<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At the conclusion of Part 1, we left Richy Starkey just as he hit the big time in the Liverpool music scene.\u00a0 No, he wasn\u2019t in The Beatles yet.\u00a0 He was a member of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and Richy was known to be the best drummer within 150 miles of his home town.\u00a0 The Beatles were an upcoming thing and were touring heavily under the guidance of Brian Epstein – a workload that included frequent gigs in Hamburg, Germany.\u00a0 Their drummer, Pete Best, was a serviceable drummer for their live shows but he didn\u2019t seem to grasp the recording end of the game.\u00a0 Unlike their bass player, Pete could play.\u00a0 Okay, that is not 100 percent true.\u00a0 Stu Sutcliff resembled actor James Dean and early on played with his back to the audience to hide the fact that he really couldn\u2019t play the bass when he joined.\u00a0 ABeatle friend from the Hamburg days (and a bassist himself) Klaus Voorman dispells this myth saying that over time, Stu did become a good player.\u00a0 Stu decided to leave the band to pursue his true passion, painting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some say it was Epstein who pushed The Beatles to replace Best, but it was their producer George Martin who first suggested they needed a new time keeper.\u00a0 Paul McCartney recalled\u00a0 \u201cIt was quite a blow.\u00a0 Martin said, \u2018Can you change your drummer?\u2019\u00a0 And we said, ‘We are quite happy with him, he works great in the clubs.\u2019\u00a0 And George [Martin] said, \u2018Yes, but for recording, he just has to be more accurate.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Best wasn\u2019t the best fit for the other Beatles (Lennon said he was \u2018a bit slow\u2019 in keeping up with the band\u2019s jokey banter) and he was the one band member who opted to keep his \u2018James Dean\u2019 look rather than follow their new style trends.\u00a0 Pete\u2019s days with the band were soon to be over and Epstein was tasked with breaking the news.\u00a0 Once they made the move, they decided to set their sights on the best drummer in Liverpool, who, of course, was Richy Starkey.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0George Harrison was the proactive one when it came to recruiting Ringo to the point of dropping by his house on Admiral Grove.\u00a0 Ringo wasn\u2019t home but George had a cup of tea with his mum.\u00a0 Elsie told him her boy was at Butlin\u2019s with Rory and the Hurricanes.\u00a0 She promised to have him give George a call.\u00a0 As the youngest member of The Beatles, it is hard to say if Paul and John listened to his opinion.\u00a0 McCartney and Lennon must have had similar thoughts to Harrison\u2019s, however, as they traveled to Butlin\u2019s on Wednesday, August 15, 1962 and knocked on the door of the trailer Johnny Guitar and Ringo shared for the summer.\u00a0 Johnny answered their knock and later said, \u201cAs soon as I saw them, I knew what they wanted.\u00a0 They wanted Ringo.\u201d\u00a0 The two Beatles told Ringo that Pete Best was out of the band and they wanted Riongo to join them full time (apparently he never got the message to call George).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Starr had been growing more disenchanted with the Hurricanes so the offer to join the newest\u00a0 \u2018big thing\u2019 was a no brainer but he had also been offered the drum position with King Size Taylor and the Dominoes.\u00a0 John and Paul out bid the other band by offering him 25 Pounds per week.\u00a0 As a courtesy, Ringo ran the offer by Rory who said he should take the gig but Ringo would have to give back the pink suit he wore on stage.\u00a0 Starr gave his ex-boss three days to find a replacement by staying through their Saturday night gig.\u00a0 The Beatles had wanted him to play with them at the Cavern Club in Liverpool that night, but finally agreed to let Ringo finish the week\u2019s run with the Hurricanes.\u00a0 Ringo was told to shave off his long sideburns and change his Teddy Boy hairstyle to match the combed down look now sported by the other Beatles.\u00a0 For his part, Ringo never felt sorry for Pete Best since he knew he was the better drummer.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The template was now set for The Beatles to transform the pop music world on both sides of the Atlantic.\u00a0 The beginning of the \u2018British Invasion\u2019 of North America has been well documented and the purpose of this FTV is not to retell the whole Beatles story.\u00a0 Having now covered Richy Starkey\u2019s early years, how he became the best drummer in Liverpool, and Ringo joining the rocket ride known as \u2018Beatlemania\u2019, we need to skip forward in time.\u00a0 To understand how (and why) Ringo Starr\u2019s All Starr Band came to be, we must vault past The Beatles and look at what happened to Ringo in those post-Beatle years.\u00a0 We can also bypass all of the animosity that was stirred up before and after the Fab Four were no more.\u00a0 We will simply say when The Beatles folded, Ringo was suddenly a drummer without a band.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For all the songwriting power that John, Paul, and (eventually) George brought to the table in and out of The Beatles, it was Ringo who actually put out the first albums after they broke up.\u00a0 The first solo <\/span>McCartney <\/span><\/i>album followed Ringo\u2019s first release only a month later, but that is a whole other story for another day.\u00a0 The release of <\/span>Sentimental Journey<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Beaucoups of Blues <\/span><\/i>in 1970 (the first a reworking of old time standards and the latter became known as \u2018Ringo\u2019s country album\u2019) did not set the world on fire, but they kept him busy.\u00a0 When his self-titled third album was released in 1973, Ringo suddenly hit his stride and found success with his singles <\/span>Photograph, You\u2019re Sixteen, <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Oh My My <\/span><\/i>climbing the charts.\u00a0 Following on the heels\u00a0 of one of his most recognizable singles (1971\u2019s <\/span>You Know It Don\u2019t Come Easy <\/span><\/i>written with Harrison), it seemed that everything in Ringo\u2019s world was coming up roses.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For every career peak, there has to be the inevitable slide to a career valley.\u00a0 There are many reasons why Ringo hit bottom harder and deeper than one might have expected.\u00a0 First he tried dabbling in film.\u00a0 Ringo had been the surprise of the first Beatles features (<\/span>Hard Days Night <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Help!<\/span><\/i>) so it seemed natural for him to try his hand acting.\u00a0 The movie roles he took on were not the kind of fare that would raise his acting chops significantly, but they did take him away from what (up to then) was a pretty solid musical path.\u00a0 Hooking up with songwriter Harry Nillson led them both far astray and their drunken exploits rose to near mythical levels.\u00a0 Worst of all, Ringo settled into a lifestyle one can only call \u2018being a celebrity\u2019 which not only killed his music career, but it also ended his first marriage.\u00a0 Ringo partied so hard he nearly lost everything and unlike his drinking buddies Nillson and Keith Moon (of The Who), who ultimately succumbed to the ravages of drinking and drugging, he managed to survive.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Over the next forty years, Ringo managed to put out another 17 albums, but most came and went with little fanfare.\u00a0 Not to say he did not record a few good tunes, but his heart and mind just weren\u2019t in it.\u00a0 After his marriage to Maureen dissolved, he went through a series of relationships before he finally settled down with actress Barbara Bach whom he met while they were filming the movie <\/span>Caveman <\/span><\/i>in 1981.\u00a0 Bach came on board in time to get sucked into the vortex of \u2018Ringo the celebrity drinking his life away\u2019 period.\u00a0 Ringo says he has been told many tales about things he did during this period of his life, many of which he has absolutely no recollections of.\u00a0 As his old friend Micky Dolenz (of <\/span>The Monkees<\/span><\/i> and another charter member of the Hollywood Vampires drinking club that included Moon, Alice Cooper, Nillson and whoever else they dragged in) has said, \u201cPeople tell me I had a really good time, but there are years of my life that I just can not remember.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Things came to a head in October of 1988 when, after several days of heavy drinking, Ringo says, \u201cI came to one Friday afternoon and was told by the staff that I had trashed the house so badly they thought there had been burglars and I had trashed Barbara so badly they thought she was dead.\u201d\u00a0 Their episodes of drunken antics and spats were now spilling over into public displays that were beginning to be reported by various news outlets and magazines.\u00a0 Finally, they realized they needed help:\u00a0 \u201cI had a real bad alcohol problem and very few people knew of my problem.\u00a0 Of course, there was one moment of clarity.\u00a0 It was a Friday about 3 o\u2019clock in the afternoon.\u00a0 Barbara had been talking about rehab.\u00a0 This was the end of the line for me.\u00a0 I\u2019d had enough and I\u2019d caused a lot of damage.\u00a0 I had come out of a huge blackout.\u00a0 I said, \u2018You\u2019ve got to get us into one of those places.\u00a0 We need help\u2019, and she did.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Barbara recalled, \u201cWe went into rehab because we needed desperately [to make] a change.\u00a0 I got used to living at the bottom.\u00a0 But you get to a point where you realize, \u2018This isn\u2019t living\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 Within hours of their \u2018moment of clarity\u2019, they were flying to the Sierra Tucson Rehab Center near the Santa Catalina Mountains in Arizona.\u00a0 As if to underscore how deep his addiction was, Ringo drank himself under the table on the flight:\u00a0 \u201cI landed drunk as a skunk at the clinic.\u00a0 I drank all the way and got off the plane completely demented.\u00a0 I thought I was going to a lunatic asylum,\u00a0 I thought I\u2019d gone too far and they were going to put me away in a little cell and forget about me.\u00a0 Instead of that, they put their arms around me and loved me and told me it [would] get better.\u00a0 \u2018Give us a chance,\u2019 they said.\u00a0 With God\u2019s help a day at a time it certainly has.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The $35,000 per person fee for the five-week run of treatment was a small price for Ringo and Barbara to pay.\u00a0 After his misgivings about arriving plastered, Ringo fully bought into the program:\u00a0 \u201cEight days in, I decided, \u2018I\u2019m here to get help because I know I\u2019m sick.\u00a0 I just did whatever they asked me and, thank God, it pulled me through.\u201d\u00a0 When word finally leaked out about their rehab, The Beatles former spokesman Derek Taylor confirmed the couple were being treated but would not say where.\u00a0 Ringo and Barbara repaid their friend (and a recovering alcoholic himself) by writing the foreword to his book, <\/span>Getting Sober . . . and Loving It!\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>There was no preferential treatment given to the Starr couple:\u00a0 they performed menial tasks assigned to them, did their own laundry, cleaned ashtrays, attended group therapy sessions, and ditched their \u2018up at all hours\u2019 schedule for an \u2018early to bed, dearly to rise\u2019 routine<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Many of Ringo\u2019s friends said they were \u2018astonished\u2019 when they heard about his problem.\u00a0 According to Linda McCartney, she and Paul were well aware of what the Starrs were doing to their lives, but \u201cWe dreaded what would happen to the friendship we so cherished if we tried to intervene.\u00a0 There was nothing we could do about it.\u201d\u00a0 The British press were brutal in their assessment of Ringo\u2019s troubles (\u201cMy beloved Britain turned against me when Barbara and I checked into the drying out clinic.\u00a0 They thought I was only doing it for the publicity.\u201d) while America as a whole was much more supportive.\u00a0 They left Arizona in December and as 1989 dawned, Ringo\u2019s resolve would be tested as he navigated his social and professional engagements while managing to keep on the sober side of the ledger.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Professionally, Ringo was about to rebound.\u00a0 He was a featured player in the popular PBS children’s program <\/span>Shining Time Station<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 He put out his first album in six years (1989\u2019s compilation <\/span>Starr Struck:\u00a0 Ringo\u2019s Best<\/span><\/i>) if, for no other reason, than to remind everyone he\u00a0 had sold a lot of records in the past.\u00a0 Co-starring in the video for Tom Petty\u2019s <\/span>I Won\u2019t Back Down<\/span><\/i> brought him even more exposure as the song received heavy airplay on MTV.\u00a0 He came full circle when he and country star Buck Owens recorded a duet of their mutual hit <\/span>Act Naturally<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Ringo\u2019s world had certainly taken a turn for the better in his sobriety.\u00a0 Little did he know that he would soon be pitched a concept by a thirty-three year old show business agent that would set him on a course that would land him in Eugene, Oregon on June 2, 2023.\u00a0 I am pretty sure that David Fishof did not even realize the 30 year effect his proposal would have on Ringo\u2019s career.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Back in 1984, the then twenty-eight year old Fishof organized one of the first \u2018nostalgia\u2019 tours of 60s pop groups.\u00a0 His first outing featured The Association, The Turtles, Gary Puckett, and Spanky and Our Gang.\u00a0 His second major outing involved putting together the twentieth-anniversary tour for The Monkees.\u00a0 In 1989, he decided to see if he could interest Ringo in hitting the road with an all star band.\u00a0 With major backing from Pepsi, he had the resources to make it happen, so he offered Starr a million dollars to do the tour.\u00a0 Ringo summoned Fishof to London to meet in person and when they agreed to do it, Ringo informed him he had been thinking the same thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They discussed which musicians might fit the bill for the All-Starr band and came up with an impressive list:\u00a0 Billy Preston (who had played keyboards on some of The Beatles later albums), Nils Lofgren (who Ringo knew and would later become part of Bruce Springsteen\u2019s band), Levon Helm (from The Band), Joe Walsh (from The Eagles), and Ringo\u2019s favorite drummer, studio ace Jim Keltner.\u00a0 A call from Starr\u2019s lawyers a couple of days later cemented the relationship and no one was happier than Richy:\u00a0 \u201cI still love to play.\u00a0 I go down the front and sing <\/span>Photograph<\/span><\/i> or whatever, then I get to go back to the drums and play with all these other musicians.\u00a0 It is a win-win situation.\u00a0 I get the chance to be both the entertainer and the musician.\u00a0 Everyone\u2019s a star, but I\u2019m the big star.\u201d\u00a0 In concert, Ringo always says, \u201cEveryone on stage is a star in their own right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The All-Starr band has toured frequently and every few years the members change.\u00a0 Some go out for one tour, others hang around for multiple years.\u00a0 Artists like Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings (The Guess Who), John Entwhistle (The Who), Mark Farner (Grand Funk Railroad),<\/span><\/p>\n and Richard Page (Mr. Mister) have appeared on stage with the All-Starrs, not to mention Ringo\u2019s boy, drummer Zac Starkey.\u00a0 This year\u2019s band featured the same core group he has used for many tours including Edgar Winters (keys and sax), Steve Lukather (guitarist from Toto), Average White Band bassist Hamish Stuart, guitarist Colin Hay (Men at Work), Sax\/keys player Warren Ham and former David Lee Roth Band drummer Gregg Bissonette.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During the Eugene show, Ringo did his thing and got great crowd reactions for his signature tunes like <\/span>I\u2019m the Greatest<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>You Know It Don\u2019t Come Easy<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 The ovations that greeted All-Starr member\u2019s hits were just as enthusiastic.\u00a0 Winter did an extended version of his hit single <\/span>Fankenstein<\/span><\/i>, Lukather contributed <\/span>Rosanna<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Africa<\/span><\/i>, and Hay covered his Men at Work songs <\/span>Down Under <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Who Can It Be Now.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Lukather teased a few Beatles riffs during the night but Ringo laughingly brushed them aside, saying, \u2018Nah, we won\u2019t do that one.\u201d\u00a0 Space does not allow for a complete concert list, but as previously mentioned in Part 1, that sort of information is readily available online.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The highlight of the show for me was Bissonette.\u00a0 Ringo always tours with another great drummer in the band and I can see why he has kept Bissonette around for multiple outings.\u00a0 He is one of the best live drummers I have seen and I have seen a lot of great drummers over the years.\u00a0 Ringo?\u00a0 Yep he was great in front of and behind the drums.\u00a0 His tour will be making its way to the midwest and eastern states later this summer and fall.\u00a0 It is worth the time if you might be interested in seeing Ringo do what he has done best over the past thirty years – make a joyful noise.\u00a0 Peace and Love, Ringo.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Ringo’s Eugene show featured the same line up shown here from Toronto’s Massy Hall in September of 2022…the only major change seemed to be Lukather’s hair which is now as white as Edgar Winter’s!<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At the conclusion of Part 1, we left Richy Starkey just as he hit the big time in the Liverpool music scene.\u00a0 No, he wasn\u2019t in The Beatles yet.\u00a0 He was a member of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and Richy was known to be the best drummer within 150 miles of his home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884","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=2884"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2887,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884\/revisions\/2887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}