Former Beatle Pete Best in Roanoke

"Bitter" is too strong a word, says the man who was replaced by Ringo Star just before the Fab Four lunched into mega stardom. Pete Best talks with John Carlin about missing the ride with the Beatles, and what's ahead for the Pete Best Band. Click here to watch the full interview

By: WSLS-TV Staff Reports | WSLS
Published: May 28, 2008

Click here for the full interview

In 1963 Pete Best's history was shrouded just enough that he almost stumped the panel on the iconic television show, I've got a Secret.

45 years later he's told the story many times of how he was fired by the Beatles' manager.

“As soon as I walked in I saw he wasn't his calm, cool placid self. He was irritable in a way. We talked around the subject for a while and he just said Pete, he said I don't know how to tell you this, but the boys want you out,” he told WSLS-10.

Carlin: “Do you feel like the rug was just pulled out from underneath you?”
Best: “Initially, yeah. … despair, upset because of the hard work you had done in the trenches, and the golden apple was on the tree ready to pick it off and it gets taken away from you.”

So Best left show business, married, had a family and worked in the civil service for 20 years.

He picks up the story from there:

“And then in 1988 I did a one-off show that I thought was just going to be for posterity (sighs) -- It wasn't.”

The music was in his DNA . The return stuck, but so did the family thing. He wasn't a Beatle, but he wasn't unhappy.

Best: “Great band, great acclaim everywhere we go, health and happiness. Marriage -- married a beautiful Liverpool girl. Been married to her for 45 years. I'm very proud of that fact.”

Carlin: “There is that Sir Paul McCartney thing.”
Best: “OK, yeah.”
Carlin: “Compare family life to Sir Paul McCartney, where is the rub there?”
Best: “I'll take family life anytime.
Carlin “You would?”
Best: “Yes. Look at the grief he's gone through.”

So what's next for Best? Roanoke based record producer Skip Brown says it could be a lot. “I think he's going to get a lot of run for it. There's a lot of Beatles fans that remember Pete Best and will go out there just to see.”

Best's new CD -- Which tells his life story in music debuts in September... He's hoping the last chapter isn't yet written.

Carlin: “So you think you might have something that's on the charts?”
Best: “I've always got my fingers crossed. You never know.”