Customer Reviews

Beyond the Beatles 1964-1966

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First off I would like to correct this snob David. To begin with Pete Best is an excellent drummer, and this shows on many tracks on this album such as "Keys To My Heart" and "I'm Blue". He could certainly have done a much better job on "Yellow Submarine" or *EVERY SINGLE SONG THE BEATLES EVER RECORDED* for that matter. Also before you call Pete Best a poor singer, I strongly suggest you *HEAR HIM SING FIRST, AS HE DOES NOT SING ON THIS ALBUM*. Many of these songs would be excellent but unfortunately they sound either unfinished or they are played too long. This is not Pete's fault. Some of those tracks would sound great edited.

With the August 2008 Pete Best Band cd "Hayman's Green" currently in heavy rotation in my player, I decided to revisit his old recordings with the Pete Best Combo. It's been a while since I've listened to these.
Well, these don't sound any better, or any worse, than I remembered. I've always believed that this band had some good songs and really did show some promise, but they were sadly subjected to very chintsy studios and not given any time to polish the tracks up. These tracks sound extremely raw and low-budget; half the time you can barely make out what the instruments are doing and most of the time the entire band sounds tired, presumably from being rushed and pressured. There is something to be said for the lack of technology, though; the tracks possess a very dark atmosphere which does fit in with the sounds of some of their contemporaries like the Shadows Of Knight, the post-Errico Vejtables and the Seeds, to name a few American outfits laying down seminal garage-psych at roughly the same time as the Pete Best Combo were in New York doing their thing. Supposedly Pete's group were cut from the early British Invasion cloth, and that appears to be how they were being 'promoted', but I can't identify very much of that genre at play here. This stuff is catchy, a lot of it, but noone would mistake it for, say, Gerry and the Pacemakers or Herman's Hermits. Maybe it would sound that way if they'd had more than a fifty-dollar session (only a slight exaggeration I believe) at their disposal, but it sure doesn't as it is.
The very best of their material ('I Don't Know Why I Do', 'I'll Try Anyway' and the great 'She's Not The Only Girl In Town') is as good as just about anything being done in America at the time. The worst of it really isn't abominable, but in all honesty, the group never had a chance to show what they had or didn't have. It seems pretty clear that Pete Best and his crew weren't given any respect by their handlers (their sole lp had quite the unfortunate title), and even less by the critics and radio programmers of the day, which is why by 1968 it was all over, and also why hardly anyone knew or cared that the drummer had packed it in.
But heard today, there's nothing really wrong with the Pete Best Combo that couldn't have been fixed. Sadly, neglect and indifference won out.

This is not Pete Best's greatest drumming .(For that I suggest you check out his excellent work with the Beatles and his even better work with his newest group the Pete Best Band.) But, for historical reasons I would reccomend this disc. Several songs are pretty good and it certainly beats some of Ringo's solo work.

Listening to this record I'm reminded of a lot of the pop bands of that era- Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Zombies, the Dave Clark Five and so forth. The big difference between those groups and the Pete Best combo is that the Best Combo's music just isn't as memorable. It's nice poppy stuff and all, but that's about it. There simply isn't a song on this album that sticks in your mind.

Over the years there's been a lot of nonsense about why the Beatles fire Best. Reading another review I came across the claim that they hired Ringo to destroy their "competition", the Rory Storm band, which is downright silly, as they had already far suprpassed Storm's band musically and in popularity when they hired Ringo. The most common claim was that Best was just too good, and took attention away from the others. That's about as silly as it sounds- especialy after listening to this disk, and to the Beatles' "archive" recordings. Best was a reasonably solid, but very limited, drummer who had a very few beats and fills in his repetoir. Ringo was a very inventive drummer with exceptional taste who crafted scores of unique beats, and inspired another generation to take up the drums.

Returning to the album under review, it's interesting as a historical curiosity, and certainly something you'd want if you were assembling a collection of all the Merseyside bands of the era. And I'm sure that a lot of people will find something here that most of us don't. But if you're looking for really great 60s pop, or great 60s rock drumming... well, there's always the Beatles.

Hello, this is Aaron Goldberg again. I have matured considerably since my first review of this album. I realize that Ringo Starr is an excellent drummer, better than Pete Best, but Best is quite good too. This is a pretty good CD. One drawback is poor sound quality. Some of these songs don't sound like they come from masters, and one, "The Way I Feel About You" sounds like it has a record pop! I would say 3.5 stars is about right.

Ever wondered why Pete was fired? Here is the reason. This cd, in a word, sucks.

If I were going to torture a confession out of someone, then this is the method that I'd use, make them listen to this cd.
While it is true that this does not represent Beatle music of the era, it certainly doesn't represent Pete's best efforts either, and I sure wouldn't compare it to anything representing the Mersey Beat.

In all fairness to Pete, but in no way sympathetic, this cd best resembles a 747 breaking apart in mid-air...everything going every which-a-way while hoping it's going to somehow fly despite major parts of the craft heading sharply for the ground.

Sorry folks, if you were looking for some Best representation for your collection, this is not it.

This album contains some good tracks that were taken from Pete Best's 60's singles. The few tracks that sound uneven in the mix, are from rare unfinished projects that were only saved on rushed mono mix downs... so they cannot be mixed today. As stated in the lengthy website: In Defense of Beatle Pete Best, Pete's drumming and Pete's stage presense as one of The Beatles was such that the fans would line up hours before their shows to see Pete, according to many 'in the know', including Stuart Sutcliffe's sister, in a book she co-wrote, called "Back Beat", the companion book to the movie of the same name. Gerry Marsden of the Pacemakers, Tony Sheridan and many others who regularly shared the stage with The Beatles with Pete Best on drums, all praise Pete's drumming. Many who heard that magnificent sound, the sound Lennon called "fantastic" during Pete's era with the group, agree with John Lennon that The Beatles best work was never recorded. That could only mean the pre-Ringo era with Pete on drums. Many of the Liverpool drummers copied Pete's "Atom Beat" as it was called, and the man who became their manager, Brian Epstein, said he was attracted to "their beat". It's the drummer who generates a band's beat. Ringo says when he first got to Germany with his band and first heard The Beatles, that they were great already. Can a band be "great" without a great drummer? No way! BUT, when you need to destroy the competition (Rory Storm) and rid your own band of its most popular member (Pete) out of jealousy, firing Pete when they did, and HOW they did, killed two birds with one stone, leaving Pete without a group, and Rory's group without their "Starr" drummer. Going on to accuse Pete of poor drumming, missing gigs and even pill-popping was safer than admitting that Ringo was "in" on bringing Rory down for the sake of seeking his own stardom with The Beatles, while he waited along with the others for a record contract to come through, just as the fabs brought Pete down just when that finally happened. If Ringo had not been waiting in the wings since the Decca sessions, why was Pete not told that Decca turned them down? Harrison plainly says that Ringo was always a Beatle, but had just entered the scene later... which was when the record contract came through. At the time just after the Decca audition, Ringo was no longer with Rory, but was in Hamburg, living with and playing music with Tony Sheridan. The Beatles were already set to return to Hamburg to play The Top Ten Club that April ('62), and Ringo was already there (waiting?). Had Decca come through, Pete would not have been on that trip, as he would have been sacked just before the Beatles left for that Hamburg engagement. Ringo would not have had to leave Rory high and dry without a drummer since he was already out of Rory's band, should Ringo have jumped in as The Beatles drummer at that time, as probably was the plan. But after Decca turned down the Beatles, Ringo returned to Liverpool and rejoined Rory... (and waited?) Maybe all of this explains why there's been a hush, for years, over a "simple" firing of a drummer, and why Epstein threw crumbs to Rory afterward, bringing Rory and band down to EMI in London at his (Epstien's) own expense to do some recordings. Epstein even brought in the now world famous RINGO STARR to sing on a track or two with Rory, who was still very unknown outside of Liverpool and Hamburg. Listen to Pete's drumming as a Beatle, or on this cd or on his latest Casbah Club CD. Pete is a very talented drummer. He always was. But The Beatles decided to leave Pete far behind the ruins of the life that he had in mind. But Pete's future still looks good, and he's had time to rectify all the things that he should. All of the above is just my opinion, but LISTEN to Pete Best's work before you write him off, as his band-mates did. I challenge Lord McCartney to finally burry the hatchet and do a gig with Pete at The Casbah Coffee Club. All you need is love, Paul.

Let me first say that I am by no means a Beatles completist, revisionist or even fanatic. I dig the Beatles first and foremost as a beat band, and I dig 'em in the same way that I dig other bands of the same time and place: Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, the Big Three, et al. My favorite aspects of the Beatles arise from their beat sensibilities and to that end, I find their earlier material the most intriguing simply because--brace yourselves--it rocks. I'll take "I'm Down" over "brilliant" sap like Sgt. Pepper's any day of the week. And before anyone starts going through the roof we'd all do well to remember that though many have made the argument that Pepper's saved or revolutionized rock 'n' roll, others have just as validly opined that it ruined it. But that's another story.
The reason I bring up "Sgt Pepper's" is to say that, while that "legendary" album has always left me largely cold save for a couple of songs, when I first heard this CD I was simply blown away, particularly by "I Wanna Be There" and "I Don't Know Why I Do (I Just Do)." I wasn't judging the songs or the record against the impossible-to-compete-with yardstick of the Beatles' entire recorded output; in fact I wasn't judging it at all, I was just screamin' "Yeah!"
As far rock 'n' roll goes, this material stands up more than admirably. You don't have to be a Beatles fan to appreciate Best's pop sensibility and the song writing is excellent. The band's good, the songs are good and the drive and inspiration create that all-important intangible quality that all great rock 'n' roll must possess. If you're expecting music that you can compare to the songs that rock critics have been telling us for years are so "important"--the Beatles, Zeppelin, Bob Marley, latter day Stones, etc--it might not stack up, but then again what would? U2?
On the other hand, if you're sick to hell of having that over-indulgent junk rammed down your throat at every turn of the mile--or you're just looking for some damn good rock 'n' roll that you can spin alongside the Ronettes, the Pretty Things, Bobby Fuller and other under-appreciated geniuses that played from the gut--invest in the Best.
Don't be swindled into believing that Pete was a pathetic coat tail rider either: None of the material here bears any resemblence to the Beatles beyond the fact that it's cast in the beat idiom. An honest-to-goodness artifact from an amazing era containing all the musical ingredients that made that era what it was. The Pete Best Combo not only blows Ringo's solo efforts away--no great feat in itself--it runs roughshod over every solo album EVER made by any member of the fab four.

Personally, I like and admire Peter Best as someone who has gone on with his life in spite of what happened. However, if you want Best at his best, try one of the many CD's around with the Beatles' work with Tony Sheridan or any of the pre-Ringo cuts floating about these days. These songs are JUNK! This combo is TERRIBLE and these tunes are without any redeeming qualities (heck, they're even poorly recorded to a one!) Pete deserved a hell of a lot better than this and fortunately, some of his better work is available.