sat-in when they were the resident house band at London's now defunct Flamingo Jazz Club. Other members of The Shubdubs were Tony Allen (vocals), Johnny Harris (trumpet), Quincy Davis (tenor saxophone), and Roger Coulam (organ – went on to form Blue Mink). It was at this point that he received a telephone call from the Beatles' producer, George Martin. Nicol recalled: "I was having a bit of a lie down after lunch when the phone rang." With the Beatles When Ringo Starr became ill with tonsillitis and was hospitalised on 3 June 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. Producer Bill Wellings and Shubdubs trumpeter Johnny Harris (freelancing as an arranger and composer) were responsible for putting together alternative budget cover versions of songs taken from the British Hit Parade aimed at cash-strapped teenagers. Harris said: "The idea was for me to try and guess which six songs would be topping the charts about a month ahead. I would do the arrangements and then go into the studio and record 'sound a-likes'; the first EP (extended play) released got to number 30 in the charts. Jimmie was on drums and, as you can imagine, we covered a lot of the Beatles' songs." Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney quickly accepted the idea of using an understudy, 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