Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey, MBE (born July 7, 1940) known by his stage name, Ringo Starr, is a popular British musician, best known as drummer for The Beatles. Ringo is known for his reliable, steady drumming and innovative fills. His everyman personality made him an easy fit with the other Beatles.

Starr married Maureen Cox in 1965, divorced in 1975 - children Zak, Jason and Lee. He has been married to actress Barbara Bach (most famous for her role as the "Bond Girl" in The Spy Who Loved Me) since 1981.

Early years

Richard Starkey was raised in the working class Dingle section of Liverpool. He went through two serious illnesses as a child and spent a total of three years in hospital, thereby falling behind badly in school. He became the drummer for the Liverpool band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes from 1959 to 1962, playing the same local and Hamburg circuit as the Beatles did. When the Beatles removed Pete Best as their drummer on August 16, 1962, Ringo was their choice to replace him.

Role in The Beatles

Although some have tried to downplay his contributions to the band, Starr's drumming style played a major role in the overall sound of The Beatles. Many drummers list Starr as a major influence including Max Weinberg of The E Street Band, Liberty DeVitto of Billy Joel's band, Phil Collins, Andy Sturmer of Jellyfish, and others. According to Collins, Ringo is "vastly underrated. The drum fills on "A Day in the Life" are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, 'I want it like that.' They wouldn't know what to do." in his extensive survey of The Beatles recording sessions, Mark Lewisohn confirmed that Starr was both proficient and remarkably reliable and consistent -- according to Lewisohn, there were less than a dozen occasions in the Beatles' eight-year recording career where session 'breakdowns' were caused by Starr making a mistake, while the vast majority of takes were stopped due to mistakes by the other three members. Starr has commented that the most difficult drumming he has ever performed was on the Beatles song "Rain."

Lennon, McCartney and Harrison have all said that Ringo was the best rock and roll drummer in the world, although when asked in an interview once "Is Ringo Starr the best drummer in the world?" John Lennon quipped "He's not the best drummer in the Beatles!" This was in reference to the White Album song "Back In The USSR", in which Paul was forced to do the drumming; Ringo had stormed out earlier and didn't return for two weeks. Paul was also on the drums in "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", since only Lennon and McCartney were available.

Ringo's easygoing, everyman personality played a major role in the Beatles' success, combining very effectively with Lennon's wit, McCartney's charm, and Harrison's quiet seriousness.

Ringo generally sang at least one song on each studio album, as part of establishing the vocal personality of all four members. In some cases John Lennon or Paul McCartney would write the lyrics and melody especially for him, as Lennon did with "With a Little Help from My Friends", from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and as McCartney did for "Yellow Submarine" from Revolver. Often these melodies would be deliberately limited to take into account Starr's vocal range—most of "With A Little Help From My Friends" is sung within the space of five notes.

Of all the Beatles, Ringo did the least songwriting. He did, however, write "Don't Pass Me By" (on The White Album) and "Octopus's Garden" on the album Abbey Road, albeit with quite a bit of help from George Harrison. The former continued to show the taste for country music that Ringo had brought into the band on earlier albums, such as on Rubber Soul's co-write "What Goes On."

In addition Ringo contributed a number of lyrical ideas and song titles to Lennon and McCartney, although usually unintentionally. One of the most famous examples of this was the title for the band's first motion picture, A Hard Day's Night. Starr had emerged from the studio after a long day of work and commented to the others that it had been a "hard day's..." - before he finished his sentence, Starr noticed that it was now night time and added "night". Lennon and McCartney liked the twisted phrase enough that they decided to use it as the title for the still untitled movie the band had been filming. Another example is the title to "Tomorrow Never Knows".

After the Beatles

After the breakup of the Beatles Starr scored hit singles with "It Don't Come Easy" and "Back Off Boogaloo", and participated in Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh.

In 1973 the "Ringo" album came out, lushly produced by Richard Perry and with participation by all three former bandmates on different tracks. It was a major triumph and Starr unexpectedly became the most commercially successful ex-Beatle at that time. The Goodnight Vienna album followed the next year and was also successful. Hits and notable tracks from these two collections included "Photograph" (co-written by Harrison), "You're Sixteen", "I'm the Greatest" (written by Lennon), "Only You", and the "No No Song".

Starr's recording career subsequently diminished in impact, although he continued to sporadically release albums. Beginning in 1989 he became a visible presence on the summer touring scene, organizing a series of concert tours called Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band, teaming with well-known musicians from various different rock eras. The format of the concerts has Ringo singing a couple of his Beatles or solo songs, then each of the other musicians taking a turn to sing one of their songs with Ringo behind the drums, then Ringo singing a couple more, then another go around, and so on. The eighth such All-Starr Band tour took place in 2003.

Starr has acted in several films such as Candy (1968), The Magic Christian (1969) (alongside Peter Sellers), Son of Dracula (1974) and Caveman (1980). He starred as Larry the dwarf in Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (1971). He was especially well-received in the British film That'll Be the Day (1973) where he co-starred as a Teddy boy.

In 1984, he narrated on the children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and portrayed the character Mr. Conductor on that program's American spinoff Shining Time Station, which debuted in 1989. In 1991, he appeared as himself on the cartoon The Simpsons.

In January of 2005, it was announced that comic book creator Stan Lee would be working with Starr to produce a new animated musical superhero based on Starr.

Hit singles

• 1971 "It Don't Come Easy" #4 US, #4 UK
• 1972 "Back Off Boogaloo" #2 UK, #9 US
• 1973 "Photograph" #1 US, #8 UK
• 1974 "You're Sixteen" #1 US, #4 UK
• 1974 "Oh My My" #5 US
• 1974 "Only You (And You Alone) " #6 US, #28 UK
• 1975 "No No Song" b/w "Snookeroo" #3 US
• 1975 "(It's All Da-Da-Down To) Goodnight Vienna" #31 US
• 1976 "A Dose of Rock 'n' Roll" #26 US
• 1981 "Wrack My Brain" #38 US
• 1992 "Weight of the World" #72 UK
• 1993 "Don't Go Where The Road Don't Go"
• 1998 "La De Da"
• 2003 "Never Without You" (with electric guitar played by Eric Clapton)

Trivia

• In 1996, Ringo Starr appeared in a Japanese advertisement for apple sauce, which coincidentally is what Ringo means in Japanese.