Pete Best

Pete Best is an English drummer who served as the original drummer of The Beatles across August 1960 to August 1962 — until his August 16, 1962 firing and replacement by Ringo Starr, three weeks before the September 4, 1962 first Beatles EMI recording session. He was born Randolph Peter Best on November 24, 1941, in Madras, British India (modern Chennai). His father Donald Peter Best was a British Royal Indian Army Service Corps physical-training instructor and his mother Mona Shaw was an English homemaker. The 1945 family postwar relocation to Liverpool, England launched his career path.

His mother Mona's 1957 founding of the Casbah Coffee Club in the basement of the Best family Liverpool home at 8 Hayman's Green — which served as one of the principal early-Liverpool-skiffle-and-rock-and-roll venues across 1957–1962 — produced his early-career music exposure. The Casbah Coffee Club's August 29, 1959 opening night featured a performance by The Quarrymen (the early band that would subsequently evolve into The Beatles).

His August 12, 1960 hiring as the drummer of The Beatles — at age 18, four days before the August 16, 1960 Beatles departure for the band's first Hamburg, West Germany club residency — launched his two-year Beatles career. The Beatles' 1960–1962 Hamburg, Liverpool, and London performances produced the band's foundational 1960–1962 underground-club career, although the band did not produce a commercial recording across this period.

His August 16, 1962 firing from The Beatles — three weeks before the September 4, 1962 first Beatles EMI Studios recording session — was produced by Beatles manager Brian Epstein at Epstein's Liverpool office. The firing was produced by the combination of: (1) producer George Martin's preference for studio-session drummer Andy White over Best for the September 4, 1962 first EMI recording session; (2) Best's less developed personal-relationship with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison; and (3) Best's reluctance to adopt the Beatles' subsequent 1962 Pierre Cardin-style mod-haircut look. Best's subsequent 1962–1968 musical career across the Pete Best Four and Pete Best Combo bands produced no commercial breakthrough. He was awarded $4 million in 1995 royalties when EMI's Anthology 1 album included 10 of his 1960–1962 Beatles recording-session performances. He continues to perform with the Pete Best Band into his 80s.

His name Pete is the English short form of Peter (from the Greek Petros meaning "rock"). Pete has been a popular American boys' name across the early-to-mid-20th century.