John's quote about Pete Best's drumming

I was re-reading Tony Barrow's book last night and was struck by a
quote he attributes to John. He claims John said to him in 1964, "Pete
Best was a great drummer, Ringo Starr is a great Beatle."

No one will deny Ringo's importance to the group and his charisma, but
does anyone think John really called Pete a "great" drummer? In several

BrianQ...

Play all three versions of Love Me Do back to back.
First, it becomes evident from the album version
that it was completely unnecessary to replace Ringo on the 45 version.

Second, when you play the "Pete" version from Anthology,
it becomes evident that he really, really sucked on drums.

jdmack02...

Not to defend Pete Best to hard, but when I listen to his drumming on
"My Bonnie" or "Besame Mucho," it's clear to me that he just had a
screw up on that particular recording of "Love Me Do."

donz5...

Not necessarily; there's also night and day between Pete's and Ringo's
drumming on the group's various BBC performances of "Sure to Fall."

Of course, then again, I still prefer to believe that the Anthology
version of "Love Me Do" with Pete Best is actually with Ringo Starr.
The drumming on the single and album versions of LMD sound awfully
similar, and there must have been *something* about Ringo's drumming
that made George Martin bring in Andy White for the remake. Perhaps
the Anthology version of LMD is really a take from Sept. 4, 1962.

J. D.

Danny Caccavo...

I don't think that take is with Ringo.

Listening to Ringo's 9/4 recording of Love Me Do, I can see how George
Martin wanted to try the redo. Keep in mind 1) George Martin was
expecting to supply a drummer anyway, but decided to give Ringo a
chance, then 2) Listen to the solidity of the drumming on 9/11 as
compared to 9/4. Andy White did a much better job with the bass drum.

Bringing in Andy White sure kicked Ringo's ass though. Note how Ringo
subsequently copped Andy White's drum part for "Please Please Me" (in
fact, Ringo outdid Andy on that one for feel).

I also remember in the Anthology interview that Ringo said something
like "There wasn't anything [Andy] could do that I couldn't do...or
copy."

interviews from the 70's, John made it clear that Pete wasn't a great
drummer and his personality didn't fit into the group. John
specifically said on the Rolling Stones tapes that Ringo was by far the
better drummer than Pete, though he wasn't a technical drummer (neither
was Pete).

Did Barrow make this up, mis-remember or do you think John might have
actually said it?

timagine...

John's accent was probably on how well Ringo filled out the personality
of the group.

voice from the past

Tom K...

John is, IMO, almost biblical in the sense that you can find a lot of
contradictory statesments on almost every subject. Thusly people can
construct "their own" John, and if he ever said anything firmly consistant
that doesn't fit whoevers agenda, it can always be interpreted as a result
his complicated/destroyed/manipulative mindset at the time.
Either that, or Yoko made him say/do it ;-)
But *I* feel fairly shure that he loved Ringo as a drummer, and as a human
being, above just about anybody else.

Runnnerr...

My vote goes with a bad memory first and then making it up.