Happy Birthday, Ringo Starr!

Have his looks improved with age?

I'm gonna set you straight. This dance is great. Let's do the RINGO!

Is he necessary?

More than you, R3.

Big deal!!!

One of the luckiest guys in the planet!

Pervy-er than all get out!

Sorry if I hurt your feelings, r4, it wasn't my intention.

And I agree, I'm not as necessary was Ringo Starr, but, we're not talking about me, are we?

necessary as^

Amazing that Ringo was more popular than George and John in the beginning of the Beatles. Limited (I'm being nice) and a fug.

I think he was underrated or at least, overshadowed by the brilliance of John and Paul. In his last interview (Playboy 1980), John notes that Ringo was a celeb in his own right before joining the Beatles. He played for Liverpool’s biggest band (at that time), Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He was given solos called “Starr Time.”

Love that Abbey Road solo, too.

Also interesting, he was quite sickly as a child/teen and spent a lot of time in the hospital. I have to go back and look up what he had. Anyway, I’m glad he’s 80 and loving life!

John called Ringo a “damn good drummer.”

R11 and everyone, Ringo was so bad as a drummer he didn't play on a lot of Beatles records - session musicians or Paul did. Ringo missed a lot of their live performances too because he was not "well" enough to perform. They always said he was ill, but he was drunk. Ringo was an alcoholic from an early age, a falling down-can't-work kind of drunk.

R13 That claim was attributed to Peter Brown’s book, but Brown wasn’t there at the sessions.

Other sources I’ve read claim he did play on their songs, which the exception of a handful such as The Ballad of John and Yoko (George didn’t play on this one, either) and Back in the USSR. This was due to either Ringo (and /or George) being away or having walked out.

I don't go by any one source, R14. I've read about the Beatles since the 1960s, and listened to first-hand stories (from musicians) and to endless gossip for decades. John and Paul always stuck up for Ringo's musical talents, which I felt was based on affection for Ringo the person rather than the musician. Ringo has admitted his alcoholism, and he and his second wife went to rehab in the 1980s or so, he seems to be clean. I think this "Ringo was a great drummer" and "Ringo was underrated as a drummer" is revisionist history. Probably to uphold the image of The Beatles.

EVERYONE knew when The Ballad of John and Yoko came out in 1969 that Paul played most of the instruments. It was public knowledge, not a well kept secret waiting to be dug up by someone.

Richard has been clean and sober decades now. He didn't do anything back in the 70's that most other musicians weren't doing. Nice guy.

I think he was cute. The early mop top haircut actually suited him better than the other three.

oh c'mon, their songs ain't that complicated. any beginning drummer can play Beatles songs.

Sir Richard Starkey MBE to you.

Not while on a five day bender, R18.

Any recent pictures of him?

He does not sign autograph for fans. He's quite a cunt.

Has he got any money? (Asking for a friend.)

R6 I consider Ringo the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

Ringo played drums on most of the Beatles records. The only session musician who ever played drums on a Beatle record was on one of their very first sessions at EMI, for the single version of "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You". They'd already made one attempt at recording the songs with their original drummer, Pete Best, with terrible results, because Pete was not a good drummer and could barely keep time. So in between that attempt and the second attempt, they fired Pete and replaced him with Ringo. Producer George Martin didn't know Ringo, had no idea whether he was going to be any good or not, he didn't want the studio time to be wasted due to a bad drummer, so he hired a session drummer to play, and Ringo was given a tambourine. When they re-recorded the songs for the album, Ringo played on those versions.

In the 70's, a legendary studio drummer, Bernard Purdie, made the claim that he'd been hired to play drum parts on the early Beatles records. HIs claim has been thoroughly debunked. What appears to have happened is that he was hired (not by the Beatles, who didn't even own the rights to these recordings and had nothing to do with them) to overdub drums on some pre-fame recordings the group did in Hamburg (the stuff they did with Tony Sheridan, "My Bonnie", "Ain't She Sweet", and all that) that were being reissued to cash in on their popularity. But once the rumor was out there, it was out there, and it still resurfaces every once in a while. It's patently false.

Paul McCartney played drums on a couple of songs on the White Album. They were up against a deadline, and Paul reportedly had gotten very bossy and less open to the others' ideas. At one point, he pissed Ringo off to such an extent that Ringo quit the band and went on vacation. So, in order to keep on schedule, Paul played drums on, I believe, "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence" (although most people believe that Ringo overdubbed the fadeout, which sounds VERY Ringo), while they coaxed Ringo back. And Paul and John recorded "The Ballad of John and Yoko" without George and Ringo. I think George might have been in India or something, and Ringo was probably working on a film. John wanted to record it and release it right away, so he and Paul just went in and did it. This wasn't a huge deal, because that's how the group operated in the studio. Sometimes Paul played lead guitar, instead of George. Sometimes George played bass, instead of Paul, or rhythm guitar instead of John. Sometimes John played lead guitar or bass.

As for his bout with alcoholism, that occurred in the 70's, after the band had broken up. The only group member that had a serious substance abuse problem during the group's existence was John Lennon, who got hooked on heroin for a brief period during the "Get Back/Let it Be" project.

I'm not going to get into whether or not he was a good or a great drummer, because in the end that's a matter of personal opinion. If your idea of a great drummer is Keith Moon, John Bonham, Ginger Baker, Neal Peart...the guys who do 10-minute drum solos and bash away on the kit like a madman, then Ringo's not going to impress you. But that type of drummer would have been totally wrong for the Beatles. Ringo's drumming was very creative ("Ticket to Ride", "Rain", "Come Together", "Strawberry Fields Forever") and perfect for the band. Hell, that 2-second intro on "She Loves You" is so iconic, you know what song it is the second you hear the first drumbeat. His personality was also a perfect fit.

Happy 80th, Ringo!

Oh, and the idea that he "missed a lot of performances because he was drunk" is also false. He came down with tonsilitis at the height of Beatlemania, so they hired another drummer named Jimmy Nicol who subbed for Ringo for something like 10 days. The others wanted to cancel the gigs rather than play with another drummer, but their manager insisted they keep their commitments.

Other than that, he never missed a show. Where do you folks come up with this shit?

Thanks R24!

R24 too long.

R24, reads a lot of books

R24 is DL's Readers' Digest. Burp.

R24 speaks the truth. Careful DL, you may learn something.

Thank you so much for that comment R30 (aka R24)