Inside the tour when The Beatles replaced Ringo Starr

27 July 2026, 20:57

Did you know that there was a time that The Beatles replaced Ringo Starr with another drummer? Picture: Alamy

By Thomas Edward

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Everybody knows he wasn't the original drummer.

But when Ringo Starr joined The Beatles in 1962, the band finally felt the like complete article.

In many ways he was the missing link between a fledgling band finding their feet and the one that changed the world of music.

Of course, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the driving force behind the group's astronomical success, owing to their freakish songwriting talent.

Yet, the Fab Four were very much a four-piece, a band of Liverpudlian brothers whose collectively personalities won the hearts of millions around the world.

Both musically and in terms of personality, Ringo was just as crucial to The Beatles as John, Paul or George Harrison.

Not to say that they wouldn't have had immense success with Pete Best behind the sticks. It's just Ringo felt like more of a natural fit for the band.

But did you know that there was a time that The Beatles replaced Ringo Starr with another drummer?

Ringo replaced Pete Best in The Beatles. But another drummer replaced him for a short stint in 1964. Picture: Alamy

In 1964, Beatlemania reached fever pitch. To capitalise on the band's burgeoning global fame, they embarked on a world tour which took them to Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand after stops in Denmark and the Netherlands.

But a matter of days before they were set to jet off, Ringo collapsed and was hospitalised.

Turns out, the cheeky drummer came down with a horrible bout of tonsilitis. But it left him unable to perform, let alone traverse the globe.

Cancelling the tour would've been a financial disaster for the band, so manager Brian Epstein floated the idea of finding a last-minute replacement, as a one-off for the tour.

John and Paul were on board, but George resisted. How on Earth would they find a drummer who could learn the band's songs almost instantly – and fit into Ringo's stage clothes?

“They nearly didn’t do the Australia tour,” producer George Martin said in Anthology. “George is a very loyal person, and he said, ‘If Ringo’s not part of the group, it’s not the Beatles. I don’t see why we should do it, and I’m not going to.’"

"It took all of Brian’s and my persuasion to tell George that if he didn’t do it he was letting everybody down.”

Hotels and flights were booked, and thousands of tickets were sold. It would've been a bad look to cancel the tour. They didn't have to however, thanks to 24 year old drummer Jimmie Nicol.

Jimmie Nicol played with The Beatles after Ringo Starr fell ill. Picture: Alamy

Jimmie Nicol, quite remarkably, became one of The Beatles for a total of 13 days.

Both Epstein and McCartney knew Nicol from his time in bands like Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames and Colin Hicks and the Cabin Boys.

After a successful six-song audition (and a mop top haircut to match John, Paul and George) Jimmie was in the band.

Nicol got a taste of what it was like to be in the world's most sought after group, playing eight concerts in total alongside a taped TV show performance as The Beatles' stand in drummer.

“The day before I was a Beatle, not one girl would even look me over,” Nicol recalled. “The day after, when I was suited up and riding in the back of a limo with John Lennon and Paul McCartney, they were dying just to get a touch of me.”

It's the kind of scenario that dreams are made of, for Nicol at least. Ringo wasn't quite as chuffed.

Nicol even performed for a televised recording with The Beatles. Picture: Alamy

Whilst Ringo was bed bound with illness, he was told that Nicol would be replacing him on the scheduled tour of Australasia, Hong Kong and Europe.

“It was very strange, them going off without me,” Starr said in Anthology. “They’d taken Jimmie Nicol and I thought they didn’t love me any more – all that stuff went through my head.”

It wasn't long until Ringo re-joined The Beatles in Melbourne however, and Jimmie was sent on his way.

As he departed on the long journey home to England on his own, Brian Epstein gifted Nicol a gold watch with the message inscribed: “From the Beatles and Brian Epstein to Jimmie – with appreciation and gratitude.”

Whilst Epstein may've been grateful for Nicol providing him with a short-term solution, Nicol believed that Epstein blacklisted him from the music industry soon after.

Beatles Conquer Aussies (1964)

Nicol was a comfortable fit for The Beatles, according to his author Jim Berkenstadt, who delved into the one-time band member's life for his book The Beatle Who Vanished.

"As they got to Hong Kong and then played Adelaide, Australia, Jimmie really had it figured out. He started to add his own flourishes," Berkenstadt wrote.

"When the song ended and John, Paul and George were bowing, Jimmie continued to play out a drum riff to milk the crowd for more applause. That never would have happened with Ringo. Ringo finished exactly when everyone else did and would bow at the same time. But now Jimmie was starting to feel his oats and use his own style.”

Whilst Jimmie might've lapped up the highs of being behind the drum kit with The Beatles, his own music career would never reach those highs again, sadly.

"They’d taken Jimmie Nicol and I thought they didn’t love me any more," Ringo said. Picture: Alamy

After a string of failures with the bands he joined after playing alongside John, Paul and George, Nicol was out of work and got involved in heavy drug use.

"He went bankrupt, his wife divorced him, he became estranged from his son and he was living in his mom’s basement,' Berkenstadt wrote in The Beatle That Vanished.

"The media built him up and then tore him down with glee. The last article was about how he was penniless."

Nicol played with several bands, including The Spotnicks, but vanished on several occasions – at one point he went missing in Mexico.

He resurfaced years later in 1984, agreeing to show up to a fan convention for The Beatles in Amsterdam, where he revealed his true thoughts and feelings about playing with the band.

“Jimmie felt that he may have had a chance to take over for Ringo,” Berkenstadt wrote “He felt that Brian Epstein and others somehow were working against him becoming a member of the Beatles."

"He would say being a Beatle was both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, it allowed a lot of people to know who he was. But on the other hand, he believed Brian Epstein blacklisted him after the Beatles.”

Other than his short stint with the band, his legacy with The Beatles in fact runs deeper.

Nicol frequently replied "it's getting better" when asked by John or Paul how he was managing during their time in the band together. They went on to repurpose for their 1967 classic 'Getting Better' which featured on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.