Was Pete Best really that bad of a drummer?

really? Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and tons of others that blow the Ring away...Hmmm...
one of a kind is broad spectrum...

 

well, sure .... but they're not Ringo !
For that matter, Krupa and Rich were one-of-a-kinds at what they do (did) so well.

 

Yeah, but you have to ask yourself WTF Buddy Rich would do on something like A Day In The Life. Economy was a dirty word for cats like that. Then again Buddy Rich would have probably never lowered himself to play with some pop act like The Beatles.

Rock n roll has never been about what you CAN do but rather about what you DO! I’m not sure guys like Buddy or these amazing jazz guys could ever get into the mentality of playing tastefully and creatively in order to serve a pop song.

 

I AGREE with your points! IMO, out of the Beatles Ringo would not have been anything super special...Hey I love Ringo as I've loved the Beatles nearly all of my life. Ringo is special in a special magical group that no other has come close to...I just don't get the way ppl are so overprotective of him when they don't agree with others opinions...boiling down to down right nastiness towards such...

 

YUP...

 

Right, he could keep basic time, and that was it. A very mediocre drummer, who also didn't fit in with the rest of the band.
Why it's over complicated as to why he was fired is beyond me.

 

Buddy Rich could play as tastefully & creatively as anyone, listen to Charlie Parker with Strings.

Having said that, Ringo was absolutely perfect for The Beatles.

 

Why read it then? Why post?

 

Thank you for pointing that out. Buddy was most famous for his flash, but he could dial it in to whatever fit the music best, plus he could swing and groove like crazy. Not unlike Ringo, in his own way!

I really don't get this practice of trying to prop up one musician by putting down another one. It makes no sense at all.

 

You can have technique, chops etc by the boatload- but can you play for the song? They are two different disciplines IMHO. Just occasionally you get players who can successfully balance the two - Jeff Porcaro immediately comes to mind.

Ringo is in a category of his own. Left-handed from birth, his grandmother made him become right-handed because of her superstitions about lefties. He ends up playing a right handed kit. If that doesn’t give your playing a distinctive character, I don’t know what will! Then look at the variety of styles across the Beatles catalogue. Ringo turned his hand (pun intended) to all of them.

As John said in an interview posted on another thread, Pete never improved. He still can’t play a roll and come back on the beat, bless him (before you start on me, there’s video evidence out there). Can you imagine him playing - or even coming up with the parts on ‘Rain’, ‘Day in the Life’ etc

Give it a rest, people. There are more interesting things to talk about. Some of you are starting to sound like Pete - ‘there must be another reason’!

 

His mother laid the groundwork for him getting the job.

 

In what way?

 

Merry Christmas Pete.

 

I guess because she was the owner of The Casbah Coffee Club, which was the place they played (and later were resident at) as far back as The Quarrymen with no drummer.

Afterwards, when they were The Beatles (with Pete), she tried to get them lunch spot at The Cavern.

 

I am not sure who said it but they stated that Ringo was a better Beatle than Pete. May have been a marketing move

 

Ok, but they only went for Pete when they had no other option - and because they needed a drummer for Hamburg. If Mo had really been that crucial to Pete getting the job as their drummer, why did it take so long for him to be asked to join?

 

it's the way he was fired...obviously we know who the better drummer is...

 

video blocked...

 

Yeah. I was just taking a guess based on:

 

The Beatles image in the Pete Best era is so un-Beatle-esque

They look like a bunch of squares.

 

Having just watched the Ron Howard documentary, I infer that the "dramatic improvement" everybody mentions is likely because Ringo hit harder than Pete Best. Back in the day before mic' drums and PA systems, a hard hitting drummer would be perceived as noticeably better than a softer hitting drummer.

Ringo also may have been better at keeping time. Some (mostly amateur) drummers do not really keep time - they just play along with the time set by the rest of the band. This can lead to erratic tempo speed ups and slow downs.

 

Pete could hit hard - in fact it was his trademark "Atom Beat" that set the Beatles apart form other groups - apparently you could feel the thud of the bass drum, rare for the time especially as there was no amplification of the drums (save for bleeding through to the vocal microphones). The problem was, Pete couldn't move on from this, there was little variety in his playing, something Ringo had in spades. That's why the Decca tapes leave us cold, there's a lack of variety in Pete's playing, something we wouldn't notice that much watching the Beatles live, mesmerised by the stage presence of the other three. Especially from the viewpoint of 1961/2.

As for time-keeping, again Pete was fine, unfortunately we all tend to focus on the disastrous first attempt at Love Me Do - the whole group are woefully under-rehearsed, and as the drummer Pete is exposed the most. Incidentally, one of Ringo's strengths is his ability to speed up and slow down as the mood (of the song) takes him. Great live, but he was not averse to doing this in the studio, albeit when they recorded live backing tracks. Check out the harmonica solo of Little Child, his speeding up adds that extra touch of excitement, pulling it back into line straight after.

 

Perfectly summed-up!

 

Pete Best just didn't fit. They might've been a minor act with Pete in the band, but, as troll-ish as it sounds, it was Ringo's originality that was the final ingredient that set them apart from all the other myriad 1960s acts. It's not as if The Beatles existed in a vacuum without competition. It was not just three guys; it was all four, both in terms of their musicality, and in terms of their image, and their personalities, that made The Beatles what and who they were. Ringo was Ringo - enough said. Like him or not he has charm in spades. He fits the look. He innovates on the groove. Pete Best was just a mediocre to decent, one in a million, early 1960s skiffle drummer whose look did not jive with the rest of the band, and with him in tow they would not have gone far. I can neither imagine him embracing The Beatles' psychedelic period nor adapting his drums to it.

People like to rag on Ringo cause he's got a bad singing voice and isn't a good songwriter. But being a singer or a songwriter isn't the most important part of being in a band. It's the guy who holds the rhythm down. Its the guy who keeps the beat. Without that you could have the best songwriter ever born and the result still would not be up to snuff.

Those '62 sessions sound like just another generic 60s act. Not The Beatles. They needed Ringo, and Ringo fit with them. Pete Best was just a hanger-on, at best.