Beatles kick out Pete - cold and heartless? | Page 3 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

“cold and heartless?”  It was just business really, which often is “cold and heartless”.  I always felt that John, Paul & George had been waiting for the right moment to replace Pete long before they actually did, George Martin’s concerns about his abilities to record pretty much accelerated the process.  When someone doesn’t turn up for work on more than one occasion (which Pete allegedly was guilty of), it usually does lead to a replacement of some kind either immediately or down the road.  Supposedly, the reason that Pete had played hooky in Hamburg was because he wanted to spend time with his stripper girlfriend instead and if this was indeed the case, surely anyone can understand why the others would start thinking about other options even back then.

wetsroosa said 

  
 
From what I have heard on Beyond the Beatles (only about 2/3 of the way through), Best’s limitations as a drummer is pretty obvious. On some of the songs, you can’t even hear the drums. Not that the drumming should be the focal point, but it’s pretty hard to keep track of the song if you’ve lost the rhythm. That’s another of Pete’s problems: keeping time. “Love Me Do ” from the June ’62 sessions on Anthology 1  is a good example of Pete’s lack of timing.

As far as the case for Pete’s drumming?  The best way to acetane how much better Ringo was for their sound is to directly compare versions of the same song with both of them playing on.  The ‘Love Me Do ‘ example you gave isn’t the best one to compare for by Ringo’s own admission he copied Andy White’s work on the take where Ringo played.  One of the better ones to use is this 1962 recording (Decca Tapes, I think) of ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ where Pete is playing on.  His drumming is always more “playing along” than “driving it” and the disparity between the band’s sound on the ‘With The Beatles ‘ version (granted a much better recording) with this one is very evident:

With Pete Best on drums, The Beatles had no solid rhythm section, the drums were merely “accompaniment” to what the other three were doing.  When Ringo joined, he and Paul jelled into the Greatest Rhythm Section of All-Time almost immediately and it’s no coincidence that The Beatles fortunes grew exponentially from that moment on.  Ringo’s playing allowed for all three to soar beyond their own creative limits at the time, while Pete’s playing had been stifling them for years.  George’s remarks on the ‘Anthology’ on how “history shows that Ringo was always the member of the group, he just didn’t enter the movie until that particular frame” pretty much says it Best (pun intended)…:-)

mja6758 said
I would agree, especially with two dates so close together, that it is easy for people to confuse events. However, what Lewisohn bases his take on the order of the events on, is the studio records from the time, and the official EMI record of the session that Andy was paid. Either all these documents made AT THE TIME are WRONG, or there are some faulty memories. I find it hard to think so many documents are wrong.

Yeah, the date that Andy White was paid could differ from the date he actually played, who knows.  I personally doubt the accuracy of many of those studio records, unless they’re hand written notes by those who were in the room with The Beatles on the tape boxes themselves, how can you really trust that persons who came in the day after, etc. doing administrative duties (who probably weren’t being paid very much) took extra care in ensuring that these documents were 100% accurate?  Not to mention that many session musicians were “free lancers” who often get paid in “brown paper bag money” which differs greatly than what’s reflected on the books.

What further clouds the issue with ‘Love Me Do ‘ is that the ‘Anthology’ was the first time that I’d heard of Ringo “playing on the album version”, when it was always portrayed in the books I’d read before that Andy White played “on the album version” which is the more common version of the song.  I’d always believed that Ringo played on the single which wasn’t issued as widely.  Now why would I doubt Ringo’s “first-hand” account on this one?  Well, remembering details of what happened vs. details about albums that you never bought or listened to is different, witness John introducing ‘Baby’s In Black ‘ as a track from ‘Beatles VI’ at Shea Stadium during the same year that album came out.  Lewisohn’s dates could be correct as documented but the drummers could have been mixed up as well.

Bottom line is that Lewisohn’s information is a second-hand account and should be treated as such, and that’s no disrespect to him or the work he’s done.  Reporters get details wrong all of the time when they rely on second-hand information, especially the fine details that most skip over, and they’re paid “writers”.  There’s examples of his accounts that have proven to be false and even more examples that are of questionable accuracy.  I don’t have such a big problem with him using the word “Complete” in the title of his book to help sell it, but the word is taken far too literally by too many as if there’s nothing else other than the “official EMI record” which is far from “complete”…:-)