Regarding the post I made regarding George Martin and the ‘Love Me Do’ sessions, it was only to point out that Andy White was booked because of Ringo, not Pete Best. There were so many comments, that I will try and cover some of them. When they returned from their first ‘baptism of fire’ in Hamburg, they ignited the Liverpool rock scene at Litherland Town Hall and a noticeable attraction was the ‘atom beat’ created by Pete Best. Mrs Best was like a semi-manager to them, putting on extra gigs at places like Knotty Ash Village Hall to help them financially – and paying them a lot more than other promoters. Writing to the Cavern to get them work there, writing to Granada TV trying to get them on ‘People and Places.’ Organising their bookings with the help of Neil Aspinall and much else. There were rumours that the other members of the Beatles felt she was too dominant in their lives, that she was obviously biased in favour of her son. My personal opinion is that it was George more than any of the other members who pushed for Ringo to replace Pete. John was later to say they were cowards for the way it was done. I was with the Beatles on the coach the night they did the radio show in Manchester. When we all got on the coach after the recording, we couldn’t find Pete and drove around the block a few times. The Manchester girls had gone berserk about him and he couldn’t get out of the theatre. When he did manage it, Jim McCartney had a go at him on the coach – but it wasn’t Pete’s fault. John did like a drink and he did get drunk. At Paul’s 21st he not only beat up Bob Wooler and had to be pulled off, he also tried to beat up a girl. Ron Richards was George Martin’s assistant and he was the one who recorded the few acts on the Parlophone label, including Shane Fenton and Paul Gadd (later to become Gary Glitter), so he was the one who took over their recording audition. George Martin wasn’t initially present. It was when they began to play some of their original material that the engineer went down to the canteen and brought George back to listen to them. Who knows, but for that, Richards might have become their recording manager. George did tell Brian that he preferred a session drummer, but that it was no reflection on their current drummer. He explained that drumming on stage was different to drumming in a recording studio. It didn’t matter with guitars and vocals, but professional session drummers were preferred. When they came down for their second audition, also recorded by Ron Richards, they had Ringo. No session man there. George didn’t know Pete had been sacked and because he hadn’t hired a session drummer, he must have made some sort of acknowledgement. Paul thought Ringo was terrible at the session and said so, so did Richards and Martin and it was because of that that they booked a session drummer for the third session of ‘Love Me Do.’ Incidentally, how good would Pete have become if he could have spent all the succeeding years with the group. Remember, he retired from music and worked as a civil servant for a few decades after he was sacked (I know he had his own band for a short time), but he would obviously have improved if he had continued drumming. The Beatles themselves werent the brilliant group prior to their first Hamburg season, they improved fantastically - as did Stuart during their first Hamburg stint.
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 16:37:52 +0000