Pete Best, the original drummer in The Beatles, was replaced by Ringo Starr shortly before the band recorded their first album.
Initially a member of Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, Starr left the group to join up with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. The trio had decided to oust Best from the group, with McCartney and Harrison believing he was “too conventional” for the group. Best was stunned by the decision to boot him from The Beatles, and shared as much in his autobiography. He wrote: “Why had it taken two years for John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison to decide that my drumming was not of a high enough standard for them?” Starr came in as replacement, with the veteran drummer recalling the moment he was asked to “sit in” for Best, who he was told was ill.
Starr was originally unconvinced by The Beatles as a musical outfit, saying his time in The Hurricanes saw him play at a far more professional level, much earlier than the Fab Four. He likened the group at the time to modern-day “struggling artists” and said he was relatively unconvinced, but when he got back to Liverpool he met with Brian Epstein, The Beatles’ manager.
Starr recalled: “When I was with Rory (Rory Storm and the Hurricanes) the Beatles were nothing. They weren’t even formed, you know. And later on when we went professional…. I stopped work at twenty and went to Butman’s holiday camp to play in the Rockin’ Calypso. Usually every night they had a steel band.
“Well, we went down this one afternoon and there’s John and Paul, and they were teaching Stuart Sutcliffe how to play bass. That’s how loose it was for them. I mean, we were the professionals and they were just like, the boys, you know– these struggling artists in those days.
“Brian Epstein came over. He says, ‘Will you sit in with the Beatles? Pete (Best) isn’t well.’ So I got up, and he had this big car, and he drove me down there. And I played that afternoon, then the other show at Southport that evening.”
After performing with the group, Starr says he and Epstein discussed him joining the band on a full time basis. Liverpool-based fans were not keen on the idea, though, and made themselves known by chanting ‘Pete forever, Ringo never!,’ Starr says.
He added: “So there was these chants while we were trying to play, all this stuff going on. And George got a black eye– some guy punched him because I joined the band.
“Can you imagine someone punching him because I joined, you know. And he was the main instigator anyway, George, for getting me in ‘cuz he liked me playing.”
Starr would join the band officially on August 18, 1962. The Beatles would record their first album, Please Please Me, just a short while later. Starr says it took them “just twelve hours” to play out all the songs, with a playback of their effort in the evening proving satisfactory to The Beatles.
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