![]() His songwriting debut with the Beatles, “Don’t Pass Me By,” took him five years to complete. Some good things were said about That’ll Be The Day, but good luck finding anyone outside of mid-’70s U.K. He stuck mostly with low-budget U.K./European productions, which are a dicey proposition to begin with, and had an unerring ability to choose the worst film of that type going before the cameras at any given point. Unfortunately, every single film he chose to be in from his 1968 solo acting debut ( Candy) to his 1981 cinematic swan song ( Caveman, admittedly an HBO favorite of mine when I was seven) was total shit. Fueled by positive remarks on his performances in the two Beatles films, Starr decided to try his hand at film acting as a second career. Even the dumbed-down versions of his drum patterns on The Beatles Rock Band were complicated enough to open a lot of ears to how crucial his contributions were to the Beatles’ collective genius. Oddly enough, it was a video game the firmly put Starr back in the pantheon of greats. If you listen to his almost-melodic work on things like “A Day In The Life” or his subtly challenging intro on “Here Comes The Sun,” you realize you’re hearing a percussionist of formidable talent.Īs the excessive sounds of the ’70s and ’80s grew outdated and unfashionable themselves, respect for Starr began to re-emerge. He employed just as many complex patterns and tricky time signatures as the later prog-rock “technician” drummers, who got the plaudits for doing so, but Starr did it without calling attention to his own playing. He hits the snare with a peculiar, flat thwack unique to him (one music writer compared it to a mason slapping down bricks), and utilized a lot of echoed, rolling tom-tom fills, moving around the kit intuitively rather than studiedly. Starr’s drumming for the Beatles is as full of personality as any element of their sound. True skill is making something complex seem simple. (The myth was believed by a certain breed of music journalists and fans, but never by other drummers.) Ringo’s simpler style on a comparatively tiny kit seemed outdated. They flailed away behind huge kits with double bass drums, a thousand cymbals, and a fucking gong, and set a new standard in what people wanted out of rock drumming. The whole “Ringo-wasn’t-very-good” myth stems from the post-Beatles era of the early 1970s, when instrumental overkill was all the rage and the flashiness of guys like John Bonham and Neil Peart was revered. ![]() Maybe it was the fact that he was three inches shorter than the others, or wasn’t quite as handsome (that nose, y’know.) What seems clear is that the dismissiveness people sometimes projected onto Ringo as a personality began to spill over to his skill as a drummer, and that’s just plain unfair. Maybe his role as the “runt” stemmed from the fact that he joined the band at the last moment before they skyrocketed in late ’62. The fact that the proto-Fab Three had coveted him and his drums for years should certainly say something about how his skills were regarded at that time, and the fact that the great Ringo Starr ditched his sweet gig with the Hurricanes and deigned to join these upstarts should say something about Starr’s own musical judgment. He drove a sporty car while his future bandmates still scrounged for bus fare, wore flashy jewelry (hence the stage name), and cultivated a cool bohemian beard as early as 1960. In fact, “Richy” (his spelling) was considered something of a tough customer, rising up from the lowest of the Liverpool slums (a place called “The Dingle”) to become the powerhouse drummer for the hardest-rocking band on the local “beat” scene, Rory Storm & The Hurricanes. He was the oldest Beatle, and the others have all reminisced about how much more cool and sophisticated Starr seemed before he signed on with them. Out of the spotlight, however, the real-life Richard Starkey could be just as cutting and sarcastic as Lennon, as moody as Harrison, and as savvy as McCartney. He was the mascot, the goofy dimwit, condescended to and put upon by the others, but always childlike and cheery. ![]() Starr may have been the Beatle who least matched his public persona, a persona created out of thin air by the early-’60s media (especially the American media, who initially had trouble telling them apart) and reinforced by his “Ringo” character in A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, and especially the ridiculous Beatles Saturday morning cartoon. But the experience of listening to all of them actually turned out not to be excruciating. Most folks who lead normal lives are blissfully unaware that the former drummer for the Beatles has released sixteen solo albums. ![]()
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