Ringo became a Beatle 50 years ago TODAY!
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grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I was a mere embryo in my Mama's womb while Ringo pounded the skins with the Beatles for the first time.
Of course, it was after I was born that they really took off !
Lots of people say this or similar and it's true. I feel the same way about Adam Clayton's bass playing in U2. Sometimes I've said to people "I could've been the bass player in U2".
But I say it tongue in cheek because I'm particularly aware that such a statement totally misses the point. The issue isn't whether any competent drummer could've drummed on the Beatles' stuff {And Andy White on 'Love me do' & 'PS, I love you', Jimmy Nicol on a few 1964 gigs and Paul McCartney on a number of White album tracks and 'The ballad of John & Yoko' did just that, while Bernard "Pretty" Purdie claimed to have drummed on 21 tracks from 1963} but rather, that Ringo Starr did and it was that symbiosis of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr {with occasional support from George Martin and after 1964, a large array of sessioneers} that made those tracks what they were.
I tend to feel that sometimes, in trying to downplay a band or player as average or ordinary, we miss seeing what their contribution was to the overall synergy. There have been drummers from the old and less old days {I think off the top of my head of Ringo, Mick Avory of the Kinks, Nick Mason from Pink Floyd, Phil Rudd from AC/DC, Phil Taylor from Motorhead, Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols, Rick Allen from Def Leppard, Woody Woodmansey from the Spiders from Mars, John Coghlan from Status Quo, etc, etc but there are loads of them} that were by no means exceptional individual drummers, yet, who were so intrinsically part of the music that the bands they played in became famed for. Whether other people could've done it is neither here nor there.
It's a point worth making that the Beatles regarded Ringo as the top drummer in Liverpool and chased him to get him. Now that may not mean much, but in their 7 years once they began to make records and got big, they could've had their pick of pretty much any drummer in the UK or USA. But they never sought to replace him. Even when he quit the band during the White album, Paul McCartney took over on drums for two or three songs but they went after Ringo and got him back. When George Harrison quit a few months later, John Lennon's first reaction was "well, we'll just get in Eric Clapton if he's staying out !!".
After the Beats broke up, each of the others had a succession of drummers and Wings had endless problems with drummers. Even though McCartney took over the playing for "Band on the run", it's noticeable that he never did that again. On Lennon's first album proper, it's to Ringo he turned.
For me, the greatest accolade for Ringo doesn't come from me or any fan or engineer or admirer ~ it comes from the band themselves in their actions towards him. Their actions towards Pete Best also spoke volumes !
I am not in any way shape or form a fan of the beatles, but Ringo's drumming was awesome. Yeah, by conventional standards he sucked and pretty much anyone can do it, but NO ONE was boom bashing 4-on-the-floor with wide open hats all the time like Ringo did in those early days. His drumming was thunderous for that era. I think Ringo was the best thing about that girlie-pop boy band.
I personally like Keith Moon way better, and Keith Moon was better, but they're not the same kind of drummer.
I personally like Keith Moon way better, and Keith Moon was better, but they're not the same kind of drummer.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I really like a number of English 60s drummers - Ringo, Charlie Watts, Mick Avory, Nick Mason, Ian Paice, John Bonham, Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, Clem Cattini, Mick Fleetwood, John Coghlan, Jim Capaldi, Rob Townsend, Mitch Mitchell, Skip Alan, Twink, Richard Hudson, Steve Upton, Michael Giles {though I think he was overrated}, Bobby Graham,Tony Oxley, Clive Bunker.......
I like them all for differing reasons and they're pretty much different kinds of drummers. But they all had that English quirkiness or perhaps more accurately, provided ideal drums for the English quirky pop and rock of the period. I love the fact that as rock and pop music expanded {and in the case of Oxley, jazz} and fused with/borrowed from other forms, these guys and others had to keep on finding new and original rhythms and patterns that propelled the music that their bandmates were writing, especially with the weird time signatures once LSD, Indian ragas and jazz had entered the consciousness.
It's arguable whether Keith Moon overplayed; what is in no doubt is that he was the first rock drummer to play so wildly and polyrhythmically as a regular thing and that put the Who's music on a different level altogether. What drummers tended to do in practice and during warm ups that were never ever intended for records, Moon utilized for the songs that Pete Townsend wrote. He was the main ingredient that took the Who away from being Kinks clones.
Track Rat
Just Your Average Sized Member
When I hear people say Ringo was a meat and potatoes kind of a drummer, I don't think they're actually listening to what he was doing. Ringo played to THE SONG and wasn't trying to show people how many times he could hit in a measure. What he did play was always clever and fit the songs pefectly. He didn't over play and I think that's why he's under rated.
That's the very definition of a meat and potatoes drummer. That's not a bad thing with drummers though. With guitar, there's not much respect for people that only play powerchords. On bass there's not much respect for a guy that just rides root notes. But with drums, a solid pocket drummer that serves the song and doesn't over-drum.....well no one disrespects that.
R
RAMI
Guest
Yeah, Ringo was the perfect drummer for that group. Besides, Charlie Watts, I can't see any other drummer laying for that band.
As simple and "play for the tune" as he was, he actually came up with some interesting stuff. The beat for "Ticket to Ride" is pretty innovative for the time and I can't imagine that song with just a straight beat.
The beat on "Tomorrow Never Knows" pretty much makes that tune for me.
And, like Greg said, his 4-on-the-floor, open hi-hat driving style is solid and drives a lot of those tunes.
As simple and "play for the tune" as he was, he actually came up with some interesting stuff. The beat for "Ticket to Ride" is pretty innovative for the time and I can't imagine that song with just a straight beat.
The beat on "Tomorrow Never Knows" pretty much makes that tune for me.
And, like Greg said, his 4-on-the-floor, open hi-hat driving style is solid and drives a lot of those tunes.
I read in the book Recording the Beatles, when bouncing went to high levels, the snare would suffer and lose some of its definition. So Ringo doubled the snare hits. I’d have to check the book to see what period this was. But that kind of made me think, damn, that takes talent. I mean I never noticed it on a song so the hits had to be perfect, no slicing and dicing like today.
Since I ain’t no kind of drummer, that may be simple, but I think - not as simple as pie. But it also sheds a bit of insight into his world at the time.
If I had to point to one thing that evolved the most during those years, it has to be the drum sound. Just compare Love Me Do to Come Together. Mostly engineering is the reason but it’s a synergy too.
Since I ain’t no kind of drummer, that may be simple, but I think - not as simple as pie. But it also sheds a bit of insight into his world at the time.
If I had to point to one thing that evolved the most during those years, it has to be the drum sound. Just compare Love Me Do to Come Together. Mostly engineering is the reason but it’s a synergy too.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
That's an interesting one. I've often thought that myself. I love Charlie Watts' drumming. Much has been made of the fact that he was primarilly a jazz drummer before he chucked in with the Stones but that rarely surfaced in his playing. During their psychedelic period, he was coming out with some superbly off the wall bits though, on stuff like "We love you" and "Dandelion". My favourite piece of Stones' drumming is on "You can't always get what you want" which, ironically, wasn't him. It was the producer, Jimmy Miller.
As the decades have worn on and enough distance has been put between the Beatles initial meteoric and social impact, more and more commentators have focused on their actual music and one of the things that doesn't get spoken of much is how much each contributed to particular songs. Like it was George Harrison's idea to combine the two Lennon songs that made "She said she said" and it was he that transformed "And I love her" by putting in that lovely guitar riff that sustains the song from start to end and he brought in the 3/4 waltz idea to "We can work it out". Ringo was responsible for naming the last LP "Abbey Road" and often found the drum parts to various songs. But Paul McCartney also suggested parts not readilly associated with him, among them the drum patterns of "Ticket to ride" and "Tomorrow never knows".
R
RAMI
Guest
Yeah, I especially love "Dandelion". I was going to cover it, but I did "She's a Rainbow" instead. Love that era of the Stones
Christ, you just shattered my world. That's one of my all-time favorite rock beats in any song. It's so un-conventional, the snare never hits the "2" or "4". That's not Charlie? That's amazing.
I didn't know that, but I know he came up with "Tomorrow never knows" and "Hard day's night".
More world shattering! My 2 favorite Beatles beats.
That's 3 of my favortie beats NOT played by the drummer of the band.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
The '65~'69 era of the Stones is also my favourite of theirs. They were progessing in such a vital way and one of the things they're rarely given credit for as so many commentators major on their 'bad boy' raunchiness is their melodic power. They came out with tons of superb melodies. They also came out with some outrageously wonderful backing vocals like in "Dandelion". They knew when to get the right voices in too, with Lennon and McCartney on "We love you", Merry Clayton on "Gimme Shelter" and Nanette Workman, Doris Troy, Madelline Bell and the London Bach choir on "You can't always get what you want".
"She's a rainbow" is also one of my faves of theirs. I was 16 when I first heard it. Because my Dad was well into classical music, I thought he'd appreciate some of that middle section but at that time, our relationship was at a lower ebb than it ever had been or was again so I never got a chance to play it to him.
I was pretty surprized when I learned it wasn't Charlie. I was reading a Charlie Watts interview and in it, he says that he just couldn't get the part so Jimmy Miller, the producer played it after spending ages trying to show him it. In an interview with Ronnie Wood, Woody says he was stunned when Charlie told him that he didn't play the part !
It's a song that I never get tired of hearing. I love the way the drums shift from pattern to pattern as the song approaches it's end and as the choir goes up and up the progression, those last two patterns are as close to musical orgasm as one is likely to get. In the film "Rock and roll circus", Charlie plays the song live but it's not the same.
But Charlie was still knocking out some great drumming in that period.
I was surprized about that one too. I knew that they were going to call the album "Everest" after the fags that Geoff Emerick smoked and they were going to fly out to India again but this time to take some photos for the cover at the foot of Mount Everest. I was aware that in a fit of laziness, they changed their mind and decided to call the album "Abbey Road" but until I read Geoff Emerick's autobiography, I didn't know it was Ringo.
Mind you, I take alot of this info with a pinch of salt as peoples' memories can contradict. I used to have a book that said that this cover
was up for consideration for a Beatle sleeve in 1969. But it turns out that it is a sleeve on a Canadian release of their pre~Parlophone music.Well, Ringo did play "Ticket" and "Tomorrow", they were patterns contributed by Paul McCartney. Actually, "Tomorrow never knows", though entirely "written" by John Lennon was really a great example of a group and team effort, with George Harrison suggesting the the tambura drone and Paul suggesting the drums, Ken Townshend inventing ADT and Geoff Emerick close miking the drums {which they weren't allowed to do} and stuffing a jumper in the bass drum and routing Lennon's voice through the Leslie speaker of the Hammond organ for that otherworldly sound. They used loads of looped sound effects and part of the solo was added later after "Taxman" was recorded as it's the solo cut up and spun in backwards. On the "Anthology" album, you hear the initial take of "Tomorrow never knows" and it's so lame ! Years before I heard it, I read that it was a "sensational, apocalyptic version......". Not to my ears. The released version is the kingpin and still pretty timeless. Ringo keeps up the same pattern all the way through. I think Ian Paice had this song in mind on Purple's "The Mule" from 'Fireball'.More world shattering! My 2 favorite Beatles beats.
That's 3 of my favortie beats NOT played by the drummer of the band.
We've all heard drummers comment that Ringo was a simple drummer - or the comment - I can play any of those parts. In my younger days, I was much more influenced by Keith Moon and Mitch Mitchell, etc -so I too thought Ringo's drumming was comparitively simple.
Perhaps - but how many of us could have created those parts to start with???
I have played dozens and dozens of Beatle songs in various cover bands - including holding down the drum chair in a Beatle tribute band (where I literally had to learn and reproduce every note on various songs that spanned the entire Beatle catalog - and play on a 4 piece marine pearl kit).
I must admit, that as I really learned many of Ringo's parts I gained a much higher level of respect for his creative approach. Can I play the parts? Sure. Could I have created some of those unique parts? No!!
Perhaps - but how many of us could have created those parts to start with???
I have played dozens and dozens of Beatle songs in various cover bands - including holding down the drum chair in a Beatle tribute band (where I literally had to learn and reproduce every note on various songs that spanned the entire Beatle catalog - and play on a 4 piece marine pearl kit).
I must admit, that as I really learned many of Ringo's parts I gained a much higher level of respect for his creative approach. Can I play the parts? Sure. Could I have created some of those unique parts? No!!
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I'm just watching a programme that I recorded in June about the making of "Quadrophenia" that I'd totally forgotten that I had as I'm just going through my backlog and I thought I'd just throw in two interesting comments I heard. Pete Townshend said "the extraordinary thing about Keith was that whatever you felt about him as a drummer ~ and I didn't think very much of him as drummer, kind of sacrilege isn't it, but I didn't ~ he listened". And Roger Daltrey said "people would call him a sloppy drummer and he never was a sloppy drummer. He had an extraordinary metronome. He made the music dramatic".
Ironically, it was him that gave Ringo's first kid the drum kit that inspired him to play.
Nice segue, that
RawDepth
New member
I feel that creativity in music is entirely subjective, just like our taste for foods. What tastes luscious to one person may taste very bad to the next person.
I only stated my opinion about Ringo's playing, (my taste, so-to-speak.) I could never expect everyone else to feel the same way. If I were in his shoes, I probably could have created unique drum parts to the same songs. Some fans would have thought they were better and some would think they were worse. I suppose we will never know.
Even though I was unimpressed with his skill, ironically, I still enjoy his drumming.