This column first appeared in September 2012.
On September 11, 1962, the lads from Liverpool dumped popular drummer Pete Best in favor of Ringo and, it did not go over well with some fans.
Richard Starkey was born on July 7, 1940, at 9 Madryn Street, Dingle, Liverpool, Lancashire, England, the son of Elsie and Richard Starkey, a confectioner. He was a sickly child — at age six, he developed appendicitis, which developed complications, causing him to fall into a coma. At 13, he developed chronic pleurisy and was admitted to a sanatorium, where he stayed for two years. His health and frail nature made his schooling sketchy at best. He turned to music instead. As a child, Starr was left-handed until he became ambidextrous when his grandmother forced him to write with his right hand because she thought it was a witch spell for people to be left handed.
Like John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, Ringo became caught up in Liverpool’s skiffle craze. Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, and roots influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. “Skiffle” originated in the United States in the first half of the 20th century then became popular in the UK in the 1950s.
Richard Starkey began his road towards rock immortality when, in 1959, he joined the “Raving Texans” skiffle band. He adopted the stage name “Ringo Starr” because of the rings he wore on each finger and because it sounded “cowboyish,” and his drum solos were billed as “Starr Time.” By October 1960, the band was renamed “Rory Storm and the Hurricanes,” and while performing with them in Hamburg, Germany, Starr met The Beatles. On October 16, 1960 he drummed in Hamburg with Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, recording with them for the first time. There was just one problem; The Beatles already had a drummer.
Just a couple months before (August 17, 1960), the lads asked Pete Best to join them on their tour of Hamburg. The boys had seen Best playing in a local Liverpool hangout with his own group, The Black Jacks, and noted that he was a steady drummer, nothing flashy, but Best kept the rhythm. It was most likely his reputation with the female fans of the Liverpool skiffle scene that sold McCartney, Harrison and Lennon on hiring the new drummer. Best was known in Liverpool as being “mean, moody, and magnificent” by his female fans, which convinced McCartney he would be good for the group. In fact, most historians claim that Best was the best looking member of the group. After The Black Jacks broke up, McCartney convinced Best to go to Hamburg with The Beatles, by saying they would earn £15 per week each. It was a tough decision for Best as he had passed his school exams (unlike Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, who had failed most of theirs) and had a good chance to go to a teacher-training college. Best decided that Hamburg would be a better career move and certainly sounded like more fun. Best would remain with the band for the next two years and four days.
The Beatles’ first recording session under George Martin’s direction took place at Abbey Road Studios in London on June 6, 1962. Martin immediately complained about Best’s poor drumming and suggested they use a session drummer instead. The Beatles, already contemplating Best’s dismissal, replaced him in mid-August with Ringo Starr, who left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to join them.
Pete Best was never fully told why he was dismissed, as the only reason manager Brian Epstein stated was, “The lads don’t want you in the group any more.” Epstein later claimed in his autobiography that Lennon, McCartney and Harrison thought Best “too conventional to be a Beatle, and though he was friendly with John, he was not liked by George and Paul.” In Cynthia Lennon’s book John she states that while Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison usually spent their offstage time together in Hamburg and Liverpool, writing songs or socializing, Best generally went off alone. This left Best on the outside, as he was not privy to many of the group’s experiences, references, and inside jokes. Best was described by Dot Rhone, McCartney’s girlfriend at the time, as being very quiet, and never taking part in conversations with the group.
Ringo Starr’s first performance as a member of the Beatles was on August 18, 1962, at a Horticultural Society dance at Port Sunlight. Ringo joined the lads at the Cavern Club for a performance the next day. Pete Best’s fans were upset by his firing, holding vigils outside Best’s house and starting fights at the clubs where the Beatles were performing, shouting “Pete forever! Ringo never!’ During one of these fights, George Harrison received a black eye from one of the angry fans. It was an inauspicious beginning for the man that many rock historians call the “Greatest Rock-N-Roll Drummer” ever.
Starr generally sang at least one song on each studio album as part of an attempt to establish the vocal personality of all four members. Lennon or McCartney wrote the lyrics and melody especially for him, as they did for “Yellow Submarine” and “With a Little Help from My Friends.” The Beatles used Starr’s unusual turns of phrase, or “Ringoisms” as they became known, such as “a hard day’s night” and “tomorrow never knows” by turning them into songs. According to McCartney, “Ringo would do these little malapropisms, he would say things slightly wrong, like people do, but his were always wonderful, very lyrical… they were sort of magic.” Starr occasionally contributed his own lyrics to unfinished Lennon and McCartney songs as well, such as the line “darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there” in “Eleanor Rigby.”
Most people don’t realize that it was Ringo who first left the band. His disgust with the band’s tensions and boredom at waiting around for the White Album recording sessions to begin caused him to quit the group temporarily. He spent two weeks with actor Peter Sellers on the Pink Panther star’s yacht in Piraeus, Greece where he wrote “Octopus’s Garden.” He resisted the pleas of the other Beatles urging him to come back: Lennon sent telegrams, and Harrison set up flowers all over the studio for Starr’s return saying “Welcome home.” McCartney took over the drums on “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and “Dear Prudence” from the White Album (1968) while Ringo was away, and also played drums on “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” recorded on April 14, 1969, since only he and Lennon were immediately available to record the song. Starr commented that he was lucky in being “surrounded by three frustrated drummers” who could only drum in one style.
After the announcement of the break-up of The Beatles on April 10, 1970, Starr released two albums before the end of that year. Sentimental Journey featured Starr’s renditions of many pre-rock standards and included the arranger talents of Quincy Jones, Maurice Gibb, George Martin and McCartney, among others. His next album, Beaucoups of Blues, put Starr in a country context, and included renowned Nashville session musician Pete Drake. He scored hit singles with “It Don’t Come Easy” (1971) (U.S. No.4) and “Back Off Boogaloo” (1972) (U.S. No.9), the latter of which was his biggest UK hit, peaking at No.2. He achieved two No.1 hits in the U.S., with “Photograph” (co-written with Harrison) and “You’re Sixteen.”
In September 1980 shortly before his death, John Lennon said this about Starr: “Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we even met. He was a professional drummer who sang and performed and had Ringo Starr-time and he was in one of the top groups in Britain but especially in Liverpool before we even had a drummer. So Ringo’s talent would have come out one way or the other as something or other. I don’t know what he would have ended up as, but whatever that spark is in Ringo that we all know but can’t put our finger on — whether it is acting, drumming or singing I don’t know — there is something in him that is projectable and he would have surfaced with or without the Beatles. Ringo is a damn good drummer.”
Ringo continues to make music and occasionally tours with his “All-Star Band.” But many of his current fans remember him as the narrator of the children’s series “Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends” and for his 1991 appearance (as himself) in the animated Simpsons episode titled: “Brush with Greatness.” In 1995, Starr appeared with Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork of the Monkees in a Pizza Hut commercial. In the ad, he claims he is trying to reunite “the lads.” The commercial ends with the three Monkees joining Starr. He looks into the camera and says “wrong lads.”
Starr married Maureen Cox on February 11, 1965 and they had three children: Zak, Jason and Lee. The couple divorced in 1975, and Cox died in 1994. In 1980, on the set of the film Caveman, he met actress and former “James Bond Girl” Barbara Bach. They were married on April 27, 1981, a few weeks after the release of Caveman. In 1985, Starr was the first of The Beatles to become a grandfather upon the birth of Zak’s daughter, Tatia Jayne Starkey. Zak Starkey is also a drummer, who until August 2008 was a semi-official member of Oasis; one of the many bands influenced by The Beatles. Starr arranged for Zak to receive drumming instruction from Zak’s idol, the Who’s drummer Keith Moon, who was Zak’s godfather and a close friend of Starr’s. Zak also performs with the Who live (including in the Super Bowl Halftime show in 2010) and sometimes in the studio.
For my part, I will always smile when I think of Ringo because it was during his September 1964 trip to Indianapolis with The Beatles to perform 2 sold-out shows at the Indiana State Fairgrounds that he visited my neck of the woods. Seems Ringo could not sleep and asked one of the state troopers assigned to protect him if he knew of a quiet place he could go and get breakfast. The trooper took The Beatles’ drummer up to his hometown of Carmel Indiana to the kitchen of the old Carmel Motel, where his wife worked. There, Ringo was able to eat a peaceful pre-dawn meal. I rode my bicycle to that restaurant on many a summer day as a youth, mainly because it was the only place that sold “National Lampoon” magazine, so I always felt a connection. The magazine where I saw the greatest story headline ever back in 1978: “John Paul elected Pope; George Ringo Mad.”
On February 8, 2010, Ringo Starr was honored with the 2,401st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. It is located at 1750 North Vine Street, in front of the iconic Capitol Records building, as are the stars for Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. So at least in Hollywood, The Beatles are together again
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
