Pete Best

This guy must have had a terrible life. His only claim to fame was that he was the founding drummer of the Beatles. Best was fired in 1962 and replaced with the loveable Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey of course). And this, my friends, is the footnote that has always been carried under his name.

Now he's coming out with a DVD firing back at those who fired him. Does anybody really care? I thought so.

The documentary begins with various people from those early days firing back, calling it "a load of bollocks" that he wasn't a good drummer, rather that Best's playing is "brilliant." But then the meat of this human what-if story gets started. Featuring archival film footage and photographic stills from the drummer's two years with the band, Best of the Beatles documents everything from the then Fab Five's gigs at the Indra in Hamburg, Germany, to the earliest known live clips of their 1962 Liverpool performances and up to the recording of Abbey Road. During that time, Best got a taste of Beatlemania with his old mates John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, as they rose to the cusp of stardom with such destined hits as "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You," already in the can. Best, of course, never got to enjoy the ride, as he would be fired by the group in'62 and replaced by Ringo Starr.

(via Rolling Stone)