Is Ringo Starr the luckiest man evah?

He was definitely the right drummer for the Beatles - a really nice groove to his best work e.g Drive My Car, Daytripper, Come Together, virtually all the early stuff.

And as important - his 'lovable loser' personality was a great fit with other three and allowed the Beatles to be presented as four distinct characters.

In the case of Ringo Starr, his melodic talent (or lack thereof) was clearly demonstrated in those few songs he wrote, plus the fact that he was completely unable to hit the notes properly.

That being said, any drummer getting to work with such geniuses as McCartney, Lennona and Harrison would have been extremely lucky.

Completely bullshit. Easily the worst solo-Beatles. "Tug Of War" alone makes McCartney the best solo-Beatles by far.

Anyhow, the writing team of "Harrison/Starkey" was crim neglected within the Beatles, but "It don't come easy".

McCartney has his moments but Tug Of War isn't one of them - C-Moon, Coming Up etc etc. John post-Beatles is mostly embarrassing. I can take Geo's All Things Must Pass. But there's so much warmth and wit in IDCE - great tune too - who could not love Ringo for it?

"Tug Of War" remains McCartney's masterpiece because it was devoid of the annoying DIY approach of most of his other solo material. Instead it had the kind of slick, perfect production that fits his pop sensibility perfectly. "Flowers In The Dirt" is just behind, while most of his Wings output suffers from bad production.

Ringo was a very important element in the Beatles' success, though - a fine drummer; considering how pedestrian "Love Me Do" is compared to the rest of their early singles he may have made the difference between regional stardom and best thing evah.

x-post John post Beatles: JLPOB and Imagine are both great albums, and then he drifts, but the cherry picks and outtakes on the Wonsuponatime comp make it clear there's lots there. You'll not be able to make a comp of similar strength from any of the others or all them put together, frankly.

Yes, that's the WHOLE FUCKING PROBLEM!!

Harrison died of cancer.

McCartney lost his first wife to cancer and is now shack(l)ed up with a Geordie golddigger.

Starr narrated Thomas The Tank Engine, is married to a former Bond girl and is currently working on a comic book with Stan Lee at Marvel.

I know who I think did best out of the whole deal.

I don't know that there's much difference between the Ringo-version and the Andy White version. I have an urgent need to check this -but will have to wait for tonight as don't have either on my ipod. I do have the Pete Best version though - just listening now....jeez he butchers the middle eight with some ill-advised skipped beats. He's not bad on Ain't She Sweet or Cry For A Shadow, but really on the basis of LMD it was a good call to move him on.

Um, previous point...

When Lennon died, they played "Imagine" a solo hit.
When Harrison died, they played "My Sweet Lord", a solo hit.
McCartney will have "Hey Jude" or "Let it be" both Beatle hits, for his passing away. Not "Mull of Kintyre" that's for sure.

The jury's still out wrt Ringo's. Probably "Good Night" or "Yellow Submarine". "Devil Woman" would be nice though...

Not completely. He wrote "Love", "Imagine", "Jealous Guy", "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)", "Oh My Love", "#9 Dream", "Mind Games", "Woman" and "Watching The Wheels", all of them really great songs.

But generally, Lennon as a solo act is overrated. And "Plastic Ono Band" is awful.

Anyone can do beats.

(i don't want stormy davis to read this, so let's keep it quiet. i always kinda wished the stones had a different drummer. i know, i'm a heretic. i can't help it. someone wilder. not moon wild, but wilder.)

Probably "It Don't Come Easy."

(xxpost)

-- Geir Hongro

Yes, Lennon's POB is awful.
But only in comparison to Yoko's!

Didn't George at least kinda quit in 1966?

Lucky to be great
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m76KOirLmIw

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m76KOirLmIw

argh

How can people be so arghless

what's the origin of the rumour that Ringo was not a good drummer?

Re: MVB’s link, not for nothing did George Martin initially consider making the Beatles’ first album a live recording from the Cavern. As it happened, the cost and hassle of moving extremely heavy and expensive EMI equipment up to Liverpool, combined with the Cavern’s shaky electricity situation (touching the sweat on the walls could result in a mild shock), mooted that as a possibility.

what's the origin of the rumour that Ringo was not a good drummer?

In the end it's all about time, and his time is impeccable, so I would never call him a "bad" drummer. Like the Edge and U2, Ringo would be my first pick for any Beatles cover band.

I have always wondered why post-Beatles Ringo live so often paired with another drummer? Even when doing his own stuff.

Yeah I guess wrt to George it was a case of "I'm out if we keep touring" rather than a full on "I quit". Not so far from Ringo being sick of the unpleasantness of the White Album sessions.

Xpost possibly bc he was drunk

I'd rather listen to solo'd Ringo Starr drum tracks vs. the very same of Charlie fucking Watts.

I have always wondered why post-Beatles Ringo live so often paired with another drummer? Even when doing his own stuff.

Bcz he puts together showbands, not a rock group.

the 12 year old Marcello/geir beef itt is fukkin wild

why does this thread exist?

my guess is that at this point in his life ringo still enjoys singing a bit but doesn't really have the energy to drum every night with a band.

I don't have much of an opinion about Ringo's drumming that no one's heard before but I just saw that video of the Backbeat band (incl Greg Dulli as Lennon, Thurston Moore, Mike Mills, and Dave Grohl on drums) playing "Helter Skelter" and tbh I'd probably have more fun seeing that band in action than the actual Beatles

lol i love the backbeat band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFzL0X9pLNA

Lol it's like if the Beatles had 5 guitars.

I get the whole swing / feel argument, but if you listen to Rain - often credited as a moment of his greatness - it just gets painful as you drum along. The timing is horrendous. You're willing him to keep time. He can't complete a fill in normal time, and it fucks the whole song up. So I'm not sure about the "right drummer for the song" thing. I love the idea of Rain, and hate listening to it, because all I can hear is the weird lags and badly timed fills. The rest of the song could be so... gliding. He has no concept of glide. His instincts are bad. And that matters more than chops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK5G8fPmWeA

Rain is a weird one to pick, because I have no idea who or what he was playing along with. Slowed down, etc.

In a nine-and-a-half measure verse (as in the second verse of "Rain"), is there a place where Ringo could have started and stopped the fills that would have been more proper?

What do you mean, Josh?

And of course my second question to Paul would be, if there are, why do I want these starting and ending points to be more proper?

Man, McCartney's triplets on the second chorus of "Rain" are really cool.

wow i don’t agree with paul at all

but i’m a super amateurish drummer so idk

sorry for bumping this thread and jump starting an inevitable argument about ringo’s ability

You know what, I've always been mystified by the acclaim for Ringo's drumming on "Rain" - his fills are way behind the beat there. There must have been some sort of issue with tape speed - or maybe they were going for out-of-time fills on purpose - because he doesn't play like that on any other songs; normally his fills are in time. But his sense of timing in general is pretty eccentric - not bad, just fucking different from most drummers'. Which is why I've never gotten the "his timing was impeccable" dimension of Ringo praise/apologism in general. And yet I don't agree with paulhw's conclusion at all - his instincts on every other song are terrific; Ringo was a better song-drummer than almost anybody at the time. By which I mean he always played to the song - he knew how to punctuate the lyrics, how to bring out the dynamics between different sections, how to underline and add exclamation points to the best parts and to each member's performance. More than anyone in the band but Paul he understood how to turn a great song into a great performance, a great record.

That's very otm. Re time, I have no particular reference for saying it, but I think the comments people often assume are about Ringo's great time, are actually about his absolute consistency. He's not a metronome, but if you listen to the session tapes for the albums, take after take after take he plays with exactly the same tempo, feel and rhythm, meaning you could splice takes without having to speed correct or whatever. Of course many drummers play to click tracks these days, but he achieved the same thing without a reference.

he was the best rock 'n roll drummer in liverpool, and therefore very probably the best rock 'n roll drummer in the world
is this a joke or am I missing smth, surely the best drummer would be American?

'Rain' is not the first track I'd use as a great example of Ringo's drumming - for me, that would be either 'Tomorrow Never Knows' or 'She Said She Said', which I think is a fine bit of drumming. The drumming on 'Rain' is meant to sound fucked up - as has already been pointed out, he doesn't play like that on any other songs.

Contrast this with Charlie Watts, a guy who seemed incapable of playing a fill without fluffing it, who allegedly has jazz chops but couldn't grasp the rhythm to 'Ventilator Blues' and has this general lumpen feel to his playing - almost like his hands (and quite possibly the drum skins) are covered in treacle. I remember reading a thread over at the retirement home (the Hoffman boards) where loads of rapidly aging boomers were falling over themselves to praise his playing, which I guess proves that even so-called audiophiles don't have a fucking clue.

xp yes, who can forget the great American Invasion of the 1960s

Yeah, Watts is a bit of a mystery to me. Unlike, say, Mick Avory, who totally swings and is super creative. (But who was still often replaced in the studio early on.)

xpost (I guess) I mean that lots of aspects of "Rain" are manipulated or slowed down, but not the drums (I don't think). So I don't know what Ringo was listening to or hearing when he did his take, and I don't know if that ultimately had anything to do with how his drums fit/sit in the final product.

Watts is a fine drummer. Calling him a genius is as fucked up as calling Kanye one.

I think Watts came into his own later on when he reached wind up monkey mode. Around when he started leaving out the hi-hat every time he hit the snare. Late '70s, maybe?

Again, where would be the normal place for the fills to start and end in the second verse of "Rain?"

Because it does not maintain a normal four beats per bar.

I think Watts came into his own later on when he reached wind up monkey mode. Around when he started leaving out the hi-hat every time he hit the snare. Late '70s, maybe?

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, June 4, 2018 12:49 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He was still appalling even in "wind up monkey mode", when he'd decided to keep the fills that he couldn't pull off to a minimum and stick with the one beat he's halfway decent at.

I completely agree on Mick Avory though, absolutely fantastic drummer. Particularly love his work on 'Everybody's Gonna Be Happy' ...

Avory certainly had his moments of greatness, but had a tendency to slow down, especially live. Mitch Mitchell would do that, too, starting around early/mid-'68 or so, and it's so annoying. And Watts, but only on "Get Off My Cloud" -- apart from that song, his tendency is to speed up (compare the tempo at the end of "Honky Tonk Women" to the tempo at the beginning). Speeding up is fine, though.

Yeah, I think that most live bands that aren't playing to a click have a tendency to gradually speed up - it's a natural reaction to the adrenaline rush that kicks in when a band are just getting off on playing, or the energy being fed back to them by the audience etc. I've no problem with that and I don't get why it should be a problem, provided you don't notice them speeding up. 'Monkey Man' ends a hell of a lot faster than it starts, but the speeding up is that gradual that it's only when I do an A-B comparison of the tempos at the beginning and end do I notice it's there. The slowdown on 'Get Off My Cloud' is annoying, though - and I can't say I've spent much time with Kinks live recordings, but Avory's work on the studio stuff is generally great.

The drums on "Rain" are slowed down. The whole rhythm section is which is why it sounds thunderous.

and I can't say I've spent much time with Kinks live recordings, but Avory's work on the studio stuff is generally great.

I think Avory's done great stuff in the studio. I may be overstating his tendency to slow down, but this clip really annoys me, as it's an interesting new arrangement that he drags down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3nvJ2hmaUI

Raise your hand if you knew Ringo was designing furniture in 1971.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvM5XL5xAts

My favorite Ringo impression:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddIXGy1e2VE

Well, wasn’t expecting this but the album he’s done with T-Bone Burnett is really good.

Thought it was okay on first listen.

I'd have to look at his full discography, but I imagine T-Bone's default is okay. Has he ever produced any stinkers?

It wasn't a matter of life/Death so no.