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Who could have been in the Fabs?
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In Peter Jackson’s Get Back, I love it when George thinks aloud about asking Dylan to join The Beatles (“He would as well,” he says). Who else might have been in the frame for The Beatles had things turned out differently?
Tony Chapman, via e-mail
MOJO says: Dylan in The Beatles is a bizarre notion indeed – see the former’s 1966 Fabs pastiche 4th Time Around, which unnerved Lennon – but otherwise, George also spoke warmly about organist Billy Preston’s contributions, and John went so far as to suggest he join, though how serious he was is open to question. And when George went AWOL before that final rooftop gig in ’69, Lennon (again on Get Back) suggested asking Eric Clapton to play guitar. Lesser-known candidates who actually turned down Fab-dom include The Big Three drummer Johnny Hutchinson (who told Spencer Leigh, “I wouldn’t join The Beatles for a gold clock” but did fill in on occasion), Lennon’s Quarrymen banjo player Rod Davis (who said he declined as he couldn’t play drums and didn’t like rock’n’roll), and bassist Chas Newby, who played dates in 1960 but chose to go to university rather than accompany the band to Hamburg. These make sense; other candidates, less so. One such is late madcap Liverpool comedian Freddie Starr who, claimed his friend and manager Tony Cartwright, was asked to become a Beatle by Lennon in the Cavern days (“Freddie just laughed,” recalled Cartwright in the Express, also floating the idea that he gifted Ringo his surname). Another unusual sliding doors moment happened in the Scotch Of St James club in 1966. As reported by MOJO’s Mark Blake in his Who book Pretend You’re In A War, Keith Moon asked McCartney if he could join The Beatles and was told to take it up with Ringo. Sticking with the drums, Bernard ‘Pretty’ Purdie claimed to Gig magazine in 1978, “I overdubbed the drumming on 21 tracks of the first three Beatle albums.” Sounds legit. Another novel candidate was Saxa, senior sax player from Brum ska hitmakers The Beat, who said he jammed with The Beatles at a club in Handsworth (we believe all claims until proven otherwise). Which leads us nicely into…