<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Can an 82 year-old take on 23 concert dates consisting of two and three night stands with a couple of days off in between?\u00a0 After witnessing Ringo\u2019s All Starr Band hit the stage in Eugene, Oregon on Friday June 2, 2023, I am going to guess the answer is, \u201cOh yeah!\u201d\u00a0 Ringo doesn\u2019t do the entire show himself (that is why he totes along the All Starr lineup) as he alternates his time between fronting the band and healthy doses of him drumming.\u00a0 We should all have the amount of zip in our step as Ringo showed as he closes in on 83.\u00a0 Are you remembering to flash the peace sign and say \u2018Peace and Love\u2019 at noon every July 7 as per Richy’s instructions?\u00a0 It is the only thing he has requested for his birthday for the past many years and it is right around the corner, so make an old Beatle happy and add it to your to do list on July 7.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In honor of the WOAS-FM West Coast Bureau scoring tickets to see Ringo\u2019s Eugene show, my wife picked me up a copy of Michael Seth Starr\u2019s (no relation) unauthorized 2015 biography <\/span>RINGO – With a Little Help <\/span><\/i>(Hal Leonard Corp).\u00a0 I cracked it open a couple of days ahead of the concert and only made it as far as Ringo\u2019s tenure with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes before the concert.\u00a0 Not having read the whole book did not impede my enjoyment of seeing one of the two remaining Beatles perform live.\u00a0 I did not plan on writing a song by song review of the All Starr\u2019s show as there are others who meticulously record and post this kind of material.\u00a0 I also do not like to spend my time during a live show taking notes or looking at the screen of my phone when the live action is just in front of me.\u00a0 We will get back to the particulars of the 2023 tour in a bit, but let us first go back and explore how Ringo got to this point in his long musical journey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Born in1940 in the Dingle area of Liverpool, Richard Starkey, aka Richy, has some memories of WWII and his father, but not enough to scar him permanently.\u00a0 His father was a baker who met his mother when they both worked at Cooper\u2019s Bakery in Liverpool.\u00a0 When his dad removed himself from their lives in 1943, his mother Elsie and her only child were left to fend for themselves, but not entirely. \u00a0 Starkey\u2019s paternal grandparents lived a few doors down on the same street and they took a keen interest in their son\u2019s son even though \u2018Big Richy\u2019 wasn\u2019t there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018Little Richy\u2019s\u2019\u00a0 childhood was pretty typical for boys of that age – a group of like minded lads who played in the \u2018bombies\u2019 (the bombed out buildings and cratered streets) and entertained themselves with good natured mischief.\u00a0 Not long after starting school, Richy ended up being hospitalized with peritonitis and needed emergency surgery to remove his burst appendix.\u00a0 The doctors told Elsie several times during the night they did not think he would pull through but the boy rallied by morning (though he was not out of the woods yet).\u00a0 Complications and a prolonged healing period kept him away from school for a couple of years.\u00a0 He was a smart boy, but he did not exactly enjoy his return to school after his illness put him perpetually behind his classmates.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Elsie tried to help the nine-year old Richy before he returned to school, but she had her hands full working multiple jobs to keep a roof over their heads.\u00a0 She hired a neighbor girl to tutor him so he could at least read and write some.\u00a0 Starkey found it hard as he was constantly\u00a0 playing catch up when he did return to school.\u00a0 Also, it was difficult for \u2018Lazarus\u2019 (a nickname bestowed upon him for essentially returning from the dead) to keep his mind on schooling when there were adventures to be had.\u00a0 He and his best friend signed up for the church choir because they were paid a small sum to attend.\u00a0 If there was a way to scratch up a little coin and entertain themselves, Richy and the boys were up for it and school was certainly placed on the back burner.\u00a0 Friends from those days remembered him not being the athletic sort, but he was tough enough to hold his own.\u00a0 Richy made it a point to befriend some bigger kids to act as his shield, but he also used his wit and charm to defuse many situations.\u00a0 Dingle was a tough neighborhood.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chumming around with his best buds Davey Patterson and Brian Briscoe coincided with Richy\u2019s first brush with drums, but it wasn\u2019t exactly in a musical context.\u00a0 They procured a wooden tom-tom from West Africa and planned to capture rabbits with it.\u00a0 The idea was to have Richy bang it at one rabbit hole while Davey and Brian held a sack over another hole.\u00a0 They failed to capture any rabbits, but this is perhaps the most believable tale floating out there to connect the young Starkey to drums (and yes, everybody and their brother wants to be remembered as the one who gave Richy the idea to play the drums).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At the age of eleven, Elsie began dating Harry Graves.\u00a0 Harry had moved to Liverpool from London and worked at a U.S. Military base thirty miles away at Burtonwood.\u00a0 Harry loved big band music and took a shine to Elsie\u2019s son.\u00a0 Harry would purchase American comic books for Richy from the base store.\u00a0 A move to a new school didn\u2019t improve his fortunes, educationally speaking.\u00a0 Richy\u2019s attendance was still poor but he did get \u2018As\u2019 in punctuality, general appearance and conduct while his drama teacher noted he, \u201cTakes a real interest and has done very well.\u201d\u00a0 While Richy showed no particular interest in musical pursuits, he did take a keen interest in a tom-tom he saw in a music store window each day when he walked to school.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t in his reach priced at 26 Pounds, but perhaps the allure came from not being able to buy it at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Harry asked Elsie to marry him in 1953.\u00a0 Ringo wasn\u2019t happy but he also did not want to stand in the way of his mother\u2019s happiness.\u00a0 Splitting the attention he got from his mum with Harry was acceptable because the union allowed her to stop working with Harry\u2019s better income.\u00a0 Things seemed to be settling down when Richy was again struck down by illness.\u00a0 They called it \u2018pleurisy\u2019 because the true disease, tuberculosis, carried a certain stigma at the time.\u00a0 Richy ended up in Heswall Children\u2019s Hospital and he would spend the next two years battling TB.\u00a0 Richy Starkey never returned to school but the hospital tried to supply some educational and recreational activities for their patients.\u00a0 When the staff would bring in a variety of musical instruments, Richy would only participate if he was handed a drum.\u00a0 He began using \u2018cotton bobbins\u2019 to beat on anything at hand and from that point on, drumming on things seemed to be the one activity he was always interested in pursuing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By the time he was discharged at the age of fifteen, Richy visited his former school to pick up the paperwork he would need to enter the workforce.\u00a0 They were not much help and went so far as to suggest he had never been a student there.\u00a0 The tune changed after he became famous and the school\u2019s administrators would hold garden parties and charge admission for visitors to sit at \u2018Ringo\u2019s desk\u2019.\u00a0 Job hunting would be difficult because Richy\u2019s new found passion for playing the drums was his only discernible skill.\u00a0 Becoming a drummer would also be difficult as he had no drum kit to play.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A variety of jobs would follow:\u00a0 Messenger boy for British Railways (he lasted five weeks and failed the required medical exam) and tending bar on a pleasure steamer (this job lasted six weeks and he was let go when he came to work drunk).\u00a0 Finally, Harry helped him land an apprentice job as a \u2018joiner\u2019 at Henry Hunt and Sons, a company that made school equipment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Richy deemed this an acceptable alternative to the \u2018dreaded military service\u2019.\u00a0 Around the same time he began his career as a joiner, the Skiffle craze in England began in earnest.\u00a0 Interest in Skiffle would eventually wane as the bands began shifting their sound more toward early rock \u2018n\u2019 roll but it got the attention of a lot of young wanna be musicians.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of Richy\u2019s fellow workers at Henry Hunt, Roy Trafford, would bring his guitar to work and entertain the other workers during their lunch breaks.\u00a0 When Richy discovered both he and Roy shared a passion for skiffle music, he began joining in.\u00a0 According to Trafford, \u201cI played guitar and Richy just made a noise on a box.\u00a0 Sometimes, he just slapped a biscuit tin with some keys, or banged on the backs of chairs.\u201d\u00a0 Having worked up a few songs at Henry Hunt, they invited Starkey\u2019s neighbor Eddie Myles to join them, first calling themselves The Eddie Myles Band.\u00a0 They\u00a0 later changed the name to The Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group (\u2018Clayton\u2019 coming from Eddie\u2019s American GI father).\u00a0 While interested in drumming, Richy was still without a kit – that is until Harry returned from London and, on boxing day 1957, presented him with a set of drums he had bought in London.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The whole kit seemed enormous to Richy (it included a snare drum, bass drum, hi-hat, tom-tom, cymbal, and a bass drum pedal).\u00a0 It was exciting, but Richy didn\u2019t exactly know what to do with it.\u00a0 Elsie encouraged him to attend a rehearsal with a neighbor\u2019s jazz band but he didn\u2019t hang around too long.\u00a0 He tried a few lessons (probably from Red Carter who owned a studio), but Richy did not want the monotonous regime it would take to learn how to read music.\u00a0 For a time he simply set up the drums in his bedroom and proceeded to teach himself.\u00a0 When the neighbors complained about the noise, it became obvious he needed to join a band and practice elsewhere.\u00a0 (My note:\u00a0 Like Ringo, I started with the drums in my bedroom and was soon asked to move them to the basement rec room.\u00a0 Unlike Ringo, my parents were happy to let me keep playing the drums there through nine years of woodshedding and rehearsals with three different bands.\u00a0 I later asked my mother why she put up with the racket all those years and she said, \u201cWell, we always knew where you were!\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Roy became Richy\u2019s new running partner. \u00a0 Davey had joined the Navy at 15 so it was Roy and Richy who went to the dance halls looking for girls and listened to the newest hits on Radio Luxembourg.\u00a0 Trafford and Starkey also paid a visit to a club that would play a large part in Richy\u2019s future;\u00a0 Liverpool\u2019s famed Cavern Club.\u00a0 With his apprenticeship working out, he was sent for three-months training at Riversdale Technical College.\u00a0 Harry and Elsie never pressured him and were more than happy to have him living with them while he learned his trade.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Eddie Clayton Skiffle group added some new members and continued to improve.\u00a0 They would go on to play dates at a variety of halls and by late 1957 into early 1958, they appeared at the Cavern Club.\u00a0 Eddie Myles was the band\u2019s biggest draw, playing a bird\u2019s-eye maple Hofner cutaway guitar with homemade pickups.\u00a0 They played a lot of gigs for free, but you could not put a price on the experience they gained from playing out a lot.\u00a0 By the summer of 1958, Richy was ready to take a step up and he borrowed 49 Pounds from his paternal grandfather to use as a deposit for a 100 Pound Ajax drum set.\u00a0 His grandfather was notoriously tight fisted, but the loan showed he had faith that Richy would pay him back (which he did, at a Pound per week).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The more professional looking Ajax kit upped the band\u2019s look.\u00a0 Richy may not have taken to any other instruments in prior years, but his path was now set.\u00a0 He recalled, \u201cIt was in my soul, I just wanted to be a drummer.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to be a guitarist.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to play bass.\u00a0 I wanted to be a drummer.\u201d\u00a0 With his new drum set, Richy also transformed his personal appearance by sporting slicked back hair and \u2018Teddy Boy\u2019 outfits that made him look tough.\u00a0 The new look also helped him survive the rough and tumble neighborhood he lived in near Liverpool\u2019s docks.\u00a0 It was noted Richy wasn\u2019t a great fighter but, \u201cHe was quick on his feet and a good sprinter.\u201d\u00a0 Richy\u2019s gang activity never occupied a huge part of his life and soon took a back seat to drumming.\u00a0 He played with virtually every and any group in town, gaining a reputation as the best drummer in Liverpool.\u00a0 If a drummer missed a gig, Richy was likely there to take his place.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Eddie Clayton group ran its course and disbanded when Eddie got married.\u00a0 Richy continued to work at Henry Hunt by day and play music by night.\u00a0 His next band, the Darktown Skiffle Group, is remembered as one of the best when Starkey joined them in November of 1959.<\/span><\/p>\n The group eventually moved their repertoire to rock \u2018n\u2019 roll and changed their name to The Cadillacs.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the other members had no ambition to be more than a hobby band.\u00a0 Richy was ready to move up to something bigger and better.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Rory Storm and the Hurricanes started out as a skiffle group called Al Caldwell\u2019s Texans.\u00a0 Their tall, stuttering lead singer, Alan Caldwell, had begun a career as a cotton salesman before\u00a0 he was bitten by the skiffle bug.\u00a0 By the time the band had gone through a trunk full of names to arrive at the \u2018Rory Storm\u2019 handle, they were moving into rock \u2018n\u2019 roll full time, but they needed a drummer.\u00a0 They were aware of Richy Starkey and sent word they wanted him to audition.\u00a0 Richy was interested, knew their songs (most of the local bands played the same tunes), and even figured he would need to change his \u2018Teddy Boy\u2019 look if he joined them.\u00a0 He passed the tryout and debuted with them at the end of March 1959.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The band would not actually change their name to Rory Storm and the Hurricanes until later in the year, but Richy was now confident enough in his path.\u00a0 He decided to leave his job as a joiner and pursue music full time.\u00a0 Harry and Elsie were not happy but they were supportive.\u00a0 Starkey\u2019s boss at Henry Hunt told him he would be back in three months regretting he did not finish his apprenticeship.\u00a0 Going pro, however, freed Richy to go with the band for a three month engagement in Butlin\u2019s (Resort) at Skegness.\u00a0 He told his mum and \u2018stepladder\u2019 (as he referred to Harry) it would pay 16 Pounds per week and be steady employment, not just an afternoon here or an evening gig there.\u00a0 The die was cast and Richy would never need to look back.\u00a0 He had an ace show band (Rory Storm was putting on the kind of show artists like Rod Stewart would adopt later), a steady paycheck, and a new name.\u00a0 Rory had a flair for being flambouyant and had already bestowed nicknames on the members of his band (like Johnny \u2018Guitar\u2019 Byrne).\u00a0 Richy was already being called \u2018Rings\u2019 for his finger jewelry, so that morphed into \u2018Ringo\u2019 and \u2018Starr\u2019 became a suitable replacement for Starkey.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Unlike his previous band, all of the Hurricanes were full time musicians by 1960 and their bookings increased.\u00a0 Ironically, their first appearance at the Cavern Club was met by a hail of coins tossed from the audience.\u00a0 The Cavern was a \u2018jazz\u2019 club and when they began playing rock songs (after a lighter jazz introduction), they were pelted with coins and fined six shillings by the owner.\u00a0 They paid the fine (with change to spare) after gathering up the ammunition and began what would become a total transformation of the music heard at the Cavern Club.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Part Two of <\/span>Ringo In Eugene,<\/span><\/i> we will complete the story of how \u2018Little Richy\u2019 Starkey became a member of The Beatles and then jump into what Ringo is up to today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 A little history about Rory Storm and the Hurricanes set at the Cavern Club in 1960<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Can an 82 year-old take on 23 concert dates consisting of two and three night stands with a couple of days off in between?\u00a0 After witnessing Ringo\u2019s All Starr Band hit the stage in Eugene, Oregon on Friday June 2, 2023, I am going to guess the answer is, \u201cOh yeah!\u201d\u00a0 Ringo doesn\u2019t do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,12,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-humor","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2879"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2882,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions\/2882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}