By Dan Goldberg and Brent Johnson/The Star-Ledger

CALDWELL — Here is what other musicians love about Andy White: He's cool. Always was, still is. He is what cool was in the beginning, before the word — like musicians — became overexposed and commercialized. A coolness earned with his wrists that doesn't need to be reinforced with his mouth.

Born during the Hoover administration, White’s still the guy to grab a Guinness with. He doesn’t volunteer stories or name-drop — doesn’t have to. But if prodded, he can tell you what it was like to tour with Marlene Dietrich and Chuck Berry, or play drums for Tom Jones. He can talk touring the world, and recording with the Smithereens. He’ll tell you about teaching pipe and drum to the New York City police and working with Steven Van Zandt, of the E Street Band and "The Sopranos," on a new movie.

And he can tell you about a late summer day when he was called to the studio to provide a steady beat for an up-and-coming band out of Liverpool recording their first album.

That’s White you hear on the Beatles’ "P.S. I Love You," with Ringo Starr playing maracas. And on most versions of "Love Me Do," White is keeping the beat while Ringo taps tambourine. White also recorded a version of "Please Please Me."

The three hours of labor earned him a little more than £5, or 5 pounds — not bad for 1962, "though it’d been nice to have royalties," he jokes.

A half-century later, White, who now lives in Caldwell, is still called when a cool hand is needed.

On Thursdays you can find him providing free lessons to the Essex chapter of the Order of the Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh as they get ready for the St. Patrick’s Day parades.

LESSONS WITH FEW WORDS

Scott McGowan and his son Brian, of Little Falls, sat on either side of White last month in the basement of the Shillelagh Club in West Orange trying to mimic White’s movements.

The three had drum pads on a round wooden table. White and Scott had a Guinness. Brian, 17, sipped a soda.

White played, Scott and Brian tried to keep up. When they got close, a mischievous smile appeared across White’s face.

"Okay, try this," he said, before playing something that would leave Scott’s jaw somewhere underneath the table.

"He plays them twice as fast as anyone I’ve ever seen," Scott said.

At 81, White stands straight and prefers to carry his own drum up and down the club’s steep steps. He strapped the 30-pound drum to his chest and marched around the room with men half his age.

SEPT. 11, 1962

There’s that grin: White knows it’s the other drummers who cannot keep up.

Few ever could, which is how White found himself at EMI Studios on Sept. 11, 1962.

The Beatles had axed Pete Best, their first drummer. They were working with Ringo, but the first recording session was rocky — at best.

"It was Ringo’s first time in a recording studio," said Mark Lewisohn, a British rock historian who has written several books on the Beatles. "He was rather desperate to impress. He decided to play drums with maracas. It was something to do to make an impression. But they took one look at him and wondered what planet he was from."

One week later, Ron Richards, a producer, called in White. Ringo was handed a tambourine, "which he didn’t play very well," White said.

There are two versions of "Love Me Do" — one with White, one with Ringo. Ringo’s drumming was used for the early British pressings, but White was on the American single — which hit No. 1 — and the album. It’s easy to tell the difference: If you hear a tambourine, White is on drums. White’s "Please Please Me" was not released and was thought lost but resurfaced on the Beatles’ first "Anthology" compilation in 1995.

White did yeoman’s work and everyone was happy.

"Except Ringo," White said, sporting that mischievous grin. "I think he nearly died when he saw another drum set."

White is cool about his place in history. His Caldwell home is no shrine. The only Beatles record he owns was a gift from EMI, buried somewhere in his basement. Scattered on the living room shelves are a handful of Beatles books that contain only a mention of his name. The footnote is enough. The books, like his stories, are within reach but not forefront.

White never begrudged the Beatles’ success as the songs soared the charts.

"Good for them," he thought.

The ethos of a true session man.

A role he reprised four years ago for the Smithereens. The Carteret-based rock band was recording a second Beatles cover album, a collection of B-sides.

Dennis Diken, the Smithereens drummer, asked White to play on "P.S. I Love You."

"It just occurred to me: How cool would it be to have the guy who played on the original track?" Diken said last month.

White needed only to know where to be and when. The song, which he hadn’t played since Paul McCartney sang lead vocals, came back easily.

"I’ve heard it quite a few times," he said.

The Smithereens were impressed.

"He did his gig like any other session he probably ever did," Diken said. "He comes from that school of, ‘Yeah, I’m here to work. Let’s get it done.’ "

An attitude that carried him through sessions on Tom Jones’ signature hit, "It’s Not Unusual," and world tours with Marlene Dietrich.

And a professionalism not lost on Van Zandt, who enlisted White’s help on "Not Fade Away," a film written and directed by "Sopranos" creator David Chase.

The coming-of-age story revolves around a 1960s band. John Magaro, who plays the drummer, needed to have a certain look, said Van Zandt, the movie’s executive producer and music supervisor.

"One of the things I did," Van Zandt said, "was make sure the drummer was authentic, which required a certain style that isn’t used anymore. Where you have your wrist up instead of down, like the old jazz drummers used to play."

Like White used to play. For 11 weeks, White showed Magaro how to look right, how to look cool.

Van Zandt worked with all the actors to ensure they were teachable. Magaro, he was satisfied, had some innate rhythm.

"We let Andy take it from there," Van Zandt said. "He is just a miracle worker."

White first played drums as a 12-year-old Boy Scout in Glasgow, Scotland.

"I was desperate to play drums," he said. "They just knocked me out."

By his late teens, White was playing in amateur jazz bands. His talent took him from small clubs to big cities and then across the pond. As the drummer for Vic Lewis’ big band, White played with Bill Haley and His Comets and Chuck Berry. By the early ’60s, White was a well-known commodity.

"If you worked around the studio, you knew who he was," Lewisohn said. " ‘Love Me Do’ would have been a piece of cake to him."

"P.S. I Love You" wasn’t much of a challenge either.

"It’s basically a cha-cha," White said.

ANOTHER FATEFUL DAY

In 1983, White had a chance encounter even more fortuitous — from his perspective — than the one with John and Paul. He was playing with Marlene Dietrich at the Fairmont in Dallas, when an actress, living in New Jersey, caught his eye.

The two met after the show, his wife, Thea, recalled. They fell hard.

White’s telling of the story varied slightly. He left out that he was playing with Dietrich at one of the nicest hotels in the country.

It’s not his style to brag about such things — it wouldn’t be cool.

"A lot of session players that play on big records, they do like to talk about it," Diken said, "Andy, he doesn’t shy away from it, but he’s not very boastful."

To White, it was just another day, another gig, another £5 in his pocket.

Sometimes, when shopping for groceries with his wife at the local supermarket, "Love Me Do" will play over the loudspeaker.

That mischievous smile creeps across his face: "I’ll turn to my wife and say, ‘We’re on again.’ "

Now, that’s cool.