Was Pete Best really that bad of a drummer?

You’re telling me that a drummer who wasn’t good enough to play Please Please Me would’ve done She Said She Said, Tomorrow Never Knows, Day in the Life, etc. as well as a Ringo?

 

Cute. The point is that even by 1969 they were not that kind of band, while many of their peers of the early-mid 60s did become that, wielding musical histrionics that was out of step with what the Beatles were: Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck Group, Humble Pie, The Who, etc.

 

Yeah and this photo pretty much proves it; his hair looks unnaturally lacquered into an awkward straight mop top. I doubt that do would have survived a mild breeze.

 

Interesting. I never considered the possibility that the fabled ‘Pinwheel Twist’ might have just been a cover of ‘Peppermint Twist’ with one word changed. It’s possible, but by no means conclusive. Why change just one word? Why not just do a straight cover? What is the significance of ‘Pinwheel’ over ‘Peppermint’? An in-joke? (Genuine question here, if it turns out that Pinwheel is a parochial reference I think the chances of it being a straight cover go up considerably).

I also don’t think that Pete’s use of the phrase ‘coupled with’ conclusively proves that it was just a cover of ‘Peppermint Twist’ with one word changed. I take the phrase to casually mean ‘heavily inspired by’ rather than literally ‘directly lifted from’; It makes me imagine an original song as close to Peppermint Twist as say ‘Just Like Me’ by Paul Revere and the Raiders is to ‘I Cant Explain’; Ie clearly directly derived from, but still it’s own entity. I could well be wrong, but that’s my gut interpretation on the info we have.

 

I don't know. Maybe Dave was mad at Mick and didn't want him on the song? It seems an unlikely detail for Graham to be mistaken about.

 

those are your words...

 

These are Graham's own words, taken from Bobby Graham - Mike Dolbear :
“I played on Dave Davies' ‘Death Of A Clown’, too. It was so good. I think The Kinks used me because I interpreted the music the way they wanted. I guess I was lucky, but I felt it was so easy. The music was great."

 

Then again, here's Mick on another Dave song, seemingly without issue. No problems with his playing here:

 

I'm just baffled by your defense of Best as a musician, based on what we know about him. I agree he was treated poorly by the others, and it's certainly sad that he stuck with the band through their unknown days only to be dumped right before they became the biggest group in the world. But based on the available audio of him and the recollections of people who knew and heard the group before and after Ringo joined, I simply don't understand your basis for implying that Pete Best could have equaled or surpassed Ringo's contributions to the group's music. On what do you ground that assumption?

 

At first glance, I thought of Milton Berle in a wig...

 

That's not a Dave song, it's a Ray song on which Dave sings lead. I don't know why they'd have Graham on "Death of a Clown" at that late date, but it seems an unlikely detail for Graham to be mistaken about. We do know Dave and Mick's relationship was volatile, so I was speculating that perhaps on that occasion Dave had more of a proprietary sense about that track (having written it) and didn't want Mick on it.

 

He used the word "wrote." He was there, you weren't. If it means that much to you, take it up with him.

 

Not knowing anything else, "coupled with" sounds to me like it could mean they were performed in some sort of medley.

Or that they were released as the "A" and "B" sides of a single. But they weren't, were they?

 

He also said that he wasn't fired for his lack of talent, but rather because he was too pretty. Just because he said it - that makes it true?

Pete Best seems to be a nice guy BUT he's also proven himself over the decades to have a propensity for self-serving spin when it comes to his time in the band. I take *everything* he says with a large grain of salt. "Paul wrote a song FOR me" sounds far more impressive than "I sang on a cover of Peppermint Twist". But then he didn't actually go so far as to say that Paul wrote the song specifically FOR him.

YOU were the one who said that!

PS - why do I need to take it up with him when YOU are the one who keeps arguing about it?

 

You seem to know who Paul had in mind when he wrote the song. Who was it?

 

Actually YOU are the only one claiming to know who he wrote it for - not even Pete made that claim based on his quote. Show me where I claimed to "know" who he wrote it for (if he actually did write it - meaning if he did anything more than just change a few words/lines of Peppermint Twist - which would most definitely not be "writing it" at all).

 

is that your way of saying "I don't know?"

try using more all caps. maybe that'll help.

 

Well you are making it seem necessary - its SOMETHING to try to increase your reading comprehension of what I ACTUALLY said, which I've needed to repeat a few times in my replies to you.

 

you're the one who didn't even know about "pinwheel twist" until yesterday, and then wrote a long email full of speculation to try to justify your original position. as we all (or should) learn on the schoolyard as children, if you can't take it, don't dish it out.

 

I studied the content of the quote and made an intellectually honest study/appraisal of it. Excuse me for not blindly believing everything I read on the internet. Especially without even bothering to read it carefully.

BTW where did I claim that I WASN'T speculating? Or claimed that I knew what I was saying was correct. My post was full of hedging. Its called again - being intellectually honest.

PS - What have "I dished out" besides trying to honestly interpret the direct quotes:

1 - "wrote" and "wrote FOR ME" do not mean the same thing

...and...

2 - "coupled with" could mean either "medley'd with" or it could mean "re-wrote/adapted new words to a pre-existing song/melody.

Are you claiming either of these points are not true?

So what's wrong with acknowledging them?

Where's your "long email" (?) supporting your claims? Go ahead - sift through the quotes you provided and logically justify your opinions on what its saying, rather than just repeatedly telling me that you KNOW I'm wrong - especially when I never even made the claim that I'm definitely right.

Explain to me how "wrote" and "wrote for me" mean exactly the same thing. Or how "coupled with" doesn't mean (at the very least) "medley'd with" if not actually "melded with/altered words on an existing song/melody"

Until you do so you are the only one guilty of "dishing out" anything.

 

Ringo is God... the best drummer ever ...had the best voice in the Beatles without Ringo the Beatles would have failed to make it big, write hundreds of songs...thank god for Ringo...Happy now? I am...move on.

 

So...by virtue of him "being there" that makes his words gospel?

Does the same apply to Bernard Purdie?

Hey - maybe these two are in cahoots!

 

Pete's casual use of 'coupled with' may not have been so literal and be could be used casually to mean the song was derived from/playing off the concept of 'Peppermint Twist' without being a cover of it. Like the way if you read interviews with John Lennon he would often say that one song was 'son of' another or 'his attempt to write Smokey Robinson' etc. Also like the way Lennon described 'Showdown' by ELO as 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' meets 'Lightnin Strikes'.. it doesn't mean the ELO song is literally 2 half cover versions stuck together, it just means that it's direct influences are obvious.

Has Paul ever been asked about Pinwheel Twist? That might clear things up. This article from The Beatles Bible on the song contains quotes from two Cavern Audience members/fellow musicians that both strongly suggest it was an original (if insubstantial) tune.

'When the twist came out, there was an Italian/American from New York called Peppy who came to the Cavern to demonstrate how to do the dance. He was on for half an hour and he was very good as I'd never seen anyone demonstrate a dance before. The twist was unheard of in Liverpool as everybody was jiving. The Beatles wrote a song called Pinwheel Twist and it was brilliant. It was a twist song with a great arrangement.'

'Shortly after Peppy and the New York Twisters did their set, The Beatles came on and said that they had written a song in the band room called The Pinwheel Twist. It was a one four five, C-F-G song, not much more than 'Come on, do the pinwheel twist'. It wasn't a brilliant song, but it showed that they had kept their ear to what was going on and I'd never heard anybody say before that they had written a song during the break. I liked the spontaneity of it all and it was another first for The Beatles.'

Live: Cavern Club, Liverpool (evening)

 

i'm gonna go out on a limb here and state my opinion that you're beyond persuasion. and you certainly haven't changed my mind. good luck persuading every one else who cares passionately about the authorship of "pinwheel twist" and who the original intended singer was.

 

Yes I'm beyond being persuaded by what amounts to your claims that you KNOW that I'm wrong when in reality you KNOW nothing. Its speculations on both sides, but at least *I* can admit it!