Best of the Beatles Page 11

  Pete was speaking shortly before he appeared at the Merseybeatle Convention at the Adelphi Hotel and just 2 weeks before the death of his mother, Mona, from a heart attack. Pete wasn’t playing at the Convention, but that would happen for a charity appearance at the Grafton Rooms in 1989. John Banks, the Merseybeats’ original drummer, had died and Pete took part in his benefit. How ironic that Pete Best should make his comeback drumming for the Merseybeats, the very job he turned down with Brian Epstein.

  Kathy Best encouraged her husband to undertake his own Restart. At first, he worked with member of the Merseybeats and Liverpool Express, notably Billy Kinsley, but then he formed a band with his brother, Roag. In 1996, Pete Best was featured on BBC1’s Animal Hospital as the band found a live snake in an amp they had hired for a UK tour. Pete Best couldn’t escape from snakes.

  To mark the tenth anniversary of John Lennon’s assassination in December 1990, Yoko Ono gave support to an all-star charity concert at the Pier Head in Liverpool – ‘Imagine… John Lennon’. It was a programme of extremes – Lou Reed chilling out with ‘Mother’ and Kylie Minogue prancing through ‘Help!’ Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr decided not to appear live, while George Harrison declined to appear at all – in retrospect, a wise decision as battles raged over the monies raised by the concert. Paul submitted a video of a medley of ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘PS I Love You’, while Ringo evoked the Traveling Wilburys with his video of I Call Your Name with Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty. Despite representations from the Merseycats charity, none of the 1960s Liverpool musicians or bands was allowed on the bill.

  Not to be outdone, the Merseycats organised their own charity event. ‘Imagine… the Sixties’, at the Philharmonic Hall on the previous day and I went to that as a kind of Phil Inspector. The show was closed by the Pete Best Band featuring Billy Kinsley of the Merseybeats, who included a stomping version of the Beatles’ ‘I’ll Get You’. The compere, Billy Butler, introduced Pete as, “The only Beatle performing in Liverpool this weekend.” Would Pete Best have appeared on a John Lennon tribute if he believed that John was responsible for ousting him from the Beatles?

  Pete Best took early retirement in 1993. His brother Roag had an entertainment agency, Splash, and played drums for a contemporary band. Roag says, “I went through a heavy metal phase where you play like Animal off the Muppets. You hit everything as hard and fast as you can. Then jazz and funk came along, so what I do is a fusion of everything that has come along since the 1960s.”

  They amalgamated their resources and formed the Pete Best Band, which has been touring the UK, the USA, Australia, Japan, Canada, Italy and Argentina. The band plays a mixture of old and new material, but many Beatle covers have been radically changed. It is like hearing the Beatles’ hits played by Free. Pete and Roag create a very solid sound with their double-drumming, but surely fans want at least one number where Pete is drumming on his own. The duo can hardly criticise listeners who think that Pete’s drumming is being deliberately obscured.

  The Pete Best Band consists of young musicians, mostly known to Roag through his other ventures. They have also made several albums together and a surprising assessment came when I played some of their music to drumming authority Garry Tamlyn. “It sounds like one drummer to me. I can’t hear any layering of rhythms there. If they are both playing exactly the same, then it is incredibly accurate as there is no flange effect where one snare hits just after the other. It is incredibly in time – or there is just one drummer playing the basic drumbeat. Maybe one of them is just playing cymbals or hit-hat, but it certainly doesn’t sound like two drummers. What they do is nothing like the Allman Brothers’ early stuff where one drummer would be laying down a basic drumbeat and the other would be ornamenting around various rhythms, so you can clearly discern that there are two types of drumbeats in the one recording.”

  Over the years, Pete Best has been involved in various projects relating to his days with the Beatles. He was an adviser on the film Birth of The Beatles (1979) which was shot in Liverpool and directed by Richard Marquant. Ryan Michael plays Pete Best and the drumming in that film is surprisingly good.

  Who can tell what will happen? Who could tell that Robbie Williams would have more success than Gary Barlow after Take That? In 1995, I saw a very entertaining new play at the Liverpool Everyman, Best!, by Fred Lawless, which was directed by Paul Codman. ‘Love Me Do’ makes Number 17 but the Beatles’ second single flops, while Pete Best has a Number 1. The play creates an alternative universe in which Pete becomes a major star and good jokes abound – Linda McCartney works at the Stanley Abattoir and Cynthia Lennon runs off with a Japanese businessman. The other Beatles decide to take their revenge. Pete Best, played by Tony O’Keefe, is portrayed as a total shit who is assassinated in the same way as John Lennon.

  The 1994 film Backbeat was about Stuart Sutcliffe and it captured the sheer joie de vivre of the Beatles in the early 1960s, particularly in Hamburg. Although Stuart may not have contributed much to the Beatles, he was a very decorative element of their stage show. The Beatles are shown, first and foremost, as John Lennon’s band – so much so that the weedily-dressed Paul McCartney is only given one song, ‘Twenty Flight Rock’. Even ‘Long Tall Sally’ is put into John’s mouth.

  In the film, the foul-mouthed John Lennon, played by Ian Hart, anxious to start a fight, says to Pete Best, “You don’t say much, do you?”

  Pete Best (Scot Williams) replies, “Drummers don’t talk, you must have noticed that. Just might as well be deaf and dumb, drummers. I mean, when was the last time you heard a drummer say anything? See? You know why, don’t you. I’ll tell you why, ‘Cause nobody fucking listens.’”

  The real Pete Best says, “I didn’t meet Scot until after the film had been completed, as the film-makers had told him that it wasn’t a good idea to meet me. He said he would have portrayed me differently had he met me, which is a nice compliment. They got the publicity wrong: they marketed it as the story of five lads in Germany, but it was really the love story of Astrid and Stu with John making the eternal triangle.”

  Scot Williams: “I tried to mime playing the drums on the soundtrack. Most of the time it was Dave Grohl of Nirvana, but they used Tony Sheridan’s version of ‘My Bonnie’ and that was the one I had difficulty with. I couldn’t keep up with Pete’s playing.”

  By 1990, the market was flooded with bootlegs of outtakes and alternative versions from the Beatles’ recording sessions, which were easily obtainable through record fairs. The Beatles obtained no income from this – and this – more than anything, prompted them to look at their back catalogue and compile a series of CDs and videos under the blanket title Anthology.

  They decided that the interviews for the videos should be restricted, by and large, to themselves, George Martin and Neil Aspinall. Pete Best was not asked for his views. When the double-CD Anthology 1 was released, the Beatles couldn’t resist a further dig at Pete. A well-known poster advertising ‘The Savage Young Beatles’ was prominently featured. Pete’s face had been torn away and replaced by Ringo’s. Okay, Klaus Voormann did the artwork but the Beatles approved it. “When I saw it, I thought, that’s funny, my head’s missing”, says Pete good-naturedly, “it was out of order but it’s their project and it’s up to them.” Pete got his revenge because Carlsberg filmed an advert for ‘Probably the Pete Best lager in the world’ that was shown in the advertising break for the first TV episode of the Anthology series.

  To be fair, ‘In My Life’ is used for a montage in the first Anthology video. As John Lennon sings, ‘Although I’ll never lose affection for people and things that went before’, we’re shown a picture of Pete Best.

  Apple had to contact Pete Best because twelve tracks with Pete on drums were to be used on the CD. “Apple told me that they had decided to use certain tracks with myself on the first Anthology CD. I was more excited about the world tour I was planning at the time and the terms and conditions for Anthology were handled by my lawyers and their lawyers.
I stood back in amazement when it was released. There was massive publicity and it was Beatlemania all over again.”

  Pete didn’t meet Paul, George or Ringo over the Anthology project. It would be difficult for them to meet Pete – it could not be like old friends meeting up because it is tied up with lost opportunities and lost fortunes. “I could ask Neil Aspinall, who is the head of the Apple Corporation and very busy, to make an appointment with them, but it would be a very false way of renewing a friendship.” Pete says wisely. “I think something will happen only if it is meant to happen. If I did meet them, I don’t think I would ask them why they kicked me out of the Beatles. That would be unfair and not something I would rake up again.” (2014 note – so far as I know, Pete has still to meet Paul and Ringo again.)

  Anthology 1 sold for £20 – and even if Pete only received 1p for each track, the album did sell 10 million, that’s over £1 million. According to press reports he stood to make £8 million. In any event, it has made him a multi-millionaire. Shortly after its success I invited Pete Best into BBC Radio Merseyside to answer questions from listeners. The first listener asked him, “Pete, how are you fixed for a loan?”

  Paul McCartney was knighted in the New Year’s Honours for 1997. He is a member of the establishment and yet he has sought to maintain his links with the young. In 1997, for example, he released his symphony, ‘Standing Stone’, and also attempted to challenge Oasis with a new album. Ironically, the title of the album, Flaming Pie and the title of the Oasis album, Be Here Now, were taken from phrases by John Lennon.

  I applaud all that McCartney has done for young musicians, actors and technicians by founding and building the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), appropriately, on the ground of his old school, the Liverpool Institute. McCartney is as pleasant as someone who is ultrafamous and rich and in charge of a big business empire can be and he is keen to be seen that way. As psychotherapist Tony Hazzard says, “In Jungian terms, you would say that Paul McCartney is all persona. He looks after his image very carefully.”

  There are occasional lapses, normally related to his possessiveness about Beatles’ memorabilia. He stopped Mal Evans’ widow from selling one of his hand-written lyrics and he refused to sign TV host Chris Evans’ star-studded TGI Friday table because he thought someone would make a great deal of money out of it one day. Although many personal details are given in McCartney’s songs, he has never referred to the sacking – or if he has, it has been so oblique, I haven’t recognised it.

  Paul McCartney was Best Songwriter at the 1997 Q Awards, beating such nominees as Paul Weller and Beck. He collected his award but left early when a special award was being given to Phil Spector. Spector had produced, or rather over-produced, the Beatles’ album Let It Be and McCartney had never forgiven him for the choir added to ‘The Long and Winding Road.’ According to Q magazine’s report, he immediately left the room, muttering “It’s a Let It Be thing.”

  In January 1998, the Liverpool Echo announced a telephone poll to choose Merseyside’s greatest ever entertainers. One hundred entertainers were listed with each one allocated a personal phone line to register votes. The motley crew included Arthur Askey, Pete Best, Cilla Black, Sir Adrian Boult, Mel C of the Spice Girls, Lewis Collins, Kenny Everett, Billy Fury, Hetty King, Billy J. Kramer, Charlie Landsborough, Freddie Starr, Frankie Vaughan, Bob Wooler and the four mop tops. I’m surprised that Red Rum wasn’t included.

  The results were published in the January 23 edition. Ken Dodd was the winner, so no surprises there. Second came Gladys Ambrose, a semi-operatic singer who plays Julia Brogan in Brookside, followed by Sonia, actor Andrew Schofield and Pete Best. How can Pete Best possibly be a greater entertainer than the other Beatles? And for that matter, how can Sonia come third? The result has to be the consequences of multiple voting – Sonia comes from a large family and Pete Best has many supporters. You could argue that Pete Best was getting the sympathy vote, but surely John Lennon, who had been assassinated, deserved even more on that score. However, I’m in no position to carp as I misused my own vote. When I saw my friend, the 1950s pop singer Russ Hamilton (‘We Will Make Love’, 1957), among the nominees, I voted for him.

  The rest of the Top 10 was Billy Fury at sixth, then Keith Chegwin, radio DJ Billy Butler, Rory Storm and at tenth John Lennon. Pete Best Number 5, John Lennon Number 10 and Paul McCartney’s position not even published. Strange days indeed.

  Postscript: so what else is new?

  * * *

  So, just what has happened since 1998? First of all, I would recommend you to Hunter Davies’ hilarious book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans: My Search for Britain’s Maddest Museums (Virgin, 2010) with its fabulous chapter on the Casbah, which is now open to the public. Sort of. According to Hunter, “I can see why Roag enjoys doing personal tours, booked in advance. It saves on staff and you can control times and numbers. And charge a lot more. Something to bear in mind when I open my museum.”

  Hunter Davies describes the Hayman’s Green house as being as mysterious and forbidding as any haunted house and that, “someone appeared to have been at the drive with a pneumatic drill and left jagged slabs of concrete sticking up.” My thoughts entirely – I had often thought that if I were to break my hip, then I should quickly book a tour at Hayman’s Green and pretend to fall over on the drive. It’s compensation paradise and yet so much could be done. I went to an evening event at the Casbah and the lighting in the garden came from the headlights of Rory Best’s car. I am all for the fact that the Casbah looks as it did in the 50s – that’s absolutely fine – but everything else should be sorted out. The Bests appear to have a garage full of clutter and this could be turned into a tea room. All the tours are conducted by Roag or Rory and there is a missed opportunity here. I suppose it would be infra dig if Pete were to do them himself but it would be a profitable concept as a deluxe guided tour from Pete could easily be sold at £50 a ticket, and Beatle fans would have a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

  It’s not as if the Bests don’t appreciate the potential of the Casbah on the tourist trail: it’s just that they are a bit lethargic about it. You have put in investment and effort to make a decent return, but it is there for the asking and I’m sure Mona would have realised that.

  In 2006 the DVD Pete Best of the Beatles was released, and it concentrated on the Casbah and Pete’s time with the Beatles. Although it covers well-trodden ground, the director Geoff Wonfor has made a very entertaining and informative film with sharply edited visuals and interviewees on top form, although, as so often happens these days, nobody tells any lengthy anecdotes. Among the interviewees are Tony Sheridan, Cynthia Lennon, Gerry Marsden, Tony Crane (Merseybeats), Johnny Gustafson (Big Three), Horst Fascher (Star-Club), photographer Astrid Kirchherr, Beatles’ road manager Neil Aspinall, a sacked Quarry Man Ken Brown and friends of the Best family. The DVD extras include Brian Poole and Mike Smith discussing the Decca sessions on New Year’s Day 1962, session drummer Andy White talking about his involvement with ‘Love Me Do’ and Pete Best’s current band working on new material. The uncritical praise for Pete is a bit overbearing and some of the case for the prosecution should have been included as, according to the film, there appears to be no reason to sack him at all. Still, what can you do when the Executive Producer is Pete Best himself? Nevertheless, this is an exceptionally good DVD. Watch it with another Beatle fan and you’ll be discussing it for hours afterwards.

  In 2002, you could say that Pete Best wrote his third autobiography, this time called The Beatles – The True Beginnings (Spine Books, 2002) and the authors are listed as Roag Best with Pete and Rory Best. The book is testimony to the possibility that the Best’s throw nothing away as old wiring and crockery from the Casbah is lovingly reproduced.

  The text of my book shows that the Bests’ house is a house of secrets but I had no idea just how much had been hidden until I read Beatle Pete, Time Traveller by Mallory Curley (Randy Press, 2005). This little-known bo
ok provided unique research for the hardcore Beatle fans and it was quite clear that Pete Best either withheld significant information from his autobiographies or simply didn’t know it. Mallory Curley, a pseudonym for a Harvard archivist, spent 5 years researching Pete’s background and produced a remarkable book. Or rather, what could have been a remarkable book. For some daft reason best known to himself, he has chosen to write a fictional account of what might have happened between Pete Best and his fellow Beatles. However, we are assured that the copious footnotes are as accurate as they can be.

  The footnotes take up half of the 450 A4 pages and I learnt, for the first time, that Pete is not the son of the boxing promoter, Johnny Best, but rather was born Randolph Peter Scanland in Madras when his mother, Mona, was 17. I have been able to confirm this myself from the records kept in the Asian section of the British Library. Pete’s father is the marine engineer Donald Peter Scanland. I don’t know whether they were married (and nor does Curley) but he lost his life during the war. After that, Mona married the serviceman and physical fitness instructor, John Best in Bombay when Pete was 2 years old. John Best became Pete’s father and they had a son, Rory, in 1945. He then brought the family to England.

  Because Mallory Curley has had the assistance of estranged relations rather than the Best family themselves, the whys and wherefores are missing, but all these family secrets could explain why Pete was so reticent during the early 1960s. He wouldn’t want to give John Lennon ammunition for mocking him.

  And another mystery. The Bests moved into 8 Hayman’s Green, the former home of the West Derby Conservative Club, in 1958. The family story is that Mona Best had pawned her jewellery and put it on Never Say Die, ridden by Lester Piggott in the Derby, and won at 33-1. Great story but doesn’t it seem immensely unlikely? Certainly, I’ve never heard anything like it. Does anyone make a one-off bet of that magnitude and then stop? And why it put on the Derby where so many horses are competing and almost anything can happen? It is always said they don’t mind you winning in Las Vegas because they know you will soon be paying it back – with interest. No, it doesn’t sound right and then, Lester Piggott rode Never Say Die in 1954, and would the Bests really hang on to their winnings for 4 years?