Meta-Beatles: Sutcliffe and Best

The internet is ever more wonderful. My latest reason is that it has quickly become an Alexandria of living history. Of course, Stuart Sutcliffe, otherwise known as the Fifth Beatle, died in 1962... but there is plenty of information posted by those who knew him, or saw him perform, including Astrid Kirchherr, his fiancé at the time.

After posting the little collection of links to the Beatles, I got curious to see whether material on Best and Sutcliffe could be found. Well, what do you know. Besides rich finds on Wikipedia, stories, opinions and studies proliferate throughout the web.

Kirchherr and her partner own a photo shop in Hamburg, Center of Beat. They’ve also managed to put together an archive of music photos she took during the sixties (for editorial use only—I also spotted Zappa and Hendrix).

Another interesting link is to the Quarrymen’s own website, with bios on the current (and quite active) Quarrymen. This was Lennon’s first band, from which the Beatles evolved.

I am most intrigued by the Pete Best site, which is his own, and appears to define itself (and himself) with the tagline, “the man who put the beat in beatles”. I’ll let it speak for itself.

I’d better stop here. The deeper I dig, the more I find, with first-hand accounts and vague rumors about and by nearly anyone who came in contact with the fab four.