Best of the Beatles (7 page)

Johnny Hutchinson, “I was playing with the Beatles and the Big Three at the same time. I would play the first half-hour with my group and get dressed up in my band suit, set the drums up and do half-an-hour with them, unset my drums, take the suit off, shoot off elsewhere and do half-hour in The Beatles gear and go back for half-
an-hour
with the Big Three.”

Hutch also offers this gem: “Brian asked me to bear with him for a few more weeks. The Beatles were even going to get a fantastic drummer from Leeds. This chap came down from Leeds – he was about 54, balding and very big, not at all as Brian expected and Brian had to start hiding. Apparently, he turned out to be no good as well. That’s when I started playing with them.”

When he sacked Pete, Brian Epstein was worried that Neil Aspinall might resign in sympathy. As it turns out, his
initial reaction was to resign but Pete told him to continue, although it would mean leaving Hayman’s Green. No-one has spoken of the tensions in Hayman’s Green, but it can’t have been easy for Pete. He was telling his half-brother’s father and his mother’s lover to leave the house. When Neil turned up to take the Beatles to Riverpark that evening, he asked the Beatles why Pete had been sacked. “It’s got nothing to do with you,” said John, “you’re only the driver.”

Not even Neil – or Nell as the Beatles called him – may know that Brian Epstein had considered a replacement for him – John Booker, who later worked with the Undertakers. “I was going round with the Merseybeats at the time and Eppy came up to me with George Harrison and said, ‘John, I’d like you to look after the Beatles.’ I said, ‘You’re joking.’ He said, ‘No, I’d like you to take over from Neil.’ I said, ‘No, I wouldn’t do that to Neil.’ That showed me what Eppy was like.”

On Saturday 18 August 1962, Ringo Starr joined the Beatles as a full-time member for a horticultural society’s annual dance at Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight. The real test would come the following evening among the regulars at the Cavern Club.

The Cavern’s doorman, Paddy Delaney: “George Harrison had gone downstairs – there weren’t many people in at the time and there was a bit of a commotion. I went down to see what the trouble was and George was holding his eye. He had a beauty of a black eye.”

George Harrison in the
Anthology 1
video: “The Cavern had three tunnels and I stepped out of the dressing room into a tunnel and some guy butted me in the eye.”

Ringo Starr admits in the same video, “We played the Cavern and there was a lot of fighting and shouting – half of them hated me and half of them loved me.”

Mike Gregory of the Escorts: “Everyone was screaming
at Ringo and throwing tomatoes at him. They were shouting for Pete Best and giving him a hard time.”

Ian Edwards (Ian and the Zodiacs): “I was very friendly with Ringo and I felt very sorry for him at the time. They were shouting “Ringo never, Pete Best forever” and refusing to let them play. There was a big question as to whether this could be the Beatles’ downfall. Everyone was talking about it. Ringo had been playing in a group which wasn’t taken seriously and suddenly he’s in the biggest thing on Merseyside. He was a very good rock drummer, but there were a lot of better drummers around, such as Johnny Hutch.”

Ray Ennis (Swinging Blue Jeans): “It was murder when Pete got the sack. George Harrison got a black eye and there was a big split in the Beatle fans, they were fighting each other. Pete got a raw deal and without doubt the luckiest man alive is Ringo Starr – and yet I’ve never heard him say that.”

Ritchie Galvin of Earl Preston and the TTs: “I really wanted the Beatles to do well as I thought it might open the floodgates a bit. We might get away from groups like Shane Fenton and the Fentones. I was a bit surprised when they sacked Pete, and I hoped they hadn’t blown it.”

Diana Mothershaw, who sold records at Rushworth and Dreaper: “Shortly after Pete was sacked, John and George came into Rushworth’s when it was quiet. We asked them why Pete had been sacked and they said he couldn’t drum well enough. He only had his own style. Then someone told them that Pete was only round the corner looking at drums and they said, ‘See you girls’, and ran out. We shouted ‘Cowards’ after them.”

From Brian Epstein’s autobiography,
A Cellarful of Noise
: “The sacking of Pete Best left me in an appalling position in Liverpool. Overnight I became the most disliked
man on the seething beat-scene. True, I had the support of the Beatles who were the city’s darlings and they were delighted to have Ringo. But the fans wanted Pete Best as a Beatle and there were several unpleasant scenes.”

The truth – Pete Best: “I felt like putting a stone around my neck and jumping off the Pier Head. I knew that the Beatles were going places and to be kicked out on the verge of it happening upset me a great deal. I was sure we were going to be a chart group. For weeks afterward, I just wanted to forget about everything. I didn’t want to see the drums. I didn’t want to see people. The fact that they weren’t at my dismissal hurt me a lot more than the fact that Brian told me that I wasn’t a Beatle any longer.”

The spin-doctored version appeared in
Mersey Beat
, which was published on 23 August 1962: “Pete Best left the group by mutual agreement. There were no arguments or difficulties, and this had been an entirely amicable decision.”

This version is so far from the truth that it casts doubts upon Bill Harry’s integrity as an editor. Was he merely Epstein’s mouthpiece? Was he the only person on Merseyside who thought it was an amicable split? He says, “I was working an 80-hour week on
Mersey Beat
and I took Brian Epstein’s word for some things I should have checked out. When he gave me the story about Pete leaving, he made it seem like a mutual agreement. I can see now that I was being manipulated.”

But surely Bill had known of the chaos at the Cavern, and surely fans had been calling his office? “Yes, we were inundated with calls but we had already gone to press. I never doubted Brian Epstein’s veracity when he gave me that story. We had to go to press 3 or 4 days beforehand – we were only a little job for the printers, Swales, who also published
The Widnes Weekly News
.”

Mersey
Beat
had gone to press before the full facts were known and being a fortnightly paper, the dismissal was old news by the time of the next issue as Ringo Starr was securely established as the Beatles’ drummer. Bill Harry: “I felt an injustice was being done, but not because Pete was getting kicked out on the brink of success. That’s the luck of the game. I felt that there should have been some truth about why he’d been put out. They should have said, “We’ve decided that we get on better with Ringo, and we want Ringo with us.” Instead, they suggested that Pete Best wasn’t good enough.”

Philip Norman’s
Shout! The True Story of The Beatles
says that Pete’s fate was decided in a pub meeting between Paul, George, Brian Epstein and not John Lennon but Bob Wooler. There may be some substance in this. Sixty-
year-old
Ted Knibbs was Billy J. Kramer’s first manager. Epstein bought his contract for £50 of which Ted got £25 and he never got the rest. He remembered a meeting shortly after the sacking. “Brian Epstein, Bob Wooler and I were having a few drinks in the New Cabaret Club and Bob said, ‘I’m going to tell the whole Pete Best story in
Mersey Beat
. I think the fans should know why Pete Best was dropped for Ringo.’ Brian went into a right flap – ‘You won’t, you won’t’ and Bob said, ‘I will, I will’ and this went on and on. I said, ‘I hope there’ll be no trouble.’ And Brian stood up, called the waiter, paid the bill and said ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I must leave your company.’ If he’d had a cloak, he would have gathered it about him and stalked out. I said, ‘Now you’ve done it, haven’t you, Bob?’ He said, ‘Why shouldn’t I tell the story?’ I said, ‘Because you’re not a journalist, mate, you’re not relying on that for your living. You’re relying on Brian Epstein who employs you to put on his shows.’ He said, ‘Well what do you advise me to do?’ I said, ‘First thing in the morning, go round and tell
Brian that you are sorry about last night and get it all over with.’”

Bob Wooler says, “I was annoyed about what happened to Pete Best because I couldn’t see any reason why he should have to leave the group. People said he wasn’t a very good drummer – well, it makes you wonder who is a good drummer these days because Ringo wasn’t even on the first record. But I was an outsider looking in. I was going to write an article called ‘Odd Man – Out!’ But it never materialised and I regret that very much.”

Did Bob Wooler repair his relationship with Brian Epstein? “Yes, sense prevailed and I made it up with the Nemperor. Ted Knibbs, who was older and wiser than me, said I had made my Declaration of Independence and that was enough.” Strangely enough, Bob’s concept of the odd man out was taken up by Albert Goldman, a writer not normally known for his perception. He wrote, “The odd man out had to get out – and the new man in had to be an odd fellow.”

But would the story have ever been published in
Mersey Beat
? Bill Harry: “Once Brian Epstein came into the picture, I felt we were being manipulated. We had a reporter in Widnes who was a Billy J Kramer fan. He would pick up the proofs and show them to us, usually on a Saturday. He also took the proofs to show Epstein, but we didn’t know he was doing that until we caught Epstein with them one day.”

More spin-doctoring took place on 23 August 1962 when John Lennon and Cynthia Powell were married. Paul, George and Brian Epstein attended the ceremony, but not Aunt Mimi. At the wedding breakfast at Reece’s Restaurant opposite Clayton Square, Brian Epstein told them they could live in his flat at 37 Falkner Street. Brian had used the flat for his furtive trysts and one of the first songs John wrote in the flat was ‘Do You Want To Know A
Secret?’ There were a lot of secrets in the Beatles – Brian’s love life, John’s wedding and why they sacked Pete Best.

Cynthia Powell: “We were only children in those days, 20 and 21, and we were used to being told what to do and what not to do, so it wasn’t too much of an effort to keep our marriage a secret. That’s the way it seemed to be at the time, according to the pop world. Pop stars weren’t supposed to be married so we fell in with this thing. It was no problem to me as I knew that I had my man and I loved him and he loved me, and we were having a baby. Whatever anybody else thought didn’t really matter to me.”

Pete Best: “In the weeks that followed, Brian got in touch with me and said, ‘There’s another band I’m interested in promoting. Would you like to play drums for them? I’d like you to join the group and build it up into another Beatles.’ I said, ‘I’m flattered that you don’t want to lose me, but because of the vicious way it happened, the backhanded way it took place, I can’t agree to come back and let you be my manager.’ He said, ‘Okay, but the offer’s still there whenever you feel like it.’ In the meantime, Joe Flannery came down to my house and asked me to join Lee Curtis. He knew he wasn’t going to make a lot of money out of it but he wanted me to join the band and be part of the team. I thought about it for a couple of days and then rang him up and said, ‘Okay.’ I didn’t want to cash in on being an ex-Beatle and I often spoke to Joe Flannery about this when I saw, ‘Pete Best, the ex-Beatles’ drummer’ on posters.”

As it happens, Brian Epstein had even set that up. He had asked Joe to contact Pete with a view to forming Lee Curtis and the All Stars. Lee Curtis: “I was so delighted that he came and joined me because he was such an asset to us. Pete Best drumming behind you was a tremendous attraction, it really was. Joe came up with the name the All
Stars as they were all stars in their own right from different bands.”

Unfortunately for Pete Best, Lee Curtis was the wrong vocalist for 1963 – his highly overcharged performances were too late for the Elvis Presley era and too early for Tom Jones.

Beryl Marsden also worked with Lee Curtis and the All Stars. “We used to rehearse at Peter’s house and his mum would be telling tales of how awful the Beatles were and how I mustn’t go near them, never speak to them or listen to their music. I thought it was a terrible thing for them to do, but I liked their music and I couldn’t stay away too long. I rang up one day and said, ‘I’m not very well. I can’t come in and rehearse.’ And I skived off to a lunchtime session at the Cavern. Unfortunately, I got caught out and got a really bad scolding from Peter’s mum, but it was worth it.”

Pete Best: “We played on the same bill as the Beatles on two occasions. One was at the Cavern when we were second on the bill to the Beatles. The other was in
the Mersey Beat
Pollwinners Concert. On both occasions we were on just prior to the Beatles, and we had to pass one another… face-to-face, yet nothing was ever said.”

By joining the Beatles, Ringo Starr had set up a chain reaction.

Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were Ringo-less at Skegness. Johnny Guitar: “Someone at the camp said he’d play drums for us. We said, ‘Are you a drummer?’ and he said, ‘No, I’m an actor.’ He was Anthony Ashdown, who had been in
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
. He got us by for a week or two until a relief drummer could come out.”

Drummer Dave Lovelady was returning from Hamburg and Ringo was going to replace him in Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes: “About 10 days after the first letter, Kingsize
got a second letter from Ringo saying that he was joining the Beatles instead. I came home and we did a swop with the Four Jays. Brian Redman took my place, and I joined the Four Jays or the Fourmost, as they were to become.”

Brian Redman stayed 5 months with the Dominoes and then joined the country-rock band, Sonny Webb and the Cascades, who became the Hillsiders. Kingsize Taylor: “We then took Gibson Kemp to Hamburg, who was playing for Rory Storm at that time. As he was only fifteen, I had to go to London and sign a guarantee to get him out of the country. I had to act as a guardian for him. He was a cracking drummer, the greatest rock drummer who ever came out of Liverpool. I was so glad I took Gibson and everybody seemed to be happy about the changes right the way down the line.”