than two weeks later the Beatles would be recording again at Abbey Road studios in London for EMI.

The record producer at EMI, George Martin, met with Epstein on 9 May 1962 at the Abbey Road studios, and was impressed with his enthusiasm. He agreed to sign the Beatles on a recording contract, based on listening to the Decca audition tape, without having met them or having seen them perform live.


Studio Two, Abbey Road Studios

Soon after the recording contract was signed, the Beatles performed a "commercial test" (i.e. an evaluation of a signed artist) on 6 June 1962 in Studio Two at the Abbey Road studios. Assistant producer Ron Richards and his engineer Norman Smith (later to have hits himself, as Hurricane Smith) recorded four songs: "Bésame Mucho", "P.S. I Love You", "Ask Me Why" and "Love Me Do". The last three songs were the Beatles' own compositions, which was very unusual for bands new to recording. Martin was in the building but not in the studio. Martin was called into the studio by Norman Smith when he heard the band play "Love Me Do". At the end of the session Martin asked the individual Beatles if there was anything they personally did not like, to which George Harrison replied, "Well, there's your tie, for a start." That was the turning point, according to Smith, as Lennon, McCartney, and Best joined in with jokes and comic wordplay.

The Beatles were not new to studio recording, and Best's drumming had been found acceptable by Polydor in Hamburg, but Richards had alerted Martin to Best's unsuitability for British studio work. EMI engineer Norman Smith stated in a 2006 video interview that there was nothing wrong with Pete's drumming talent, noting "...it was mainly down to what he was playing and not how he was playing," when "Love Me Do" was first recorded, referring to the head arrangement. Martin found Best's timing inadequate and wanted to replace Best with an experienced studio session drummer for the recordings, a common practice at the time. When Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison learned that Martin and the engineers preferred replacing Best with a session drummer for their upcoming recording session on 4 September 1962, they considered using it as a pretext to permanently dismiss Best from the group. The band had felt that Best was an inadequate drummer for some time, and also were not close with him socially. Harrison initiated the split, having a particular fondness for Starr. Eventually, after a very long delay, they asked Epstein to dismiss Best from the band.

Epstein agonized over the decision. As he wrote in his autobiography, A Cellarful of Noise, he "wasn't sure" about Martin's assessment of Best's drumming and "was not anxious to change the membership of the Beatles at a time when they were developing as personalities … I asked the Beatles to leave the group as it was". Epstein also asked Liverpool DJ Bob Wooler, who knew the Beatles intimately, for advice, to which Wooler replied that it was not a good idea, as Best was very popular with the fans. Part of the dilemma for Epstein that arose at that time, (when the band had not yet achieved national success, but rather local status as a good band with limited income), was that Best was an asset at gigs, particularly with the girl fans, and who put on a good show, ensuring venues would have a solid audience. The counter-argument, however, was the larger consideration of the band's having the best music producible for record sales. John, Paul and George ultimately decided that record production was more important than having a drummer for live stage performances who was more image than substance. In the meantime, Epstein withheld telling Best that EMI had made a recording contract with the band (verbally since June & in writing at the end of July 1962), which meant that a new drummer was now inevitable. There may have been legal issues had Pete known. Ultimately, Epstein decided that "If the group was to remain happy, Pete Best must go." Epstein summoned Best to his office and dismissed him on Thursday, 16 August, ten weeks and one day after the first recording session. Epstein asked Best to continue to play with the band until Ringo joined on Saturday 18 August. Best played his last two gigs with the Beatles on 15 August at the Cavern Club, Liverpool. He was due to play his last show on 16 August at the Riverpark Ballroom, Chester, but never turned up; Johnny Hutchinson of the Big Three was rushed in as a substitute. Best had been with the group for two years and four days.

Best had been good friends with Neil Aspinall since 1961, when Aspinall had rented a room in the house where Best lived with his parents. While still part of the group, Best had asked Aspinall to become the band's road manager and personal assistant; accepting the job, Aspinall bought an old Commer van for £80 (equivalent to £1,700 in 2019). Aspinall was waiting for Best downstairs in Epstein's NEMS record shop after the dismissal meeting. The two went to the Grapes pub on Mathew Street, the same street as the Cavern Club, where the group had played. Aspinall was furious at the news, insisting to Best that he would also resign from the Beatles. Best strongly advised him to remain with the group. Aspinall's relationship with Mona Best (and their three-week-old baby, Roag) was ended. At the next concert Aspinall asked Lennon why they had fired Best, to which he replied "It's got nothing to do with you, you're only the driver.

George Martin was surprised to learn that Best had been fired, hearing the news from Mona Best via telephone. Martin denied that he had ever suggested sacking him, saying:

I never suggested that Pete Best must go. All I said was that for the purposes of the Beatles' first record I would rather use a sessions man. I never thought that Brian Epstein would let him go. He seemed to be the most saleable commodity as far as looks went. It was a surprise when I learned that they had dropped Pete. The drums were important to me for a record, but they didn't matter much otherwise. Fans don't pay particular attention to the quality of the drumming.

Mersey Beat magazine's editor, Bill Harry, claimed that Epstein initially offered the vacant drummer position in the group to Hutchinson, whom he also managed. Hutchinson refused the job, saying, "Pete Best is a very good friend of mine. I couldn't do the dirty on him."

Ringo Starr had previously played with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes – the alternating band at the Kaiserkeller – and had deputised when Best was ill or unable to play in Hamburg and Liverpool. Harry reported Best's dismissal on the front page of Mersey Beat magazine, upsetting many Beatles fans. The group encountered some jeering and heckling in the street and on stage for weeks afterwards, with some fans shouting, "Pete forever, Ringo never!" One agitated fan headbutted Harrison in The Cavern, giving him a black eye.

As Best's replacement, Starr accompanied the band on their second recording session with EMI at Abbey Road studios on 4 September 1962. George Martin initially refused to let Starr play, in that he was unfamiliar with Starr, and wanted to avoid any risk of his drumming not being up to par. On 11 September, 1962, at the third EMI recording session, Martin used session musician Andy White on the drums for the whole session instead of Starr, as Martin had already booked White after the first session with Best. Starr played tambourine on some songs, while White played drums. Starr told Hunter Davies years later that he had thought, "That's the end. They're pulling a Pete Best on me."

Many years later Martin still expressed regret about his decision about Best and what followed:

I decided that the drums, which are really the backbone of a good rock group, didn't give the boys enough support. They needed a good solid beat, and I said to Brian, 'Look, it doesn't matter what you do with the boys, but on record, nobody need know. I'm gonna use a hot drummer.' Brian [Epstein] said, 'Okay, fine.' I felt guilty because I felt maybe I was the catalyst that had changed his [Best's] life…

Paul McCartney remembers it differently:

George Martin was used to drummers being very 'in time', because all the big-band session drummers he used had a great sense of time. Now, our Liverpool drummers had a sense of spirit, emotion, economy even, but not a deadly sense of time. This would bother producers making a record. George took us to one side and said, 'I'm really unhappy with the drummer. Would you consider changing him?' We said, 'No, we can't!' It was one of those terrible things you go through as kids. Can we betray him? No. But our career was on the line. Maybe they were going to cancel our contract ....

Paul McCartney finally stated, in his Wingspan documentary in May 2001, that the sacking of Pete Best had nothing to do with his ability as a drummer. Explaining why Geoff Britton, one-time drummer in his subsequent band, Wings, "didn't last long" in that group McCartney said: "It's like in the Beatles, we had Pete Best. He was a really good drummer, but there just was something, he wasn't quite like the rest of us, we had like a sense of humour in common and he was nearly in with it all, but it's a fine line, you know, as to what is exactly in and what is nearly in. So he 'left' the band and we were looking for someone who would fit." He told Mark Lewisohn, similarly, that when George Martin suggested "changing" their drummer the Beatles responded: "Well, we're quite happy with him, he works great in the clubs," but also that "Pete 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."

John Lennon took a harsh view in an interview in the 1970s about Best's removal, stating:

"By then we were pretty sick of Pete Best too because he was lousy drummer, you know, he never improved...there was always this myth being built up over the years that he was great and Paul was jealous of him because he was pretty and all that crap you know. And the reason he got in the group in the first place was because that the only way we could get to Hamburg we had to have a drummer and we just heard that this guy, we knew of this guy living at his mother's house that had a club in it and had a drum kit and we just grabbed him auditioned and if he could keep one beat going for long enough we took him to Germany. And we were always going to dump him when we could find a decent drummer you know. But the time we all got back from Germany we'd trained him to keep, you know, a stick going up and down 4 in the bar, he couldn't do much else you know, and he looked nice and girls liked him so you know that was alright."

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