Jimmie Nicol: the Beatle that never happened
Any aspiring musician growing up in the 1960s most likely daydreamed of the moment they could have played with The Beatles. As much as the music sounded fantastic coming out of the radio, the idea of having a laugh with a bunch of lads who seemed to be having the time of their lives onstage felt like everyone’s dream job as they toured the world. While the Fab Four’s itinerary was a bit more complicated than it seemed, they did have people on the inside for when things started to go sour.
Then again, The Beatles had started to become an institution before A Hard Day’s Night even left the box office. The band quickly became the biggest band in the world and large enough to take on Elvis Presley’s crown, but that didn’t stop their nervous systems from acting up every now and then. While they would do anything to get onstage for their fans, Ringo Starr ended up falling ill with tonsilitis before a run of shows in the US.
Despite every single Beatle having their own subset of fans, they managed to get drummer Jimmie Nicol as a backup to play with them for a string of dates. Nicol had been a veteran of the session musician scene, and since the band had spent all this time putting together a world tour, they weren’t about to let their fans down, so Nicol ended up touring around the world with the group for under two weeks to get the ball rolling.
And it’s not like he did a poor job at all. Any session musician knows how important it is to turn in hours behind the kit, and while he might not have been as chaotic as Starr could be when hammering out a song like ‘Long Tall Sally’, there’s still a certain craftsmanship to the way that he structured a lot of his parts to set him apart from Starr in some respects.
At the same time, there was no way the band would give up Starr when they had the chance. The drummer had been developing into a musical thinker right alongside the rest of the group, and whereas their time with Pete Best was a little bit shaky, there was always a certain sixth sense that came into play whenever Starr sat behind the kit and locked in with John Lennon’s rhythm guitar.
After the band got Starr back, though, Nicol faded into the background rapidly. He may have still had a decent wage for working among ‘The Threetles’, but anyone who had gone from ten days of nonstop screaming from fans to virtual obscurity was bound to do a number on his psyche. Even if he did fade into the background and work behind the scenes, though, there is one daunting question: where does Jimmie Nicol land on ‘The Fifth Beatle’ conversation?
After all, non-members like Brian Epstein and Derek Taylor have been credited as the token extra group members, so why not Nicol? Well, despite his actual inclusion in the group for those few days, a lot of his work involved him being a substitute more than anything, whereas someone like George Martin was more hands-on in making the band what they would become in their later years. Even someone like Billy Preston could be considered a more honourary ‘Fifth Beatle’ due to how much he helped hold everything together when the band made Let It Be.
So, while Nicol might not deserve to be in the same company as people like Martin or Preston in terms of his musical contributions to the group, he does hold a certain place in musical history for what he did. He may have been dropped before he could leave too much of a mark, but Nicol founded the club that includes Scott MacLeod in Oasis and John Marshall in Metallica in terms of fans speculating on what their favourite bands could have been like.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.