As big as the Beatles were, it makes sense that Starr, years later, would confess to having been terrified. For in the eyes of many, he was always one of the lesser Boys, a musician whose talent was dwarfed by that of the group's principal songwriters, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Starr was seen as the drummer backing up genius--a cute and witty mop top--but still a sideman. By the early 1990s, Starr also recognized how vulnerable he had been a generation earlier and how he had succumbed to the self-destructive trappings of stardom. For Starr, the two decades post-Beatles were marked less by musical growth than by alcoholism and a handful of spotty solo albums. Finally, in the late 1980s, cleansed of his addictions and enjoying the most genuine self-confidence of his life, Starr began making real music again and, more importantly, started looking forward with optimism rather than backward with resentment. "I'm out to prove that I'm still alive," he told Rolling Stone in 1992.
An only child, Starr was born Richard Starkey, July 7, 1940, in Dingle, a working-class suburb of Liverpool, England. The nickname Ringo was given to him by his mother because of his penchant for jewelry. Starr spent much of his childhood in hospitals, suffering from a burst appendix, peritonitis, a fractured pelvis, and pleurisy (he would undergo life-saving intestinal surgery in Monte Carlo in 1979). He left school before he was 14, helping the family's finances with jobs as an engineer's apprentice and waiter on a ship that ran between London and Wales. Having fashioned his first set of drums out of tin cans and an old tea chest, Starr became a proficient percussionist after being given a real set for Christmas. His dream of becoming a rock star was cemented after an encounter with one of his early heroes, crooner Johnnie Ray. Starr remembered in People, "When I was 15, he was sitting on top of Liverpool's Adelphi Hotel throwing photos down to the fans, and I thought, 'That's the job for me.'"
Despite his on-again, off-again fantasy of becoming a hairdresser, Starr was intent on a life of music, and he maneuvered his way into the Liverpudlian bands that he believed had the greatest chance for success. In 1960 he went to Hamburg, Germany, on an engagement with Rory Storme and the Hurricanes, who gigged on the same bill as a young, straight-ahead rock and roll group known as the Beatles. He had sat in with the Beatles on several occasions back in Liverpool, and, in 1962, was given the nod to replace drummer Pete Best, whose performance was questioned by an executive at the group's new record label, EMI. At first, Beatles manager Brian Epstein harbored some misgivings about Starr, worrying that the drummer's playing was too loud and that his appearance--he was, by most accounts, considerably less handsome than Best--was unimpressive. Loyal fans, too, were initially reluctant to accept the change. But all concerns quickly evaporated as Starr's infectious smile and head-swaying energy proved a perfect complement to the charismatic presence of the other Beatles. More importantly, his no-frills playing solidified the rhythm-section backbone of the Beatles' hard-driving tunes.
In the crowded English pop music scene, no combo could match the personal magnetism of John, Paul, George, and Ringo or the harmonies and brilliant melodic turns of such early Beatles hits as "Love Me Do" and "She Loves You." The Beatles grabbed the national limelight, which would follow them throughout the decade, with concerts in London in 1963. In one case indicative of the hysteria that attended the Beatles' meteoric rise, police were called in to rescue the musicians from a frenzied mob of teen-age fans. And, suggesting the national treasure that they would become, the Beatles, after their Royal Command Variety Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre, were visited backstage by Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother.
As the result of an intense publicity campaign by Epstein and the success of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," the much-storied arrival of the Beatles in the United States became not only the musical event of 1964, but one of the most dramatic cultural happenings of the decade. Against the backdrop of the band's appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and the screaming hordes who awaited their arrival at airports and crammed stadiums to listen and bop to the tunes, these working-class Liverpudlians were transformed into world-class pop icons.
While the music invited the body to dance, it was the charm of the individual Beatles that engaged the heart and endeared the group to millions of Americans. At press conferences, the musicians were irreverent yet innocent, and their vaudevillian sense of humor served as a refreshing reminder that self-seriousness need not go hand in hand with stardom. In an informal poll taken at one of their concerts, Starr was in fact rated the most popular Beatle among American fans.
And while televised interviews demonstrated the Beatles' comedic gifts, film became the extended forum for their humor and frivolity. Because of his roles in A Hard Day's Night and Help, Starr emerged as the court jester, the ham, the acting Beatle. He later revealed in Rolling Stone, "When we were asked if we'd like to make a movie, we said, 'Are you kidding? Of course we'd like to. Doesn't everyone want to make a movie?' I just happened to be the one who enjoyed movies the most. I used to get to the set early, and I'd say, 'Put me on camera, man! Put me in front of it. I have a good time here.'"
But it was the music, obviously, that sustained the lure of the Beatles. From their early sugary pop tunes to the more mature psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the group created some of the tightest, most memorable songs in the history of rock. Toward the end of the 1960s, the band stopped touring, opting instead to remain in the studio to record some of their most ambitious and thoughtful records, notably 1968's The Beatles (popularly known as The White Album) and Abbey Road, from 1969. Throughout the decade--as the modified page-boy hairdos were replaced by flowing locks and pegged trousers gave way to bell-bottom jeans--Starr remained the ever-steady drummer, offering a consistent beat to ground the musical and, occasionally, drug-induced wanderings of the other players.
Don Was, one of four producers who pitched in on Starr's 1992 album, Time Takes Time, explicated in the New York Times, "As a drummer, he influenced three generations of rock drummers. It's not very flashy playing, but it's very musical. Instead of just counting the bars, he's playing the song, and he puts his fills in unusual places that are dictated by the vocal." Though Starr has repeatedly called himself the greatest rock drummer in the world, he has confronted his share of doubters. The most common complaint--having nothing to do with his skills on the skins--is that he, and to a lesser extent, George Harrison, were mere functionaries, a competent but hardly spectacular support structure for the real stand-outs, Lennon and McCartney. This demon has haunted Starr unremittingly, though, to many observers, he was the most gregarious Beatle and bore the least antipathy toward the others.
When the Beatles broke up in 1970, Starr became directionless. While Lennon, McCartney, and even Harrison were able songwriters, Starr's creative outlets were more limited. He explained in People, "It was pretty hard for me just to go and join another band, because I was bigger than any band I could have joined." Effectively cornered into a solo career, Starr nonetheless scored a Number Seven hit in April of 1970 with Sentimental Journey, a collection of standards produced by Beatles board wizard George Martin. "I did it for me mum!," Starr proclaimed, according to Rock Movers & Shakers, by way of justifying the odd choice of material, the success of which could most likely be attributed to the lingering Beatles glow. In June of the following year Starr released the self-penned "It Don't Come Easy." The song, which featured the guitar stylings of producer George Harrison and Stephen Stills, climbed to the Number Four position on the Billboard singles chart and was certified gold--indicating 500,000 units sold--two months later.
These triumphs, however, were only a warm-up for Starr's 1973 score, the Number Two album Ringo, which featured "Photograph," a Number One chart hit co-written with Harrison, "You're Sixteen," another Number One, and "Oh My My," a Top Five hit. Joined on the recording by the other former Beatles, Starr, who had only rarely contributed more than the beat to the Fabs--with the conspicuous exceptions of nasal but endearingly distinctive lead vocals on "Octopus's Garden," which he wrote, "Yellow Submarine," and "With a Little Help From My Friends"--proved he could successfully step out from behind the drum kit. Ringo was followed by 1974's Goodnight Vienna, which took up residence at the Number Eight slot. In 1975 Starr landed another single in the Top Ten, a cover version of the Platters 1955 blockbuster "Only You." And April of that year saw his take on the Hoyt Axton ditty "The No No Song" hit the Number Three mark.
But Starr soon fell from this peak, throughout the late 1970s and '80s releasing only the occasional forgettable album--his Old Wave LP, from 1984, could only find wide release in Germany and Canada--sitting in with other artists, and plunging into a miasma of drug and alcohol abuse. As the world remained under the spell of the Beatles, as stories of a reunion continued to surface, the ex-Beatle, playing the role of the faded star, talked about his reemergence on the musical scene but failing to deliver on his plans.
Meanwhile, Starr appeared in several B movies, including That'll Be the Day, Born to Boogie, which he also directed, and Son of Dracula. After John Lennon's murder, in 1981, Starr released And Smell the Roses, which Stereo Review' s Joel Vance described as "simultaneously Ringo's farewell to Beatledom and a display of his own strengths as an entertainer, which are considerable." But abuse of alcohol was taking its toll; just as his life seemed to lack coherence, so did the drummer-singer's professional output lack constancy.
In 1988, fresh from a detoxification program, Starr assembled a stellar lineup of sidemen, including erstwhile Bruce Springsteen saxophonist Clarence Clemons, New Orleans pianist Dr. John, former Band members Levon Helm and Rick Danko, drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist Joe Walsh, keyboardist Billy Preston, and singer-songwriter-guitarist Nils Lofgren. With his All-Starr Band, the ex-Beatle toured for the first time since 1966. In 1992, a slightly modified version of the ensemble embarked on a second tour, and Starr, though offering no new material, brought audiences to their feet, with, among other songs, his signature, "With a Little Help From My Friends." Boston Globe contributor Steve Morse reported of Starr's winning performance, "He hasn't lost his ability to entertain with a friendly, geezerlike presence that would bring a smile to the most hopeless Scrooge."
Further evidence of Starr's renewal was his widely acclaimed 1992 release, Time Takes Time. August Rolling Stone reviewer Parke Puterbaugh assessed the effort thus: "Ringo sings in that wonderfully plain-spoken style of his, and his drumming is artful simplicity itself. He conveys avuncular concern without being preachy, and while the album is not without bland spots and pat tunes, it stands as heartening proof that Mr. Starkey still has something to offer at fifty-two."
