Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey (Liverpool, July 7, 1940), better known as Ringo Starr, is a British musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and actor. He was the drummer for the rock band The Beatles. Before joining The Beatles, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. In August 1962, Pete Best was fired and Ringo took his place. In addition to playing the drums, Starr participated as a vocalist on several songs covered or created by the group such as "With a Little Help from My Friends", "Yellow Submarine", "I Wanna Be Your Man", "Act Naturally", "Boys », among others and was the composer of the songs «Don't Pass Me By» and «Octopus's Garden».
Starr's creative contribution to the music of The Beatles drew praise from musicians and critics alike. Drummer Steve Smith commented that Starr's popularity "gave birth to a new paradigm where the drummer began to be seen as just another participant in the compositional aspect." In 2011, readers of music magazine Rolling Stone voted Starr the fifth greatest drummer of all time.
After The Beatles split in 1970, Starr began a solo musical career with commercial hits in the 1970s such as Ringo (1973) and Goodnight Vienna (1974) and several flops in the 1980s, during which he developed a parallel film activity, participating in films such as The Caveman (1981). In addition, he participated as a session musician in the works of other artists, including his three former Beatles colleagues, and narrated the first two seasons of the animated children's series Thomas and his friends .In 1989, created Ringo Starr & amp; His All-Starr Band, a revolving Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings-style band with whom he tours annually, and released the album Time Takes Time, the first of a series of collaborations with musician Mark Hudson, who produced subsequent works such as Vertical Man (1997), Ringo Rama (2003) and Choose Love (2005). His album Postcards from Paradise was released in 2015.
Biography
Early years (1940-1961)
Starkey was born into a working family on July 7, 1940 at 9 Madryn Street in Dingle, a port suburb of Liverpool, England. His parents, Elsie Gleave Parkin and Richard Starkey, divorced, leaving the young man in the care of his mother. They both moved to 10 Admiral Grove, while his mother alternated between different jobs.
At the age of six, due to complications from severe peritonitis, she was in a coma for ten weeks. At 13, after her mother married Harry Greaves, a cold turned into pleurisy, leaving her forced him to be admitted to Myrtle Street Hospital, where he remained for two years.
His absence from the classroom made it difficult for him to learn, so when he left he barely knew how to read and write. He worked, thanks to the support of his stepfather, for British Rail as a courier, although after six weeks he was fired for failing his medical. Soon after, Harry Greaves managed to find him a job as an apprentice assembler at a local mechanical company.
Despite everything, and due to the rise of skiffle, Ringo's biggest hobby was music. During his stay in the hospital, he learned to play the drum in the music classes that were taught. On his way out of it, Harry Greaves bought him a second-hand battery. He played for a few local bands: first at dances with Eddie Clayton and later with The Darktown Skiffle Group, although he achieved some reputation in the group Rory Storm & The Hurricanes, where he changed his name to Ringo Starr (Ringo because of the many rings he wore (although he said in an interview "I chose it because it's a dog's name and I like dogs"), and Starr to announce his drum solo as Starr Time).
In the autumn of 1960, and after numerous concerts in his native Liverpool, Ringo, along with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes (which was the most popular group in Liverpool at the time), played in Hamburg, Germany, where he met to The Beatles. On several occasions he substituted for Pete Best on drums due to his absence, and he developed a great friendship with the boys in the band.
With The Beatles (1962-1970)
Ringo left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in January 1962 to briefly join Tony Sheridan's group in Hamburg. On August 14, John Lennon asked him if he wanted to join The Beatles and he accepted the offer. days later, Brian Epstein, representative of the group, expelled Pete Best, who commented on the fact: «He told me: 'I have bad news for you. The boys want you out and Ringo in. He said that George Martin was not happy with my playing and that the boys thought I was not a good fit." Starr first played as a member of the group on August 18, 1962 at Port Sunlight. After his appearance at Cavern Club the next day, Best's supporters, unhappy with his expulsion, began to stake out Starr's house and yell at him at the club: “Pete forever! Ringo never!» –in Spanish: «Pete always, Ringo never!»–. During a concert, George Harrison received a blow to the left eye, and Epstein was forced to hire a bodyguard to guarantee the safety of the group.
The first recording session Starr participated in took place on September 4, 1962. About this session, he stated that Martin had thought that "I was crazy and couldn't play because I was trying to play drums and percussion at the same time." At the same time, we were a four-piece band." For the second session, which took place on September 11, Martin replaced Ringo with session drummer Andy White to record the group's first single, "Love Me Do and "P.S. I Love You". Starr only got to play the tambourine on the first song and the maracas on the second. Concerned about his status within the group, Starr said: "I thought it was the end, they're going to make me a Pete Best However, Martin later commented, "I just didn't know what Ringo could do and wasn't willing to take any chances."
By November 1962, Starr was already accepted by the group's fans, and he used to receive a huge amount of fan mail, just like the rest of the group, which helped cement his position in the band. Starr considered himself lucky to be on the same "wave" as his peers: "It had to be this way, or else it wouldn't have lasted. I had to join them both as a person and as a drummer." In addition, he earned a small percentage of the profits of Northern Songs, the publishing company of Lennon and McCartney, although he earmarked the profits from this period for Beatles Ltd., a corporation created to Equal parts by the members of the group and financed by income from concerts. On the lifestyle he began to lead after achieving success with The Beatles, the musician commented: "I lived in nightclubs for three years. It used to be an endless party."
In 1963, The Beatles achieved increasing fame in Britain: in January, their second single, "Please Please Me" followed in the wake of "Love Me Do" on the UK charts, and an appearance on the show TV show Thank You Lucky Stars garnered them rave reviews, increasing their sales and radio airplay. By the end of the year, the Beatlemania phenomenon had grown across the country, and by February in 1964, he crossed the borders to the United States after appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show and achieving an audience of 73 million viewers. Of the growing fame, Starr commented: "I was shocked to see and hear the children greeting me I made myself as a personality... Our calling... is that we're normal kids". Ringo was also the subject of several songs written at the time, such as "I Want to Kiss Ringo Goodbye" by Penny Valentine and "Ringo for President " by Rolf Harris. In 1964, buttons with the motto "I love Ringo" sold out in all markets with memorabilia of the group, and during concerts, the group kept the moment Starr Time, popular with fans, during which Lennon would place a microphone in front of Ringo's drum kit for him to sing. When the group made their film debut with A Hard Day's Night, Starr garnered acclaim from film critics, who considered the deadpan one-liners and non-dialogue scenes the film's highlights. Director Richard Lester had to fix the non-dialogue sequences due to the lack of dialogue. of Starr's sleep during the previous night. In this regard, the musician commented: "I was unable to articulate a sentence because I had been drinking all night before." After the premiere of Help!, the group's second feature film, Starr won a poll in < i>Melody Maker for her portrayal of the film's central character.
In June 1964, Ringo suffered pharyngitis and tonsillitis which prevented him from joining a tour of Denmark, the Netherlands, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. During his recuperative days at home, Starr was replaced by Jimmie Nicol, a session drummer who played with the group for five concerts. After recovering, he joined his bandmates in Melbourne on June 15. Over the Christmas holidays, Starr underwent surgery to remove his tonsils. Later, he admitted that he was afraid that they would replace him permanently during his convalescence. In August of the same year, when the group met Bob Dylan, one of the main musical influences of The Beatles, Starr was the first to try the cannabis that offered the musician, while Lennon, McCartney and Harrison hesitated.
On February 11, 1965, he married Maureen Tigrett, whom he had met three years earlier. During the time, the negative aspects of fame reached a ceiling for Starr, who received a death threat before he was released. a concert in Montreal, which forced him to place the timpani vertically to provide protection against a hypothetical attack. Of the constant pressure during concerts, Starr commented, "We were becoming such bad musicians... there was no slot for it." Furthermore, as his peers abandoned the traditional ground of rock and experimenting with new sounds that did not require his input, he began to feel isolated, and admitted spending many hours during recording sessions playing cards with Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans.
In August 1966, the group released Revolver, which included "Yellow Submarine", the group's only UK number one single to be sung by Starr. under increasing touring pressures, the group played their last concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. On the decision to stop playing live, Starr commented: "We gave up touring at the right time. Four years of Beatlemania was enough for anyone." In December, he moved his residence to a luxury three-hectare estate on Saint George's Hill called Sunny Heights.
In Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released a year later, Starr sang the Lennon/McCartney song "With a Little Help from My Friends". Although the album received positive reviews and was another commercial success, the long hours they spent in the recording studios contributed to increasing the feeling of estrangement that Starr suffered. In this regard, he commented: «It was not our best album. It was the best for anyone else, but for me it was a bit like being a session musician... They kind of directed me in the style I was supposed to play." His inability to write songs led to his efforts being minimized. during sessions, and often found himself relegated to adding little percussion effects to his bandmates' songs. During downtime, Starr took up guitar: "I'd jump around chords that no one seemed to know. Much of what I wrote is twelve bars."
Epstein's death in August of the same year left the group without a manager and with an uncertain future. In this regard, Starr commented: "It was a strange time for us, when it is someone who had been involved in the business, where we had never been." Shortly after, the group began filming Magical Mystery Tour, a film project that first met with negative reviews after its broadcast on the BBC at Christmas 1967. His growing interest in photography led to Starr being credited as cinematographer on the film.
In February 1968, Starr was the first Beatle to participate in a concert by another artist without his bandmates present: he sang Buck Owens' song "Act Naturally" and performed a duet with Cilla Black on the theme " Do you Like Me Just a Little Bit?» on the television show Cilla. At the end of the same year, Apple Records released The Beatles, a double studio album commonly called The White Album. The creative inspiration for the double album came from the group's spiritual retreat in Rishikesh with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Despite leaving India after ten days, Starr composed "Don't Pass Me By », his first song with The Beatles. During the recording of The White Album, relations within the group began to become more tense, and as the sessions progressed, the group's collective dynamism began to fade. so that sometimes only one or two of its members were involved in recording a song. Starr began to tire of McCartney's increasing bossiness and Lennon's passive-aggressive behavior, exacerbated by the constant studio presence of Yoko Ono, his new partner. The tension reached a climax during a session n in which McCartney criticized his drumming, prompting Ringo to leave the group for two weeks and take a vacation with his family on a boat owned by Peter Sellers in Sardinia. A conversation with the captain of the The ship, which explained to Ringo the behavior of octopuses at sea, inspired him to compose "Octopus's Garden". When he returned to London on holiday, he found his drums covered in flowers.
Although there was a temporary return to friendly relations during the last sessions of The White Album, the filming of Let It Be, the group's fourth feature film, and the recording the subsequent self-titled album, further strained relations within the group, which led to their separation barely a year later after temporarily putting aside their differences and recording one last album, Abbey Road. On August 20 In 1969, the group met for the last time at Abbey Road Studios to mix "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", and after a business meeting on September 20, Lennon advised his colleagues that he left the group.
Solo hit with Ringo and Goodnight Vienna (1971-1975)
After the separation of The Beatles on April 10, 1970, Ringo continued a solo musical career that he inaugurated with Sentimental Journey (1970), an album with versions of jazz classics which he recorded at Apple Records studios on Savile Row during the last months of the group's existence. Despite little promotion, the album reached number 7 on the British UK Albums Chart and number 22 on the US Billboard 200 chart. work as a drummer for The Beatles with an emerging film career that began with his foray into the Peter Sellers parody The Magic Christian.
Six months later, after meeting Peter Drake during the recording sessions for George Harrison's album All Things Must Pass (1970), Starr recorded in Nashville Beaucoups of Blues, a country record. Despite obtaining moderate commercial success after reaching number 65 in the United States, the musician temporarily put his musical career on hold and focused on his film activity, recording the T. Rex documentary Born to Boogie.
Although she didn't record a new album for three years, Starr released the 1971 single "It Don't Come Easy," a song she co-wrote with Harrison that reached number four in both the UK and UK. in the U.S. A year later, he released "Back Off Boogaloo", a single that reached number two in the UK. In addition, he played as a session musician on records such as John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) and Living in the Material World (1973), and participated in The Concert for Bangladesh, a benefit concert organized by Harrison to benefit the victims of the Bangladesh Liberation War.
In November 1973, he achieved his greatest commercial success with Ringo, an album that reached number one in Canada and number two on the US Billboard 200 chart. The album, produced by Richard Perry, featured the compositional and musical collaboration of his three fellow Beatles members and included "Photograph" and "You're Sixteen", the musician's only two number one singles. on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Oh My My", the third single from Ringo, marked Starr's fifth consecutive album to reach the top 10 in the United States.
During the time, Starr purchased Tittenhusrt Park, an old mansion Lennon had purchased years earlier, and created a recording studio within the home called Startling Studios.
A year later, he released Goodnight Vienna, an album in which he had the collaboration of musicians such as Lennon, Elton John, Jim Keltner, Harry Nilsson, Vini Poncia and Billy Preston. Despite following the formula of its predecessor, with compositions by contemporary musicians, it achieved less commercial success, reaching number 8 in the United States and number 30 in the United Kingdom. Platters' "Only You (And You Alone)", which peaked at number six in the US, and "No No Song", the seventh consecutive single to reach the top 10 in the US.
After taking legal action with Harrison and Lennon to dissolve The Beatles, Starr ended his contract with Apple Records in 1975 with the publication of Blast From Your Past, a compilation of his most popular songs. famous, and founded Ring O'Records, a record label that followed in the wake of Harrison and his label Dark Horse Records. During its three years of existence, Ring O'Records released works by musicians such as David Hentschel, Bobby Keys, Carl Grossman, and Graham Bonnet.
In 1971, he founded a furniture company with Robin Cruikshank. Ringo's unique designs included tables with heart-shaped flowers that included adjustable petals.
Ringo's Rotogravure, Ringo the 4th and Bad Boy (1976-1979)
Starr's musical repercussion and commercial success began to decline progressively from the mid-1970s, coinciding with the end of Apple Records and the signing of separate record contracts with other labels. Despite this, he continued to record and publish albums regularly: in 1976 he signed a contract with Atlantic Records and published Ringo's Rotogravure, an album he recorded in Los Angeles with the collaboration of musicians such as Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton and Dr John. Although it again included compositions by John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney, following the formula of works such as Ringo (1973) and Goodnight Vienna (1974), the album marked the beginning of several commercial failures: it reached number 28 on the US Billboard 200 list and did not enter the list of best-selling albums in his native country.
Following the lesser success of Ringo's Rotogravure, Atlantic attempted to modernize Ringo by focusing production on a new record, Ringo the 4th (1977), towards R&B and disco music. Also, instead of having external compositions, it included a greater number of songs co-written between Ringo and Vini Poncia. However, the album was a new commercial failure: it reached number 162 on the US Billboard 200 list. According to journalist Peter Palmiere: "Music critics and the public took the album as a joke because Ringo's voice did not fit the disco music of Ringo the 4th." In addition, the journalist stated that the album destroyed his musical career and that he has not been able to recover commercially since then.
The double commercial failure of Ringo's Rotogravure and Ringo the 4th contributed to Atlantic terminating their contract with Ringo, forcing the musician to to find a new record label in the United States. After signing with Portrait Records, he released Bad Boy, an album recorded between Vancouver and the Bahamas and produced by Poncia. However, the devaluation of Starr's musical career followed the same path as his predecessor: despite promoting the album with the television special Ringo: With a Little Help From My Friends, it only reached the position 129 on the US Billboard 200 chart and did not enter the UK best-seller chart. Neither of the two promotional singles taken from the album, "Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)" and "Heart On My Sleeve", charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
Stop and Smell the Roses and Old Wave (1980-1987)
After the commercial failure of Bad Boy, Ringo temporarily put his musical career on hold to focus on his film side. In 1981 The Caveman was released, a feature film in which he met actress Barbara Bach, whom he married on April 27, 1981.
In 1980, he began recording Stop and Smell the Roses, an album that included the collaboration of musicians such as George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ron Wood and Stephen Stills, among others. Initially, John Lennon, who released Double Fantasy (1980) after five years of musical silence, offered Ringo two demos, "Nobody Told Me" and "Life Begins at 40", so that the Record yourself at Stop and Smell the Roses. However, his murder in December 1980 upset the plans and forced Ringo to suspend the recording to fly to New York. In parallel, Harrison, who had offered the song "All Those Years Ago" to Starr, modified the lyrics to honor his former bandmate and included it on his own album, Somewhere in England (1981). The song, released as a single, featured the collaboration of Paul, Linda McCartney and Starr, and reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
A year later, Starr released Stop and Smell the Roses, an album that gained further success in the United States with the lead single, "Wrack My Brain," which peaked at number 38. For On the other hand, the album peaked at number 98 on the US Billboard 200 chart and became their biggest commercial success since the release of Goodnight Vienna (1974).
Just a year later, in December 1982, he began recording a new album with the help of Joe Walsh as music producer. However, RCA Records' decision to terminate his contract forced Ringo to negotiate its release with other labels. The result, Old Wave (1983), was an album available in the United States as an import that failed to chart at all.
The general waning interest in Ringo's musical career, coupled with personal problems with alcohol and his entry into a rehab clinic, made Old Wave his last studio effort in almost one decade, until the publication of Time Takes Time (1992). Between 1984 and 1986, he narrated the animated children's series Thomas and His Friends, a production based on the books by Wilbert Awdry. He also played the character of Mr. Conductor on the spin-off Shining Time Station, which debuted on PBS in 1989. He also played as a session musician on the album by Harrison Cloud 9 (1987), and participated with Jeff Lynne, Eric Clapton, Elton John and Phil Collins at the Prince's Trust benefit concert.
Between October and November 1988, Starr and Bach checked into a detox clinic in Tucson, Arizona to treat their alcoholism. Once recovered from the addition of him, Ringo created Ringo Starr & amp; His All-Starr Band, a revolving band in the style of Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings that in its first edition included Dr. John, Joe Walsh, Billy Preston, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Nils Lofgren, Clarence Clemons and Jim Keltner.
Time Takes Time, Vertical Man and early tours (1990-1999)
In 1990, Starr recorded a version of "I Call Your Name" for a television special marking the tenth anniversary of John Lennon's death. The song, produced by Jeff Lynne, included the collaboration of musicians such as Tom Petty, Joe Walsh and Jim Keltner. A year later, he made a cameo appearance in the episode Brush With Greatness of the animated series The Simpsons, and contributed a new song, "You Never Know", to the soundtrack of the feature film Curly Sue.
The success of his first tour with The All-Starr Band encouraged Ringo to work on a new studio album, Time Takes Time. The album marked his first work in nearly a decade, following the 1983 release of Old Wave, and featured production by Lynne, Don Was, Peter Asher, and Phil Ramone. According to music press reviews, Time Takes Time met with little commercial success and failed to chart at all: only the first single, "Weight of the World", reached number 74 on the chart < i>UK Singles Chart, their best result in their native country since the release of "Only You (And You Alone)" in 1974. Between June and September, he went on tour with the second edition of Ringo & His All-Starr Band, made up of Nils Lofgren, Todd Rundgren, Dave Edmunds, Burton Cummings, Timothy B. Schmit, Timmy Cappello and his son Zak Starkey. The album Live from Montreux included the concert he gave in Montreux, Switzerland on July 13.
Two years later, Starr collaborated with George Harrison and Paul McCartney on The Beatles Anthology, a project that included the recording of two unfinished Lennon demos, three discs of rarities, and previously unreleased outtakes from the the group's career, and an episodic television special on ABC and ITV in 1995. The first demo, "Free as a Bird", became The Beatles' first single since 1970, while "Real Love", the Lennon's second unfinished song, appeared on Anthology 2. During the era, he toured again with a third edition of The All-Starr Band, consisting of Randy Bachman, Mark Farner, Billy Preston, Felix Cavaliere, John Entwistle, and Mark Rivera.
The success of Anthology prompted McCartney, Harrison and Starr to collaborate on various solo projects. Starr appeared on two songs on McCartney's album Flaming Pie (1997), which included "Little Willow", a song dedicated to his former wife, Maureen, who died of cancer in 1994. The day before recording "Beautiful Night", McCartney and Starr recorded an improvisation titled "Really Love You". A year later, Starr signed a contract with Mercury Records and released Vertical Man, the first of a long association with Mark Hudson, who produced the record and formed The Roundheads, a musical group that served as Ringo's core songwriting and recording support for nearly a decade. Vertical Man also featured Harrison on "King of Broken Hearts" and "I'll Be Fine Anywhere", and McCartney on "What... in the World" and " I Was Walkin'", along with other guests such as Ozzy Osbourne, Brian Wilson and Alanis Morissette, among others. After almost two decades with a marked devaluation of his musical career, Vertical Man became Ringo's biggest commercial success since Goodnight Vienna (1974): in the United States, it reached it reached number 61 on the Billboard 200 list, while in the United Kingdom it reached number 85 on the best-selling album list.
The same year, Walsh and The Roundheads joined Starr on the television show VH1 Storytellers, which was released as a live album with the same title. During the concert, he alternated the songs with details and anecdotes about his composition. In the summer of 1998, he toured again with the fourth edition of The All-Starr Band, which included the participation of Peter Frampton, Gary Brooker, Jack Bruce, Simon Kirke, Scott Gordon, and Rivera. A year later, he released I Wanna Be Santa Claus, an album of Christmas carols in which he rescued "Christmas Time Is Here Again", a song originally recorded by The Beatles in 1967 for a Christmas album for the club. official fan of the group and compiled in 1970 on the album From Then to You.
Ringo Rama, Choose Love and Liverpool 8 (2000-2009)
Ringo began the new decade by performing in Canada and the United States with various editions of The All-Starr Band: between May and June 2000, he toured with the sixth edition of the group, consisting of Dave Edmunds, Eric Carmen, Jack Bruce, Simon Kirke and Mark Rivera, and a year later, with a new renewed edition made up of Roger Hodgson, Ian Hunter, Howard Jones, Greg Lake and Sheila E. The same year, he collaborated with Jeff Lynne on the recording of Zoom (2001).
In November 2001, George Harrison died of lung cancer. After his death, she commented, "George will be missed for his sense of love, music and laughter." A year later, Starr participated in Concert for George, a tribute concert to George. Harrison held at the Royal Albert Hall in which he performed "Photograph" and "Honey Don't". According to the concert's official website: "Ringo surprised everyone with tears in their eyes with a rendition of 'Photograph', a composition he wrote with George, which seemed to sum up how everyone was feeling." The same year he was inducted into the Percussive Hall of Fame.
A year later he released Ringo Rama, his first work with Koch Records. The album, again produced by Mark Hudson, featured collaborations with musicians such as Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour and Willie Nelson and included "Never Without You", a tribute to Harrison. Although it garnered good reviews from the music press, its commercial success was moderate, reaching only number 113 on the Billboard 200 chart. Between July and September, he toured again with a new edition of The All-Starr Band consisting of Colin Hay, Paul Carrack, John Waite, Sheila E and Rivera, and released the live album Tour 2003. The same year he formed the Pumpkinhead Records label with Hudson.Although the label was not prolific, he signed Liam Lynch, who produced the album Fake Songs (2003).
In 2005 he released Choose Love, a new album produced by Hudson that included guests such as Billy Preston and Chrissie Hynde. Although it garnered similar reviews to Vertical Man (1998) and Ringo Rama (2003), it did not make any best-seller lists. Its publication was followed by a promotional tour, first with The Roundheads and later with a new edition of the All-Starr Band, made up of Billy Squier, Richard Marx, Edgar Winter, Rod Argent, Hamish Stuart and Sheila E. The concert he offered with The Roundheads at the Genessee Theater in Waukegan, Illinois on August 25, 2005 was released on the live album Ringo Starr: Live at Soundstage (2007).
The same year, Liverpool City Council announced a plan to demolish Starr's birthplace, at 9 Madryn Street, as having no "historical relevance". However, they later rectified and announced that the building was to be dismantled brick by brick and preserved. In 2006, he appeared on Jerry Lee Lewis's album Last Man Standing, singing Chuck Berry's theme song "Sweet Little Sixteen", and announced that he would appear as a character. of comic in an animated film of Pow! Entertainment produced by Stan Lee still unpublished.
In 2006, Daniel Finkelstein, a columnist for The Times, launched a petition to have Ringo awarded the title of sir, after it had been awarded to McCartney ten years earlier. The petition was endorsed in The Sun and Canada National Post newspapers, and received a total of 1,887 signatures. Even so, Ringo himself declared that he had no interest in the title, and when asked if it bothered him not to have that recognition, he jokingly replied: "No, I don't want to be a gentleman, I'd rather be a duke or a prince."
In 2008, he signed a contract with Capitol Records and released Liverpool 8, a new album released on the occasion of Liverpool's candidacy for European Capital of Culture. Although he returned to work with Hudson as a producer, he was replaced by David Stewart after several disputes with Ringo. According to journalist Peter Palmiere, the breakup took place because of Ringo's insistence on using new sounds proposed by Stewart and rejected by Hudson. In the opposite sense, Ringo himself commented on his breakup with Hudson: "It was a matter of friendship and sincerity and has nothing to do with synthesizers. The album garnered more critical reviews compared to Ringo Rama and Choose Love, and met with moderate commercial success, peaking at number 91 on the UK Albums Chart and 94 on the Billboard 200 list. Between June and August, he promoted the record with the tenth lineup of The All-Starr Band, consisting of Squier, Hay, Winter, Wright, Stuart, and Gregg Bissonette.
Another parallel dispute pitted Ringo against his followers by posting on his website a video in which he announced that he was not going to sign any more autographs for any request he received by mail after October 20, 2008. Shortly after, he justified his decision due to the buying and selling of autographs through digital platforms such as eBay: «I was signing and then I was on eBay the next day, so I decided: "I think I have done my part". That was it."
A year later, Ringo reunited with Paul McCartney at David Lynch's benefit concert Change Begins Within', where they first performed separately and then reunited onstage to perform "With a Little Help from My Friends", "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Cosmically Conscious". Yōko Ono and Olivia Harrison at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009. In November 2009, she again provided the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine for the charity single "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley", which reached number one on the < i>UK Singles Chart.
Y Not and Ringo 2012 (from 2010 onwards)
In January 2010 he released Y Not, a studio album produced by Ringo himself and with the collaboration of musicians such as Joe Walsh, Joss Stone, Van Dyke Parks and Ben Harper, among others, in addition to the participation of Paul McCartney in the first single, "Walk with You". i>Ringo's Rotogravure (1976). The publication of Y Not was followed by a promotion on various TV shows such as The Daily Show, where she performed the song "Walk With You", Late Night with Jimmy Falon, where he performed "The Other Side of Liverpool", and on The Jay Leno Show.
The same year he participated in the telethon Hope for Haiti Now as a telephone operator, and a week later he presented with Norah Jones the Grammy Award for best recording of the year to Kings of Leon. In addition, he promoted Y Not with a new Ringo & His All-Starr Band, consisting of Wally Palmer, Rick Derringer, Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Richard Page and Gregg Bissonette. During the tour, he celebrated his 70th birthday with a concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York in which Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono and his son Zak Starkey participated. In mid-2011, he announced through his website his first visit to Latin America as a continuation of the eleventh tour of his All-Starr Band. The Latin American leg of the tour included concerts in Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil in November 2011. The same year he contributed to the Buddy Holly tribute album Listen to Me with a cover of "Think It Over ».
In January 2012 he released Ringo 2012, a studio album that featured guests such as Walsh, Dyke Parks, Stewart and Winter. The album, which included re-recordings of "Step Lightly" and "Wings", released on the albums Ringo (1973) and Ringo the 4th (1977) respectively, peaked at No. 80 on the Billboard 200, a lesser commercial success than Y Not. The release of Ringo 2012 was followed by a new tour with the twelfth line-up of his All-Starr Band, consisting of Steve Lukather, Richard Page, Todd Rundgren, Gregg Rolie and Bissonette, across the United States and Canada. between July and August. The tour continued in February 2013 with eleven concerts in Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and between October and November with several concerts in Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Paraguay and Argentina. In June of the same year, he published Photograph , a digital book with photographs and images related to his musical career from the musician's personal archives.In September, he received the French Legion of Honor.
In January 2014, he joined Paul McCartney at the 2014 Grammy Awards, where the two performed the song "Queenie Eye." In 2015, he toured again with his All-Starr Band, with concerts in the United States and Latin America between February and March. The tour preceded the release of Postcards from Paradise, a new album by study published on March 31. On June 3, 2016, he kicked off his Ringo Summer 2016 Tour with his All Starr Band.
Musical skills
Musical Influences
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During his youth, Starr was a follower of skiffle and blues music, although after joining The Texans in 1958, he developed a greater interest in rock music. and for rock and roll. He was also drawn to country music, especially artists like Hank Williams, Buck Owens and Hank Snow, as well as jazz drummers like Chico Hamilton and Yuself Lateef, whose style influenced the way he played. touch of Starr. Years later, Ringo himself covered an Owens song, "Act Naturally", on The Beatles' album Help! (1965), and made an entire album of country songs. > in Beaucoups of Blues (1970). Reflecting on Buddy Rich, Starr commented, "He does things with one hand that I can't do with nine, but that's technique. Everybody I talk to says, 'How about Buddy Rich?' Well, what about him? Because he does not turn me on ». He also commented that "he was never really into the drumming world", although he did identify Cozy Cole's 1958 version of "Topsy Part Two" as "the only record by a drummer" he ever bought.
Starr's first musical hero was Gene Autry, of whom he commented: "I remember getting chills down my spine when he sang "South of the Border"". In the early 1960s he was also a follower of Lee Dorsey. In November 1964, he told Melody Maker magazine: "Our music is second-hand versions of black musicians... Ninety percent of the music I like is colored"
Batteries
While Starr acknowledged his own technical limitations when it came to drumming with The Beatles, the overall effect of his contribution to the group's music drew praise from a notable number of drummers. Starr commented, "I'm not good at technical stuff...I'm your offbeat drummer with fun fills...because I'm really a lefty playing a right-handed kit." His drum kit was a Ludwig Black Oyster with its 20 bass drum. He used Zyn, Crash Ride 20 and Crash 18 cymbals. Music producer George Martin commented of Ringo: "He hits nice and hard and uses the bass drum well, even though he couldn't make a roll to save his life." ", although he later added:" It has a tremendous feeling. He always helped us get the right tempo for a song, and he gave us that support, that solid, rocking backbeat, that made all Beatles songs so much easier." Starr also commented: "Always I thought that the drummer is not there to interpret the song", and compared his profession with painting: "I am the foundation, and then I put a little shine here and there... If there is a mistake, I want to be good enough to fill it up."
In 2011, readers of Rolling Stone magazine ranked Ringo fifth on their list of the greatest drummers of all time. Journalist Robyn Flans, who also worked on the Modern Drummer magazine, wrote of Ringo: "I can't count the number of drummers who told me that Ringo inspired their passion for drumming." Among them Max Weinberg, Dave Grohl, Danny Carey, Liberty DeVitto and Mike Portnoy have recognized Ringo's influence. On the other hand, drummer Steve Smith commented on Starr's musical contribution:
«Before Ringo, the star of the batteries was measured by its virtuosity and its ability to do alone. Ringo's popularity brought a new paradigm in how the audience saw the batteries. We begin to see the batteries as an identical participation of the compositional aspect. One of the best qualities of Ringo was that he composed stylistic and unique drum parts for The Beatles songs. Their contributions are so part of the signature of the songs that you could listen to Ringo's battery without the rest of the music and identify the song."
Starr also influenced Genesis drummer Phil Collins, who said, "Starr is so underrated. The drum from the song "A Day in the Life" It has very complex things. You can pick up a great drummer today and say, "I want it like that." I wouldn't know how to do it." In September 1980, John Lennon commented in an interview with Rolling Stone:
"Ringo was a star by his own right in Liverpool before we met. Ringo was a professional drummer who sang and played and was in one of the best groups in Britain, but especially Liverpool. So Ringo's talent would have come out in one way or another... Whatever Ringo's spark, we all knew her but we couldn't put a finger on her. If it's playing, acting or singing, I don't know. There is something in it that is projectable and that would have arisen individually... Ringo is a damn good battery»
In addition to Lennon, McCartney and Harrison also recognized Starr, in a gesture of fellowship, as the best drummer in the world. After leaving the recording sessions for The White Album (1968) and taking a holiday on Peter Sellers' yacht in the Mediterranean, Starr returned to London to find his drum kit covered in flowers. In the same vein, on January 31, 1969, the day after the group gave their last concert on the roof of Apple Studios in Savile Row, McCartney sent Starr a postcard that read: "You are the greatest drummer in the world. Really» —in Spanish: «You are the best drummer in the world. Really"-. A copy of the postcard appears in his book Postcards from the Boys.
In an extensive study of The Beatles' recording sessions, historian Mark Lewisohn confirmed that Starr was competent, highly reliable, and consistent. According to Lewisohn, there were fewer than twelve occasions during the eight years that The Beatles recorded together that the group had to stop recording due to Ringo's mistake, with most of the mistakes being attributed to the other three Beatles. It is also considered an influence on modern percussion techniques such as the matched grip —the way to grip the sticks— and the use of damping devices on the drum rings, as well as the placement of the drumstick. instrument on platforms to give it greater visibility. According to Ken Micaleff and Donnie Marshall, authors of Classic Rock Drummers : "The sound of the tom and the delicate work of the snare drum were imitated by thousands of drummers."
Vocal contributions
During The Beatles' existence, Starr sang an average of one song per album on all of the group's albums, in an attempt to establish a vocal personality for each band member. In several cases, John Lennon or Paul McCartney wrote songs specifically for him, such as "Yellow Submarine" on Revolver (1966) or "With a Little Help from My Friends" on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) In addition, the melodies were adapted to his limited baritone vocal range. Ringo also contributed backing vocals to songs such as "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Carry That Weight" by Abbey Road, and served as lead vocalist on his own compositions, such as " Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden". She also sang on "I Wanna Be Your Man", "Boys", "Matchbox", "Honey Don't", "Act Naturally", "Good Night", "What Goes On" and "If You've Got Trouble".
Compositions
Starr's grammatical turns, commonly called ringoísmos , such as «a hard day's night» —in Spanish: «La noche de un día duro"—and "tomorrow never knows" —in Spanish: "Mañana nunca sabe"—, were often used by his fellow Beatles as song titles. McCartney commented: "Ringo he used to do these malapropisms, he used to say things a little wrong, like people do, but his were wonderful, very lyrical... They were a kind of magic."
However, in the face of the Lennon/McCartney compositional tandem and Harrison's growing work on the same subject, Starr's contribution to the group's musical catalog was scant, with just two compositions: «Don't Pass Me By » and «Octopus's Garden», published in The White Album (1968) and Abbey Road (1969) respectively. Starr himself recognized his limitation when it came to composing, acknowledging in the documentary The Beatles Anthology that he used to present his peers with songs that they instantly recognized as music by other artists, mainly Jerry's. Lee Lewis.
In addition to inspiring his peers through the use of malapropisms, Starr occasionally helped finish the lyrics of Lennon/McCartney songs, such as the verse: "Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there" - in Spanish: "Mending his stockings at night when there is no one there" - in the song "Eleanor Rigby".
Starr is also listed as a co-writer on several songs: "What Goes On", "Flying" and "Dig It". In material released after The Beatles split, he was credited as the composer of "Taking a Trip to Carolina". and was credited on five other songs by the group: "12-Bar Original", "Los Paranoias", and "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)", as well as the instrumentals "Suzy Parker" and "Jessie's Dream"., present in the feature films Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour respectively.
Awards and recognitions
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On June 12, 1965, Starr and the other three Beatles were recognized as members of the Order of the British Empire, receiving the badge from Queen Elizabeth II at her investiture at Buckingham Palace. Along with his fellow Beatles, he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer for the 1964 film A Hard Day's Night and won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for the 1964 film A Hard Day's Night. 1970 Let It Be.
The asteroid (4150) Starr, discovered on August 31, 1984 by B. A. Skiff at Lowell Observatory's Anderson Mesa Station, was named in his honor. Starr was nominated for a 1989 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding performer in a children's series for his role as Mr. Conductor in the series Shining Time Station.
All four members of The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a group in 1988. Following the inductions of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison in 1994, 1999, and 2004 respectively, Ringo was inducted into the the Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2015.
In 2002, Starr was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame along with Ed Thigpen and John S. Pratt. On November 9, 2008, he accepted a Diamond Award on behalf of The Beatles during the World 2008 Music Awards held in Monaco. On February 8, 2010, he was honored with the 2,401st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located across from the Capitol Records building at 1750 North Vine Street.
On March 20, 2018, Starr is appointed "Sir" or Knight of the British Empire by the Duke of Cambridge, William. Ringo stated that this distinction is "an honor and a pleasure" to be "considered and recognized" for his music and his charity work, as he loves both.
In Durango, Dgo. Mexico on Calle Peatonal Constitución there is a plaque on the walk of fame of the actors who have set foot on the "land of cinema in Mexico", the above in relation to the film that he filmed in those lands "The Caverman" next to Barbara Bach, in 1980.
Discography
- Alone
- With Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band
Filmography
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