Editing Pete Best (section)

=== Drumming ability ===
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Lennon said Best was recruited only because they needed a drummer to go to Hamburg. "We were pretty sick of Pete Best, too, because he was a lousy drummer, you know? He never improved, you know? ... And we were always going to dump him when we could find a decent drummer" ... "By the time we'd rolled back from Germany, we'd trained him to keep a, you know, a stick to keep going up and down at four in the bar; he couldn't do much else."{{sfn|Anthology|2000|pp=70–72}} 

McCartney stated Best was "good, but a bit limited". McCartney remembered:

{{Blockquote|George Martin was used to drummers being very 'in time' because all the big-band session drummers he used had a great sense of time. Now, our Liverpool drummers had a sense of spirit, emotion, economy even, but not a deadly sense of time. This would bother producers making a record. George took us to one side and said, 'I'm really unhappy with the drummer. Would you consider changing him?' We said, 'No, we can't!' It was one of those terrible things you go through as kids. Can we betray him? No. But our career was on the line. Maybe they were going to cancel our contract.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/25114151/The-Beatles-Anthology |title=The Beatles Anthology |via=Scribd |access-date=28 June 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140601030952/http://www.scribd.com/doc/25114151/The-Beatles-Anthology |archive-date=1 June 2014 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref>}}

McCartney later suggested Starr's drumming was a significant improvement over Best's.<ref name=":0" />

{{Blockquote|The truth was, we just kind of fell in love with Ringo's drumming. Ringo was in another band, and we had Pete, and we were working, and we used to see this other band. We said, "God, that drummer's good." And one night, Pete couldn't do it and Ringo sat in for him. And we all just went "[Gasp]." Behind us was this powerhouse and this person who was, like, taking care of the job. And we went, "Oh dear."|source=}}

Harrison also recalled preferring Starr's drumming. He said "Ringo kept sitting in with the band. And every time Ringo sat in with the band, it just seemed like, this was it."<ref name=":0" />

For his part, Starr said, "I felt I was a much better drummer than [Best] was."{{sfn|Anthology|2000|pp=70–72}} 

Critic [[Richie Unterberger]] described Best's drumming at the Decca audition as "thinly textured and rather unimaginative",{{sfn|Unterberger|2006|p=19}} adding that Best "pushes the beat a little too fast for comfort".{{sfn|Unterberger|2006|p=22}} Unterberger thought Starr to be "more talented".{{sfn|Unterberger|2006|p=24}} Mike Savage, the session engineer, said "I thought Pete Best was very average and didn't keep good time. You could pick up a better drummer in any pub in London. If you've got a quarter of the group being very average, that isn't good. The drummer should be the rock. If the rock isn't good, you start thinking, no. If Decca was going to sign the Beatles, we wouldn't have used Pete Best on the record."<ref name=":0" /> Beatles' historian [[Ian MacDonald]], recounting the Decca audition, said that "Best's limitations as a drummer are nakedly apparent".{{sfn|MacDonald|2005|p=52}} MacDonald notes, of the EMI recording session on 6 June that "this audition version [of "Love Me Do"] shows one of the reasons why Best was sacked. In moving to the ride cymbal for the first middle eight, he slows down and the group falters."{{sfn|MacDonald|2005|p=55-56}} Beatles' critic [[Alan W. Pollack]] compared the Best, Starr, and [[Andy White (drummer)|Andy White]] versions of "[[Love Me Do]]", and concluded that Best was "an incredibly unsteady and tasteless drummer" on his version.<ref>{{cite web |title=Notes On 'Love Me Do' |url=https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/lmd.shtml |access-date=22 October 2011 |publisher=Icce.rug.nl}}</ref> 

After the Beatles signed a contract, EMI producer Ron Richards said, "Pete Best wasn't very good. It was me who said to [producer] [[George Martin]] he's useless. We've got to change this drummer." Martin said, "[Best] couldn't play drums very well. I mean, he couldn't keep time too well. And I was aware that the band weren't tight. They needed that sort of binding force that a good drummer should give them. So I said to [Beatles manager] Brian [Epstein] I'll get another drummer for the recording session."<ref name=":0" />

Still, Martin claimed to be surprised to learn that Best had been fired from stage shows, hearing the news from Mona via telephone. He said:

{{Blockquote|I never suggested that Pete Best must go. All I said was that for the purposes of the Beatles' first record, I would rather use a sessions man. I never thought that Brian Epstein would let him go. He seemed to be the most saleable commodity as far as looks went. It was a surprise when I learned that they had dropped Pete. The drums were important to me for a record, but they didn't matter much otherwise. Fans don't pay particular attention to the quality of the drumming.{{sfn|Harry|2001}}}}

According to biographer Bob Spitz, "All Pete could do was play [[Four on the floor (music)|Fours]]", a style of drumming that uses kick drum notes on every quarter note to hold down the beat. Spitz's book also contains an account by engineer [[Ron Richards (producer)|Ron Richards]] of his failed attempts to teach Best somewhat more complicated beats for different songs.{{sfn|Spitz|2005|p=318}}

Best has said he did not believe this was the "real reason" and that it "never held up water".<ref name=":0" />{{better source needed|exacly when and where did Best say this?|date=July 2023}}  On ''[[Late Night with David Letterman]]'', he said the reason was "jealousy".<ref name="letterman">{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3j7nqx0Pgs?t=559 | title=Pete Best Reveals Why He Was Kicked Out of the Beatles &#124; Letterman | website=[[YouTube]] | date=29 March 2023 }}</ref>

In 1968, authorised Beatles biographer Hunter Davies opined that the firing of Best was "one of the few murky incidents in the Beatles' history. There was something sneaky about the way it was done."{{sfn|Davies|1996|p=139}} Over twenty years later, [[Mark Lewisohn]] concluded that "Despite his alleged shortcomings, it was still shabby treatment for Pete... The Beatles had had two years in which to dismiss him but hadn't done so, and now – as they were beginning to reap the rewards for their long, hard slog, with money rolling in and an EMI contract secured – he was out. It was the most underhanded, unfortunate and unforgivable chapter in the Beatles' rise to monumental power."{{sfn|Lewisohn|1990|p=58}}