Pete Best: Oct. 4 George Harrison Beatle Festival

[yerblues1968]

PETE BEST CONFIRMED: PLANS CONTINUE FOR OCT. 4 BENTON GEORGE HARRISON BEATLE FESTIVAL

By Mona Sandefur - Staff writer
Published: Monday, June 9, 2008 8:17 AM CDT



Beatle Pete Best is pictured second from left. Pete Best in more recent photographs. Both Pete Best and Ringo Starr were drummers for the Beatles and were the only ones in the band with blue eyes.


Plans continue to bring “Best of the Beatles” to Benton for the annual Benton George Harrison Beatle Festival.

Committee members reviewed a contract earlier this week, guaranteeing a visit from Pete Best, original drummer for The Beatles.

Tom Herman and Jim Kirkpatrick said the Pete Best Band will perform Saturday, Oct. 4 in the East Gym of Benton Consolidated High School.

“We are very excited to bring another member of the Beatles to Benton,” Kirkpatrick said. “George Harrison visited his sister, Louise, before The Beatles were ‘fab.' It is a great honor to be able to bring another former Beatle to see where George Harrison stayed when he visited Louise. Although Louise is busy with another career pursuit, we hope she will also attend.”

Kirkpatrick said Harrison visited Benton in 1966, before the Beatles appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“The Beatles were first heard on the WRFX Radio station located in West Frankfort before they became famous,” he said. “After George visited Louise, the house became Hard Days Nite Bed & Breakfast that is filled with memorabilia from the Beatles. Pete Best and his band members will spend the night at the B&B. The band is touring the United States this summer and we are lucky to be able to bring him to Benton. This will be a concert of historic proportion.”

Ticket prices are also reasonable, Herman said, at $10 in advance and $15 at the door. An opening act will begin at 7 p.m., followed by the 8 p.m. performance, billed as “Best of the Beatles.”



Pete Best continues to play the drums with his own band called, "The Pete Best Band."


“The mystery surrounding Pete Best has never been solved,” Herman said. “In 1960, the Silver Beatles played without a drummer. The band knew Pete Best from a club they had often played known as The Casbah, where Pete's group, the Blackjacks, was the resident band. Paul McCartney phoned Pete in August 1960 and asked him if he was interested in joining the band. Pete formally auditioned and became a Beatle on Aug. 12, 1960. He played with the band for more than two years before he was dismissed and later replaced with Ringo Starr.”

Member Warren Batts said musicians are invited to perform throughout the event. A musician himself, he said groups are encouraged to contact him at [phone].

“We are looking for performers with a 1960s sound,” he said.

Members discussed potential ticket sales outlets that could offer credit card sales and will confirm locations during a future meeting. Darren Galloway said he is working to have posters printed.

To offset costs and provide some sponsors with backstage passes, levels range from $1,000 for platinum sponsorship to $100 for bronze sponsorships. “Sponsors at the platinum level will receive two VIP backstage passes to meet the band,” Kirkpatrick said. “Bill Bonan II, community president of Peoples National Bank, is on board as a platinum-level sponsor.”

Andrew Hart has agreed to provide sound equipment and expertise for the concert.

Kirkpatrick said additional events are planned inside Hard Days Nite B&B. “Tours, trivia and more are in the planning stages,” he said.

Committee members are also working with Mayor Gary Kraft to honor Best with a key to the city, making him an honorary citizen of Benton. Herman said Best would sign autographs after the show. For more information, contact Kirkpatrick at [phone].

www.bentoneveningnews.com/articles/2008/06/09/news/02.txt

[yerblues1968]

BENTON BECOMES BEATLELAND FOR A DAY



Benton Evening News
By Mona Sandefur



Mon Oct 06, 2008, 12:22 PM CDT



Benton, Ill. - Beatles memorabilia was abundant on Saturday, as Benton welcomed the Pete Best Band: Best of the Beatles, Peter Conrad, Rex Van Zandt and area musicians.

Jim Kirkpatrick, president of the Benton George Harrison Beatle Festival committee, welcomed the crowd from the steps of Hard Day’s Nite Bed and Breakfast.

“Members of the committee worked very hard and want to keep the memory of George Harrison alive,” he said. “This is the second year we have welcomed Peter Conrad, who hails from Columbus, Ohio.”

Conrad, who performs an acoustic tribute to George Harrison with his “Harrisongs & More ... Handled With Care,” entertained with a song he had written commemorating Harrison’s visit to Benton in 1963, titled “113 McCann,” which references the address of the now B&B.

Across the street, Connie and Dorothy Schultz continued to pack their belongings for their move to Chicago. Together with Daryl and Jim Chady, the four purchased the home once owned by Louise Harrison.

“Gordon and Louise Harrison arrived in Benton about the same time we did, in 1962,” Jim Chady said. “I was an engineer with Old Ben Coal Company and Gordon was an engineer with Freeman United. We lived near one another and our kids grew up together.

“We knew that George Harrison was coming to visit his sister in the fall of 1963,” he said. “A friend of ours, Gabe McCarty, was a member of the Four Vests. Gabe was booked to play at the V.F.W. in Eldorado and invited us to go to hear them perform. A member of the band had met George Harrison in England and invited him to perform while one of the musicians took a bathroom break. We did not know any of the songs he performed because the Beatles were not known in the United States.”

Dorothy Schultz credits Bob Bartel with saving the Harrison house from the wrecking ball.

“When Bob learned that the Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals wanted to tear down the first three houses on McCann Street to use as a parking lot, we got behind the project to help Louise save the house where George Harrison had stayed,” she said. “We had the first house on the block and traded it for the Harrison house because it had more floor space.”

The four purchased the property in 1995 and converted it into Hard Day’s Nite Bed and Breakfast.

“We played host and hostess to Beatles fans from all over the world,” Chady said. “When our health started failing, we first put it on eBay but the offers we received were far too low. We sold the bed and breakfast two years ago through Dave McCollum to Sarah Morrison.”

Marcia Raubach reminisced about meeting George Harrison.

“To think that a little radio station in West Frankfort was the first to play The Beatles music regularly is amazing,” she said. “When George Harrison visited his sister in 1963, he brought some of the 45s they were playing in England. I still have the copy he gave me of She Loves You that he autographed. I was already playing Love Me Do on WFRX before it was heard anywhere else in the United States.

“I was a senior in high school and wrote for the Redbird Notes, which is the West Frankfort high school newspaper,” Raubach said. “I wrote an article about George Harrison’s visit to the area. The article came out in the same issue of the newspaper that announced the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I still have a copy of that newspaper.”

Raubach said she is glad to see the memory of The Beatles remains alive and well.

“I am surprised at just how many young people turned out for today’s event,” she said. “It is great to see so many young people who love The Beatles. The Benton George Harrison Beatle Festival is a great tribute and a visit by a second Beatle, Pete Best, is truly a historic and memorable event.”

View photos of the Benton George Harrison Beatle Festival.
www.myspace.com/bentonbeatlefest

www.bentoneveningnews.com/news/x453214266/Benton-becomes-Beatleland-for-a-day