#Pete best

[v197sstuff]

So, this is the Beatles in 1962, just before PB was out in Ringo was in. I think it's obvious why they needed him

[tavolgisvist]

I was always interested in finding out what have happens on the photo. What gave them the idea of depict Paul's funeral: why the funeral, why Paul? Well…I have an answer, I suppose

More legendary than most, however, were a band briefly signed to Brian, the Big Three. Other musicians on the scene seemed to regard this band with awe. They were the original power trio, real sonic bruisers who’d built themselves the biggest amplifiers - nicknamed Coffins - that anyone had ever seen.

(Liverpool - Wondrous Place by Paul Du Noyer, 2002)

Epstein made his way to the Cavern club to see the group perform at a lunchtime session on November 9th. He wrote later that he had never seen anything like The Beatles on any stage. <…> "I loved their ad libs and I was fascinated by this, to me, new music with its pounding bass beat and its vast, engulfing sound." <…> The "pounding" bass that Epstein described was due in part to a new addition to The Beatles' equipment line-up. In the early 1960s there was really no such thing as a proper bass amplifier. Most bass players would use the most powerful guitar amplifier that they could get their hands on. But these were not designed for bass guitar, and did not provide the deep, throbbing bass tones that bass guitarists wanted. As The Beatles evolved their sound and Best perfected his "atomic beat" the group were searching for a stronger and more solid bass sound.

The band considered by many to be the loudest and most aggressive in Liverpool was The Big Three. They bad started out as Cass & The Cassanovas, a four-piece until leader and frontman Brian Casser left during the beginning of 1961. The remaining members stayed together to form The Big Three: Johnny Gustafson on bass, guitarist Adrian Barber, and Liverpool's loudest drummer, Johnny Hutchinson, on the skins.

Barber says that when they became a trio there was an instant problem: he and Gustafson weren't loud enough to project over Hutchinson's drumming. Even the relatively punchy Selmer Truvoice amp was not enough. Barber, however, had an interest in electronics from his days in the merchant navy. <…> Barber went out and bought a book about loudspeakers produced by G A Briggs, who owned the British Wharfedale speaker company, and inside he found construction details for various sizes of cabinets. "I decided on one, and Denis Kealing said he could get me a 15-inch speaker," recalls Barber. "I built a set-up for the bass guitar and for the vocal, in a cabinet about five feet tall by about 18 inches square. <…> I used that and mounted it in a metal ammunitions case, so we could carry it around without killing it. Johnny Gustafson used it as his bass amp, and it was very successful. "When we carried it we bad to lower it on its side, because it was long and skinny. The first time we took it down to the Cavern, we struggled down the tiny stairs there. As we carried this black-painted thing across the room it looked just like a coffin - and that's how it got its name: the Coffin. Now, the Cavern was the underground basement of a warehouse, with three vaulted brick-built archways. Over the years water had seeped down and brought calcium deposits with it, which had settled in the ceiling bricks. So when Johnny plucked that first bass note it was like a shower of snow corning down. People went, 'Wow look at that … and listen to that.' So we were really impressed, and I got ambitious at that point." <…> Other bands began to notice the relative sophistication of The Big Three's amplification, especially the bass gear. "Liverpool wasn't a competitive scene, before it got commercial," explains Barber. '"All the bands co-operated with one another and backed each other up. It was a cool scene, and I started to build these things for other people. Paul McCartney asked me to make him a Coffin. It had a single 15-inch speaker in a reflex-ported cabinet, with two chrome handles and wheels on the side."

McCartney started to use a Barber Coffin speaker cabinet during the late part of 1961. <…> McCartney himself recalls, "Adrian made me a great bass amp that he called the Coffin. And, man! Suddenly that was a total other world. That was bass as we know it now. It was like reggae bass: it was just too right there. It was great live." Pete Best too remembers the Coffin. "Neil Aspinall and I used to carry it. Every couple of shows there'd be a flight of stairs which you had to carry this thing up, and it was then we'd wonder why he couldn't have got something smaller. We'd have sweat streaming off us. But the beauty of it was, with all the laughing and joking aside, it did produce a great sound. The first time Paul plugged it in and used it, we just said my god, this is incredible. It added to The Beatles sound."

(Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments from Stage to Studio Hardcover by Andy Babiuk, 2010)

So, I guess, Paul is lying on his bass amp that they called the Coffin - and it's the reason of the pantomime on the photo.

[darkroomalleycat]

Pictures of the Beatles in 1962 at the Hamburg airport waiting to go home to Liverpool

[pennylane-dreams]

The Beatles (with Pete Best) performing at the Cavern Club in July 1961.

[the-ringo-in-our-starrs]

December 9th 1961

[flytotheway]

John and Paul moments in Midas Man part 1

[deitripper]

Hiii it's been a while 🗣️🗣️🗣️ serving u a smiley john🧔☝️

need to change my phone bc i feel the camera is slowly turning into crappp 🥹🥹🥹 i'll try to get a scanner soon just to post decent quality illustrations

U can find me on instagram @_deitripper is my username!

[ludmilachaibemachado]

December 8, 1961, The Cavern Club, lunchtime performance with British singer, the other Davy Jones🎸🥁🎸

Via Beatlemania FB🎸

[muzaktomyears]

Exhausted from shopping, John and I took a pie and coffee break at a small café. As we were eating our apple pie, three teenagers began flirting in loud, vulgar tones with the waitress, and John grew anxious. “They’ll beat us up just to impress her,” John said, only half in jest. He appeared to be most intimidated by a handsome, athletic kid whose “deliberate moves” reminded John of Pete Best, the Beatles drummer who was replaced by Ringo Starr in 1962. John hinted that it was Paul’s jealousy that led to Best being fired from the Beatles. “Pete gave Paul competition in the pretty-face department.”

John Lennon: Living on Borrowed Time, Frederic Seaman (1991)

[nothingbutpoison]

[thedinosaurprince]

When someone asks why I like Octopus's Garden

[crepesuzette2023]

That Klaus Voormann Interview where he says he might have been a better bass player for the Beatles than Paul

I got curious about this after reading this post about Klaus and Paul by @thewalrusespublicist. I saw that there was some interest in the interview in the comments, but that people hadn't been able to find it.

Original article (German) here (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2010)

Quick & dirty translation into English by: moi

• Humor translates poorly, especially without audio. I tried my best, but can’t guarantee I captured the tone perfectly.

• Apologies for the n-slur in the quote from Klaus’s grandmother. I left it in because it illustrates Klaus’s background and the spirit of the times.

• Speaking of: context is important, so I decided to translate the whole thing.

• Klaus is 5 years older than Paul — I must have known this, but didn’t realize how it must have impacted their relationship in Hamburg before now.

• I wasn’t able to find other English translations, which is why I did this one, but if you know of any, or have done one: let me know and I will add a link. And sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore anyone’s work.

------

Klaus Voormann: I should explain something right away: I have a real problem with dyslexia.

SZaW: Reading the menu?

Voormann: I have to read it out loud. I have to hear it to understand it. If I say "Knoblauchspeck mit Hausbrot" out loud, it’s there right away, and I won’t forget it.

SZaW: Is it an artists’ affliction?

Voormann: I don’t know. But it caused many hang-ups and problems I’m still carrying around with me.

SZaW: Were the 1950’s that bad?

Voormann: It was bad for me in the sense that none of my teachers realized I was dyslexic. The teacher said, “read from the book,” and I wanted to disappear from the earth. Chemistry didn’t interest me, historical dates didn’t mean anything to me, but the teachers wanted to beat it into you.

SZaW: But then you quit school to go to Hamburg, where, in the autumn of 1960, you discovered an obscure band from Liverpool called “The Beatles.” You can’t have been twenty yet [he was 22], I believe George Harrison was only 17. Stupid question: What were they like?

Voormann: Loud. I heard this noise from a basement at the Reeperbahn, and followed it. It grabbed me right away, because this was music I could hear and see right there in Hamburg: not a disc, no radio, but real people playing! I was amazed by the momentum they unleashed with only three instruments.  

SZaW: And you just went to them?

Voormann: During the break, I went to them and introduced myself. They looked incredibly strange: Studded jackets, hair in a DA, the boots [with the fur, just kidding]. Back then, I worked as a graphic designer for Hörzu und Kristall, but I wanted to design record sleeves. John Lennon pointed me to Stuart Sutcliffe and said, “talk to him, he’s our artist.”

SZaW: You wouldn’t expect studded jacket music to appeal to a coddled boy from the Berlin upper class.

Voormann: According to my mother, it was boogie-woogie, “negro music,” from the jungle. But to me, the Beatles were a revelation, as if I’d suddenly learned to roller skate or race on a motorbike. Up to that point, there’s been jazz on the one side, classical music on the other. Suddenly, something fresh entered the scene. You could tell they didn’t speak for the elite, but for the simple people: the toilet cleaner getting off in the back [???], the pimp who thinks it’s hot, or a famous photographer who’s obsessed with it.

SZaW: Your family back home must have been pleased. Rumor has it your grandfather owned a whole district back in Berlin.  

Voormann: My grandfather basically owned all of Heiligensee. He had shares in oil companies and South African diamond mines. Unfortunately, I didn’t meet him. He died before the inflation of 1923.

SZaW: Lucky for him.

Voormann: That depends.

SZaW: So, all that money became worthless inflation-billions?

Voormann: As children, we were playing roulette with the bills.

SZaW: A pastime fitting your class.

Voormann: My grandmother used to go to Monte Carlo to gamble.

SZaW: With real money?

Voormann: Back then it was real. I would have loved to know my grandfather; he was a great guy. There are stories about him throwing gold coins in the air because he enjoyed the girls screaming and jumping, trying to catch them. He liked to go out, and he had other women. When he came home, he brought back a silver plate of oysters for my grandmother, his “little dove.” My grandmother got angry and kicked the plate out of his hand, and he said, “my little dove, I didn’t know oysters could fly.” Then they made up.

SZaW: It must have been a better world. Obviously, you diligently followed your piano lessons as a child.

Voormann: I played Chopin, performed in concerts, and I might have become a good pianist. But at the time, it felt too risky. My parents didn’t want it, and ultimately, I didn’t, either. And so, it was decided I should become a graphics designer.  

SZaW: Coming from this world, entering the sweaty cellars of Hamburg must have felt like a descent into hell.

Voormann: Of course. It wasn't a protest, per se, but I went away, went to art school in Hamburg, and broke free from my family bonds. This music thing wouldn’t leave me alone, this love came from the gut. The Beatles added the heart.

SZaW: The Hamburg Beatles were a five-piece band, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and the drummer, Pete Best. Times must have been rough. Albert Goldmann writes in his biography that John killed a sailor on the Reeperbahn. And Stu Sutcliffe’s sister keeps saying Lennon killed her brother.

Voormann: Of course there were fights where Stuart got beaten up, not by John, but by blokes whose girlfriends liked Stuart.

SZaW: And Lennon was supposed to be a closet case, who had an affair with Stuart . . .

Voormann: Complete nonsense. The two of them knew each other since they went to school together in Liverpool, after all. I liked Stuart, too, and we, as guys, would hug each other from time to time. He was a charismatic artist, that was all. In my whole life, I never met anyone who saw and perceived as much as this little boy—no matter if it was a bird or the sound of a train.

SZaW: And why was this good-looking boy so ashamed on stage he stood with his back to the audience?

Voormann: He wasn’t ashamed of his looks; he was ashamed he didn’t know what he was doing on guitar. Not that rock’n’roll has a lot to do with actual music. "Tutti Frutti," for instance, has three repeating chords, and all the bass needs to play is the root note. Great musicianship isn’t part of it. For Stuart, it was difficult, because not only was he not a musician, he didn’t want to be one. Still, his love of rock’n’roll was enormous, and his charisma was on par with Elvis Presley. [KLAUS!!!!]

SZaW: Stuart was posing, whereas George Harrison practiced until his fingers bled.

Voormann: George had a very ambitious way to make licks his own. He couldn’t improvise chords on the spot like Eric Clapton; he had to craft them and put them together. If anyone fit the type of lead guitarist, it was Paul McCartney.

SZaW: Before he became the bassist, Paul played second guitar back in Hamburg.

Voormann: Most of the time. Later, in the "Top Ten" or in the "Star Club,” he also played the piano, simple stuff.

SZaW: Because rock'n'roll isn’t real music.

Voormann: Well, it isn’t.

SZaW: And yet, you wanted to play rock’n’roll at all costs?

Voormann: At some point, I bought Stuart Sutcliffe’s bass for 200 DM, because he wanted to paint. Later, I actually turned out to be a good bass player.

SZaW: because you spent a lot of time watching from the audience?

Voormann: I had the tools from my classical training, but I had no idea how to play on a stage. I played the songs I heard on the Reeperbahn at home, by myself.  

SZaW: Stu Sutcliffe couldn’t, and didn’t want to play. Did you want to take his place?

Voormann: Maybe. During their final show together, I went to John and said, “Well, John, would it be possible for me to play bass?” And he said, “Sorry, Klaus, Paul already bought a bass. He’s going to be our new bassist.”

SZaW: Close, but no cigar.

Voormann: Hm.

SZaW: You came close, but when world fame started, you weren’t on board. Is that a good way of putting it?

Voormann: Hm, yes it is.

SZaW: Do you regret it?

Voormann: It would be interesting to know what would have happened. They wouldn’t have been with four, but with five. Would it have worked? Would I have fit in? The Stones were a five-piece.  

SZaW: A six-piece, originally. They fired piano player Ian Stewart, because he wasn’t pretty enough.

Voormann: They certainly couldn't have accused me of that.

SZaW: Ex-Beatle Pete Best sometimes goes on revival tours, and still feels cheated.

Voormann: And if he lives to be a hundred years old: Pete Best is not a good drummer. He simply didn’t have the charisma for a band this powerful. Maybe I lacked that charisma, too, but it was Ringo who got things swinging.

SZaW: Like Pete Best, you narrowly missed your chance.

Voormann: If you look at the musical roots of the Beatles, I would have fit better, in some ways, than Paul.

SZaW: Ja?

Voormann: Many people will take this the wrong way if I'm saying it here, but I approach bass playing completely differently. I would have stood for something primitive, earthy. If I’d been in the band, I would have used my influence to push for more rhythm and blues.

SZaW: For the Hamburg cellar dwellers.

Voormann: I know that John could have been closer to these roots, that later came through in a few numbers. But from the moment they became Lennon-McCartney, that disappeared completely—"Please Please Me", "She Loves You", "Help" and everything. They took off towards a completely new style of music, and I probably would have been an obstacle.

SZaW: Unlike Paul McCartney, who seduces the camera with his puppy eyes in Let It Be.

Voormann: The charlatan.

SZaW: But important, because of the girls.

Voormann: Without Paul, Beatlemania wouldn’t have happened. Paul is an entertainer; he can handle an audience. Different from John, who wasn’t a front man.

SZaW: He could be very forward on the Hamburg stage, when he greeted the audience with "Sieg Heil!"

Voormann: He was joking.

SZaW: Nazi jokes.

Voormann: All of that was unprofessional stuff. Professionalism came from Paul.

SZaW: Is it true John and Paul brought the mop top haircut back from Paris?

Voormann: They were there, but still: Stuart had the hairstyle first.

SZaW: Who cut his hair?

Voormann: Astrid Kirchherr. But I don’t want to revisit that story, it’s so embarrassing.

SZaW: Why not? Hamburg’s only contribution to the world’s cultural heritage.

Voormann: I was the first to have his hair cut in this style by Astrid, and then the others wanted it, too.

SZaW: Where is Stu Sutcliffe’s bass guitar now?

Voormann: I needed money at some point, and had it auctioned off at Sotheby’s for thirty- or forty-thousand Mark. Stu’s sister bitched and complained, theft, etc., and that’s why I only got a couple of thousand Mark. I wish I could undo the sale. I would like to have the bass.

[tavolgisvist]

Paul and drums

Our kid was first in a group with John called Quarrymen, and apparently, I’d forgotten the set of drums fell off the back of a lorry, as we say in Liverpool, and landed up in our house. So I was learning drums, and one of the Quarrymen came back and said, ‘I remember you’re coming down the house, and it was great when you played drums for us.’ I said, ‘Did I?’ I’d totally forgotten. But then I realized why I forgot. It’s because I broke my arm in a scout camp, and this hand dropped. It was dead, paralyzed. So it took several years to get it back, and at that time, those drums that I was learning on, first of all, my brother, no wonder the drums on the band on the road are good. That’s where he learned it from my drums. But I couldn’t play anything then. So I’d forgotten that I was even the drummer, and Ringo got the job.

(Mike McCartney)

Mersey Beat Founder and Editor, Bill Harry wrote a guest column for Beatle Fan Magazine in 2019. He stated “For their August 7, 1961 gig, the Litherland Town Hall classified advertisement in the Liverpool Echo carried the message: ‘Hear Pete Best Sing Tonight.’ Best had been talked into performing the song “Pinwheel Twist,” which Paul had written for him to sing. Pete recalled in a conversation with Spencer Leigh: ‘Paul wrote the song and asked me to do it. He coupled it with Joey Dee’s hit “The Peppermint Twist.’ I used to get up and do the twist onstage and Paul played my drums. It was a little novelty act and it went down well with the fans. When The Beatles performed it, Paul took over on drums, George played Paul’s left-handed bass right-handed and Pete sang.”

(Source)

I used to get on Pete’s case a bit. He’d often stay out all night. He got to know a stripper and they were boyfriend and girlfriend. She didn’t finish work until four in the morning, so he’d stay up with her and roll back at about ten in the morning and be going to bed when we were starting work…

(Paul McCartney, Anthology, 2001)

In Hamburg, one week Tony Sheridan’s drummer got sick, and I drummed for him, for the extra cash, for a week . . . I can hold quite a good beat.

(The McCartney Legacy Volume 1. 1969-73 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair)

Q: When did you first play drums? A: My first recollection is in Hamburg. You’d get behind the kit to try and show the drummer what you wanted. That gradually grew to messing around on other people’s kits, which were lying around because there were a lot of groups playing in the places we played. You picked up the simplest beats very naturally. I remember one evening when Tony Sheridan’s drummer didn’t show up, so Tony said, “Come on, man, sit in!” I said, “No way! I can’t do this.” And he said, “Yeah, you can.” So I did it and then I was thinking, “Well! I’ve actually done a professional drumming gig!” Later, with The Beatles, there was a period where John, George, and I operated as a trio and picked up little bits of work. I remember playing in an illegal club in somebody’s basement on Upper Parliament Street in Liverpool’s Caribbean Quarter. One day this guy called Lord Woodbine, who ran the club, asked if we’d come in and accompany this stripper called Janine. We said, “Wow! Yeah, man! There’s a job.” He even paid us money. Q: It sounds like you would have paid him for that gig. A: Exactly [laughs]. So she came in and said, “Okay, I need you to play Ravel’s Bolero.” We said, “Oh, gee. Sorry, luv. We don’t read music. But we’ve got ’Raunchy.’ That might do.” I had somebody’s old drum kit, and I sat there with a broomstick between my legs, with a microphone tied to it so I could do a bit of vocals and drum at the same time. It was hilarious.

(Paul McCartney, interview with Robert L. Doerschuk for Drum!Magazine, 2005)

Q: When Ringo joined the band, that must have interrupted your emerging career on drums. A: Yeah, I was completely redundant. We loved Ringo so much. He was our favorite drummer in Liverpool, and when he joined the band, it was an explosion: Every song sounded new and fresh. He could pass what we felt was the true test for drummers, which was to be able to play “What’d I Say” — the cymbal work and the toms.

(Paul McCartney, interview with Robert L. Doerschuk for Drum!Magazine, 2005)

We did do a few little bits and pieces together before we all went our separate ways. John and I and Yoko did ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’. He enlisted me for that because he knew it was a great way to make a record. ‘We’ll go round to Abbey Road Studios. Who lives near there? Paul. Who’s going to drum on this record? Paul. Who can play bass? Paul. And who’ll do it if I ask him nicely? Paul.’ He wasn’t at all sheepish about asking. He probably said something like, ‘Oh, I’ve got this song I want to record. Would you come round?’ And I probably said, ‘Yeah, why not?’

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Dear Friend)

Steve Miller happened to be there recording, late at night, and he just breezed in. ‘Hey, what’s happening, man? Can I use the studio?’ ‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘Can I drum for you? I just had a fucking unholy argument with the guys there.’ I explained it to him, took ten minutes to get it off my chest. So I did a track, he and I stayed that night and did a track of his called My Dark Hour. I thrashed everything out on the drums. There’s a surfeit of aggressive drum fills, that’s all I can say about that. We stayed up until late. I played bass, guitar and drums and sang backing vocals. It’s actually a pretty good track. It was a very strange time in my life and I swear I got my first grey hairs that month. I saw them appearing. I looked in the mirror, I thought, I can see you. You’re all coming now. Welcome.

(Paul McCartney in Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 1997)

I really had to ask myself, “Do I want to give up music, or keep going?” I got a four-track Studer recording machine, like the Beatles used for Sgt. Pepper, put it in the corner of the living-room at my house in London and tried a very simple technique of just plugging directly into the back, not going through a mixing desk. It’s a cool way to record because it’s pure. If, say, I was doing a drum track, I’d play the drums, record it with one microphone, listen to it back, move the mike a little if there wasn’t enough hi-hat or cymbal, and then re-record. Then I’d add bass by plugging the mike into track two and overdubbing while listening to track one through headphones. I’d do that with all with four tracks. It was very hands-on, primitive way of working. <…> It was funky, and still sounds good to me.

(Paul McCartney, “Wingspan” documentary, 2001)

We did not see Ringo until the next night when he arrived at the session. He walked in and went straight to his drums…fiddled with them, then fiddled with them some more. “Somebody did something to my snare drum,” he said irritably. “Paul was here last night. He played them,” explained John. “He’s always fucking around with me things!” It sounded as though Ringo were back in Liverpool and all of them were still teenagers and nothing in their lives had changed. I realized then, that no matter what might happen among them, this was the way they would always relate to each other.

(May Pang, Loving John, 1983)

(Krla Beat, pic by lisamarie-vee)

So, I got into my studio in Scotland and started working, doing the drum track. I normally start with the drums. I sometimes use drum machines, but I like to redo it with real drums. I enjoy drumming. Then I put some bass on it. I was just doing an experimental thing. I was messing around and experimenting. Slowing down tapes, or speeding them up.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Coming Up)

Paul and I were in England, having dinner together [along with our wives]. I told him I was making an EP, and I said, “Why don’t you write me a song?” He wrote the song [Feeling the Sunlight] and put bass on it, he put piano, he put the drums on — and I had to take the drums off. [Laughs.]

(Ringo Starr, interview with Rob Tannenbaum for AARP, Nov 2023)

George was the first one to make a solo album [Wonderwall Music], and I was the drummer. John started the Plastic Ono Band, and I was the drummer. Paul likes to play drums himself, or I would’ve been on his albums too.

(Ringo Starr, interview with Rob Tannenbaum for AARP, Nov 2023)

Q: As strong as you are on bass, keyboards, guitar, and as a singer and writer, is it frustrating to play your drum parts at a more limited level? A: That never intimidates me, though it probably should. I just have so much enthusiasm when I do things that I don’t even consider it. I’m lucky, because some people would wrack themselves with doubt, but when I came to this project I was like, “Man, let’s just have a bit of fun!” It didn’t occur to me that I was some idiot jumping on the kit. I know that a lot of drummers can play rings around me, but as long as I keep it simple and don’t get too flash, I can play with a steady, swampy feel, and that’ll do the job.

(Paul McCartney, interview with Robert L. Doerschuk for Drum!Magazine, 2005)

@i-am-the-oyster, I hope you will enjoy :)

+ this

[undying-love]

"Humour was a big forte with them in those days, especially John and Paul. But it was always, I wouldn't say a battle, but it was interesting for me sitting at the back to actually to see them play off one another. It was always a two-man show between John and Paul. On some nights Paul would come out on top, and on other nights John would come out on top." -Pete Best

Paul Mccartney: Now and Then, by Tony Barrow

[harrisonsbabygirl]

[mrooops]

sharing some unfinished pieces of story