An amazing forgotten about story. At the height of their fame, there was another Beatle for two weeks.
When Ringo Starr became ill with tonsillitis and was hospitalized on June 3, 1964, the eve of the Beatles’ 1964 Australasian tour, the band’s manager Brian Epstein and their producer George Martin urgently discussed the feasibility of using a stand-in drummer rather than cancelling part of the tour. Martin suggested Jimmie Nicol as he had recently used him on a recording session with Tommy Quickly. Nicol had also drummed on a ‘Top Six’ budget label album as part of an uncredited session band, as well as an extended play single (with three tracks on each side) of Beatles cover versions (marketed as ‘Teenagers Choice’ and titled Beatlemania) which meant that he already knew the songs and their arrangements.
Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney quickly accepted the idea of using a temporary substitute, George Harrison threatened to pull out of the tour telling Epstein and Martin: “If Ringo’s not going, then neither am I. You can find two replacements.” Martin recalled: “They nearly didn’t do the Australia tour. George is a very loyal person. It took all of Brian’s and my persuasion to tell George that if he didn’t do it he was letting everybody down.” Tony Barrow, who was the Beatles’ press officer at the time, later commented: “Brian saw it as the lesser of two evils; cancel the tour and upset thousands of fans or continue and upset the Beatles.” Starr stated that “it was very strange, them going off without me. They’d taken Jimmie Nicol and I thought they didn’t love me any more – all that stuff went through my head.”
The arrangements were made very quickly, from a telephone call to Nicol at his home in West London inviting him to attend an audition/rehearsal at Abbey Road Studios, to packing his bags, all in the same day.
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