Ringo Brings Heart
to Beatles Anthology
By Mary Ann Shultz
“We really started to think we
needed the greatest drummer in
Liverpool, and that greatest drummer in
our eyes was a guy , Ringo Starr..”
So says Paul about Ringo’s
drumming. His opinion is
seconded by John, “I love his
drumming. Ringo is still one of the best
drummers in rock.” George certainly
agrees. “When Ringo was around it was
like a full unit, both on and off stage.
When there were the four of us with
Ringo, it felt rocking.” Ringo’s
drumming is always a delight and it’s
good to know that John, Paul, and George
were appreciative of what Paul describes
as the “great noise and very steady
tempo coming from behind you.”
Ringo’s drumming helped set the mood
for Beatles’ songs and gave them their
pulse. In the same way, many of
Ringo’s memories in the Beatles
Anthology lend heart to the story.
“I felt with us four it was
magical and it was telepathy. When we
were working in the studio sometimes it
was just ... it’s indescribable
really. Although there were four of us,
there was one of us, all of our hearts
were beating at the same time. But the
moment you think, “Oh, aren’t I
playing well” then you turn into
shit.”
The preceding statement is
typical of Ringo’s contributions to The Beatles Anthology, a combination
of thoughtful reverence, philosophical
sentiment, loving memories, and down-to-
earth frankness that Ringo’s fans have
come to expect when he reflects upon his
Beatle years. Throughout the book,
Ringo’s reminiscences vibrate with the
excitement and joy of his Beatles years.
Ringo’s tendency throughout the book
is to emphasizes the up-side of his
tenure with the Beatles.
A quick perusal of any chapter
will yield many examples of Ringo’s
tendency to accentuate the positive. In
the 1964 section, for instance, in
speaking of Beatlemania and the ‘64
American tour, George complains that
“After a while the novelty wore off
and then it was very boring.” However, Ringo maintains that “I found
the tour madness exciting. I loved it. I
loved the decoy cars and all the
intricate ways of getting us to the
gigs. It was just so much fun.” As a counterbalance to John’s
grousing that “We had these people
thrust on us and we were forced to see
them all the time,” Ringo recalls
that, “We were meeting a lot of great
people.” Paul’s big remembrance of
the Hollywood Bowl performance is that
the screams of the crowd “covered a
multitude of sins, we were out of tune.
It didn’t matter --we couldn’t hear
it nor could they.” In contrast, Ringo
remembers the thrill. “We played the
Hollywood bowl. The shell around the
stage was great. It was the
Hollywood bowl--there were impressive
places to me. I fell in love with
Hollywood then.” Ringo’s upbeat style permeates
the book. When George, John, and George
Martin berate the condition of the
recording studio at Apple, for example,
Ringo recalls, “The facilities at
Apple were great. It was so comfortable
and it was ours, like home.” The
adjectives Ringo uses most often to
describe people, places, events, or
circumstances are “fabulous,”
“great,” “exciting,” and “fun.”
“I don’t think any of the
decisions were made quickly. We’d all
expressed them and moaned about them,
laughed about them, and cried about
them.”
There’s
a humanity to Ringo’s stories that
John’s, Paul’s, and George’s, at
times, lack. While the others often seem
more intent on justifying their actions,
Ringo tends to concentrate more of his
feelings. In his 1968 book The
Beatles, biographer Hunter Davies
recognized Ringo’s sentimental side.
That characteristic is still readily
apparent in The
Beatles Anthology. Ringo is not
afraid to share the rosy feelings or
reveal the sad. He describes his disappointment at
being overlooked by the British press,
the insecurity he felt when the others
went on to Australia without him, his devastation at being
replaced by Andy White for the recording
of “Love Me Do,” the misery of having to transport
his drums in the early days without a
car, his initial unease with the
cheek- kissing at the London clubs, his
desire that home and family never
change, and a bull fight as, “the
saddest thing I ever saw.” When
speaking of his Beatle years Ringo says,
“So the four of us were really close.
I loved it. I loved those guys. We took
care of each other...” Ringo
admits , “My make up is emotional.
I’m an emotional human being. I’m
very sensitive and it took me till I was
forty-eight to realize that was the
problem!” Problem or not, Ringo’s
sentimentality gives a depth to his
remembrances. By revealing his heart, he
adds a richer tone to the Beatles’
history.
“We were big enough to command
an audience of that size, and it was
love. It was for love and bloody peace.
It was a fabulous time. I even get
excited now when I realize what it was
for: peace and love...”
Love
plays dominant role in Ringo’s
commentary. All four of the Beatles are
proud of their message of love, but
Ringo seems to have a special empathy
for people. The others bemoan having to put
up with the demands of Beatlemania, but
Ringo is the one who understood that
“people loved us.” He displays a
genuine enthusiasm in recalling the
interesting people met along life’s way. With only a couple of exceptions
when Ringo speaks of others, he does so
with warmth joy and love. This is
especially true of his affectionate
reminiscences of his fellow Beatles.
Ringo’s appreciation and love of John,
George, and Paul is inescapable. Ringo
seems the most in tune with his former
bandmates, rarely displaying the ego,
annoyance, and pettiness that creeps
into the narratives of each of the
others. It’s fitting that in both the
Anthology videos and the book Ringo’s
closing statement is about “some
really loving caring moments between
four people.. just four guys who really
loved each other.”
“We were also going to buy a
village in England -- one with rows of
houses on four sides and a village green
in the middle. We were going to have a
side each. That was what happened when
we got out. It was safe making records,
because once they let us out, we’d
just go barmy.”
Ringo
has often been described as the funny,
down-to-earth Beatle. There are
certainly many examples of these traits
in the book. Ringo’s comfortably
self-depreciating humor pops up
throughout. as when he explains the
source of his own Ringoisms. “I used
to, while I was saying one thing, have
another thing come into my brain and
move down fast.” At times Ringo’s voice is
absent for pages at a time, but when he
has something to say it is generally
delivered with Ringo’s inimitable mix
of common sense and humor. After
George’s particularly long-winded
discourse on the cosmic
consciousness-like properties of LSD,
Ringo’s whimsical observation that
acid makes you look things differently--
“and you dress differently too,”
serves to ground he story as well as
lighten the mood.
“So Andy plays on the “Love
Me Do” single-- but I play later on
the album version. Andy’ wasn’t
doing anything so great that I
couldn’t copy it when we did the
album.”
All of the Beatles’ memories go
faulty from time to time and Ringo’s
is no exception as he still maintains
that his version of “Love Me Do” is
on the Please Please Me album. In actuality
Ringo’s version was used for the first
single, but White’s version was used
for all successive releases, including
the album. In the 352-page body of the text,
there are a handful times when Ringo
recalls an event differently from one or
more of the others.. For example George
says that he and John introduced Ringo
to acid, while Ringo maintains that
thought he would take anything,
“George and John didn’t give LSD to
me.” Another time Ringo insists that
Neil Aspinall’s friendship with Pete
Best resulted in Neil’s refusal to set
up his drums the first couple of weeks
after he joined. This is something Neil
denies. All of the former fabs and those
close to them contradict one another
from time to time. The difference in
memories is not unique to this group and
can be put down to time and distance.
However, the vast majority of the time
Ringo’s recollections ring true. They
certainly enhance and enrich the Beatle
tapestry adding Ringo’s comfortable
warmth, emotional shadings, and unique
texture to the weave.
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© 2000
Mary Ann Shultz
