"Best of the Beatles" - on PBS tonight at 8

mikestop · Post by **mikestop** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:50 am

Just a reminder that the Pete Best/Beatles story is on PBS tonight. Check your local listings. Here is a link to the PBS page about the show.
Enjoy!!!
http://www.pbs.org/previews/thebeatles/

lowendbob · Post by **lowendbob** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 11:01 am

Thanks for the reminder, I almost forgot.
I missed the Bob Dylan special on Monday night.

ratso · Post by **ratso** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:45 pm

It was a great show for any fab fans out there. Some great film clips/photos/interviews. It replays at 2am friday morn!

lowendbob · Post by **lowendbob** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 3:43 am

Great show!
Pete seems to have handled it well, and he is still doing what he loves, and has the recognition he deserves.

How about the guy from Decca records. He is still kicking himself in the ***.

admin · Post by **admin** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:07 am

And how about the record executive Ron Smith (I hope I have his name correct) I believe, who becomes the latest person to take credit for sacking Pete Best.

Further, he acknowledged that Ringo probably couldn't do what Pete was sacked for and the studio went with a session drummer anyway.

No mention of blaming George Martin, Paul, George, John or Brain.

randyz · Post by **randyz** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:22 am

Peter: After all of the accounts that I have heard/read concerning the sacking of Pete Best, I think that it would have never happened without approval from John, Paul, and George. I think that if any two of the three wanted to keep him, he wouldn't have gotten the boot. I also think that if only John wanted to keep him in the band, Epstein wouldn't have fired him. There was clearly distance between Pete and the rest of the band. Someone wanted him out (maybe Paul) and nobody else cared enough to argue keeping him in. By all accounts he wasn't a bad guy or a bad drummer, he just didn't fit in. Ringo was a very shrewd choice of replacement, because his drumming was fine and his endearing personality complemented the rest of the band.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:25 am

Anyone here been sacked from a playing gig in a cheezy way? That would make a fascinating thread, Peter...one to which I could contribute an anecdote...

Imagine that...

admin · Post by **admin** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:56 am

Randy: Good point. I would argue, however, that both Paul and John had strong personalities and would have let either Pete or maybe George,for that matter, go in order to keep a recording deal and a hit record at that stage in their career.

paulv63 · Post by **paulv63** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:42 am

I believe it had something to do with Pete's mother always being involved. They weren't going to have Pete be the head of the group (as she would have liked it to be and that's the direction it was going) So I'm sure John had a hand in giving Pete the boot.

randyz · Post by **randyz** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:52 am

Peter: I've seen so much conflicting info about The Beatles during this time period, that it's hard to say. I've always thought that John was probably very difficult to deal with (and that Epstein went out of his way to avoid creating problems with him) and Paul was more diplomatic. But if that's how it was, I can't see how or why the band (especially John) allowed Brian pick such lame cover songs for the Decca demo session. It seems like both John and Paul would have demanded to record at least a few of their many compositions (like they did during the 'How Do You Do It' sessions). As I said, this time period is hard to sort out.

Paul: You might be onto something there. I had never really considered Pete's mother. It seems like Epstein would have resented any interference from her, as he wanted 'the boys' all to himself. To support your theory, I have heard that the decision came from John, Paul, and George and that they made Epstein deliver the bad news. One version of the events actually had Paul interrupting Epstein's meeting with Pete by phoning to ask, "Well, did you tell him?"

paulv63 · Post by **paulv63** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 3:09 pm

She was trying to run the show. Brian had more prospects than she did as far as getting them places so in order to take Brian on they would have to get rid of both of them.

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brammy · Post by **brammy** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:44 pm

Of J P & G, George Harrison was the one pushing most for Pete's outser.

I thought the special was good, but was (naturally) sympathetic to Pete Best (it was produced by his son). Very little attention was paid to the interpersonal difficulties the other 3 Beatles had with Pete.

I thought the best part of the show were the interviews with the EMI staff, especially the one dude (cant remember his name) who recounted having asked Pete to do something special on Love Me Do which Pete couldn't perform. Could it be that George Martin's stance that Pete would not be used for EMI studio work was base NOT on first hand hearing but based on his subbordinate's opinion?
I also thought the interviews with Pete that were made in '63/'64 showed him to be the very subdued mumbler he was .... could it be that the the so-called "moody" tag was really a description of a not-too-quick witted basically boring personality? IMHO, Ringo was much more the Beatle "loveable prankster rebel" personality than Pete.

In short, too bad for Pete, but I think the Fab Three made the right decision.

This special came at an interesting time for me personally as my band was in the process of making the final decision on whether we should sack our drummer. We had our doubts but as Thursday dawned the decision was made .... and the decent but very basic drummer who's slightly abrasive personality never really fit in with the other 3 band members was gone. In his place came a very talented but quirky and funny looking little guy (looks like Uncle Fester) with a very easy going personality and a great sense of humor. The parallels were not lost on me.... it was karma.

randyz · Post by **randyz** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:58 pm

Kent: Very interesting analysis. So is it possible that George wanted Pete out specifically because there couldn't be two 'quiet ones' in the same band? You might be right. Good luck with Uncle Fester!

brammy · Post by **brammy** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 10:54 am

Possible, but I think is was just a basic personality clash. Pete just didn't have the same type of personality/sense of humor. J,P&G had the constant joking/fooling around going on and Pete (for whatever reason) just never fit into that. A number of sources explain this and indicate that George was the most vocal of the three in pushing for Pete's ouster. The situation with EMI was just the final straw and a good legit excuse to pull the trigger. After all, they knew and liked Ringo and Ringo had proven himself a good compatible drummer as he had already filled in for Pete on a few occasions.

But enough of the Beatles, lets talk about ME!

....... as with Pete Best's EMI situation, there was also a "final straw" for us. The old drummer has for a long time (predating this band) played with a Beatles cover band. We always knew that there was the potential for a gig conflict and it never occured mainly because that other band doesn't play much anymore. Even though we were never very happy about it, the tacit agreement had always been that he would play with whichever band booked the gig first. Sure enough the conflict happened (for the Sept 23rd gig which was ultimately flooded out) and it forced us once again to seek a replacement. However THIS time instead of just being a forgetable fill-in, the replacement turned out to be someone who we ALL wanted in the band full time. I always knew that our old drummer was playing with fire and sure enough he got burned. Like Pete Best, he had entered the band a bit out of our despiration and he just never became a "mate". Anyways, I'm sure that this is all totally boring for most of you... if you're read this far, thanks. One thing for sure, as we all have experience with, kicking people out of bands is never fun. Our biggest problem is that we didn't have a manager like Brian Epstein to hide behind... we had to do it ourselves.

rickfan63 · Post by **rickfan63** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:35 pm

Yeah, that part of playing music, even though sometimes necessary, really sucks.