Let it be Sir Ringo!
For decades, seen (wrongly) as the least talented Beatle, RAY CONNOLLY says the drummer’s New Year’s Honour is long overdue
He was always the most patient of The Beatles. He had to be, working with the egos of John Lennon and Paul McCartney — while George Harrison wasn’t without a high opinion of himself, either.
But the news that Ringo starr is expected to be knighted in the New Year’s Honours List will correct an injustice that the patient Beatle had all but given up hope of ever seeing righted.
Of the two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney was knighted 20 years ago, but Ringo just kept being overlooked. Is that so surprising? sitting with his drums at the back of the stage, writing none of their hits, and rarely singing, his contribution was easy to miss. That is, easy for everyone but The Beatles themselves.
They knew how important Ringo was. That was why they invited him to join them when they were on the cusp of fame. and what a choice they made.
It wasn’t just that he was the best drummer they knew. Ringo’s value to The Beatles went beyond music.
while Lennon and McCartney might have dazzled, and George Harrison suggested mysticism, it was level-headed Ringo who worked as an emollient in the band when they were falling out among themselves. and it was Ringo whom people trusted.
which is why his knighthood will make an entire generation smile with affection.
Because Ringo, unassuming, plainly spoken, with his sad blue eyes, was The Beatle with whom people could best identify: the little man grandmothers and small children loved.
although we may not hear too much about him these days, he’s been performing, touring and recording, mainly in america, for almost 30 years with Ringo’s all-starr Band. He might not get the publicity of Paul McCartney’s tours, and there is no certainty that the halls he plays will always be full. But he doesn’t mind too much.
He hardly needs the money. He just loves to be in a band. That was why he joined one in the first place, after a very uncertain start in life.
AN EAGER, if sickly child, he always had to make his own quiet, cheerful way against all the odds.
while the other Beatles were suburban grammar school boys, little Richard starkey — his real name — was from the Dingle, the poorest part of Liverpool.
with four years spent in children’s hospitals (he was in a coma for ten days suffering peritonitis, an infection of the stomach wall), he didn’t learn to read until he was nine, only ever having five full years of school. He was never dim, as is clear from his wit, he just got left behind.
when he became famous, the picture he painted of his childhood (‘we never had a bathroom, but it was home, it was fine’) showed little rancour, except perhaps towards his father who had deserted his mother when he was three. Ringo rarely saw him.
By the time Ringo went back to school, he was hopelessly behind, and began playing truant. ‘I regret not learning earlier. It means that your knowledge is so limited,’ he admits. ‘John [Lennon] took Latin and painting.’
Instead, he roamed the Liverpool bomb- sites with pals, wanting to be either a tramp or a merchant seaman, always wanting to go somewhere.
at 13, with his mother happily remarried, he became ill again. ‘I got pleurisy. Liverpool was a breeding ground for tuberculosis, especially where I lived. I was put into a greenhouse for a year.
‘It was puberty for me and when the nurses kissed us good night, it was all quite frisky. They were all young . . . 18 to 20. we had two wards, separated by a partition, with girls in one and boys in the other. There was a lot of hot passion going on. we’d sneak in at night to the girls’ ward and fumble around.’
It was while in hospital that he began playing the drums.
‘I was in the hospital band. I started using cotton bobbins to hit on the cabinet next to my bed. I was in bed for ten months. It’s a long time to keep yourself entertained. That was when I really started playing. I never wanted to do anything else from then on.’
He never returned to school lessons after the age of 13.
Three years later his stepfather and other relatives clubbed together to buy him a £12 set of old drums for Christmas.
soon he was in a group and playing at parties and weddings. Clubs followed. He says he played with just about every group in Liverpool, and before long he was semi-professional, an apprentice engineer by day, a drummer by night. eventually, he auditioned for Rory storm and The Hurricanes, Liverpool’s most popular group.
He was also a Teddy Boy. ‘ You had to be, where I lived. If you were in a gang, you were safe. I wasn’t a great fighter but I was a good runner: a good sprinter. If you were on your own with five guys coming towards you, you soon learnt to be.’
Then, in 1960, he decided to give up his day job.
soon he was playing at a Butlin’s holiday camp. and, like most members of groups in those days, he took a stage name: Ritchie starkey becoming Ringo starr because of the rings he wore on his fingers.
He loved Butlin’s: ‘It was the best place we could have been. a new coach-load of girls would arrive every week. It was paradise. There would be tears at the end of the week … but then a new coach would come.’
He went on in 1960 to play in Germany — where he met The Beatles.
Though it took another two years to join them, the fourth member of the final group had been found.
everyone of a certain age remembers Ringo with The Beatles, but what has it been like to be Ringo without The Beatles?
Ironically, since he was always thought to be the least talented member, when The Beatles broke up, he was the first out of the blocks with his big solo hits It Don’t Come easy and Back Off Boogaloo. and, after his appearance in a Hard Day’s Night, there was a burgeoning film career, too.
Unfortunately, he was inexperienced and took some very silly parts, appearing in flops such as The Magic Christian with Peter sellers and sextette.
But in a film I wrote, That’ll Be The Day, he was terrific, winning excellent notices. He should have done more like that. He was a better natural actor than he ever realised. His life, however, was now changing. Following a divorce in 1975 from his first wife, Maureen Cox, whom he’d known since his days at the Cavern (she would die of cancer in 1994, with Ringo and their children at her bedside), he married american actress Barbara Bach.
His life with The Beatles had been crippling, non- stop work, ‘eight days a week’, as he put it, but, when asked, he still played with all three Beatles on their solo albums.
soon, however, he began to embrace the rock star lifestyle more fully. They say there was no rock and roll party in Los angeles if Ringo wasn’t there.
and, though he was drumming again as he guested with other old pals, it was irregular work. without a real career, he had time on his hands, and an increasing drink problem arose.
True to character, Ringo is honest in summing up his lost years. ‘I’ve got photographs of me playing all over the world,’ he once said, ‘ but I’ve absolutely no memory of it. I played washington with the Beach Boys . . . or so they tell me. But there’s only a photo to prove it.’
FINALLY, in 1988, he and fellow alcoholic Barbara went into a rehab clinic.
He was lucky. The clinic saved him. since then, and now a member of alcoholics anonymous (‘My name is Ritchie and I’m an alcoholic . . .’), he’s been on the wagon — with funds being set aside to go to a charitable trust to help, among others, those whose lives have been wrecked by drugs or drink.
Looking for something to do, in 1989 he put together Ringo’s allstarr Band, an ever- changing group of musician friends that included Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, Joe walsh from the eagles, Dave edmunds, Peter Frampton, Jack Bruce and Billy Preston. and with a variety of different line-ups, the all- starr Band has been playing ever since.
‘For me, it works as a great formula,’ he says. ‘ everyone has had hit records, so the show consists of me upfront and then I go back behind the drum kit and support the others. It’s just good music and I’m having a lot of fun.’
as a boy, Ringo always wanted ‘to go somewhere’. and, some time next year, he’ll be going to Buckingham Palace, 53 years since he first went there to receive his only other honour from the Queen when each of The Beatles was given an MBE — only for John Lennon to later return his.
This time, will it be, ‘ arise sir Ringo?’ Or, will the plain-speaking Beatle tell the Queen: ‘Don’t call me by my stage name’? In which case, it will be, ‘arise sir Richard starkey.’
It won’t be before time. The Beatles weren’t just about catchy songs, guitars and harmonies. They were a social phenomenon — and we should not forget that Ringo was a star, too.