Background and career
Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. He sometimes sang lead vocals on the group's recordings, usually for one song on each album; these include "Yellow Submarine" and "With a Little Help from My Friends". He also wrote and sang the Beatles songs "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden", and is credited as a co-writer of three others. Starr was afflicted by life-threatening illnesses during childhood, with periods of prolonged hospitalisation. As a teenager he became interested in the skiffle craze and developed a fervent admiration for the genre. In 1957, he co-founded his first band, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group, which earned several local bookings before the fad succumbed to American rock and roll around early 1958. When the Beatles formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. After achieving moderate success in the UK and Hamburg, he quit the Hurricanes when he was asked to join the Beatles in August 1962, replacing Pete Best. After the Beatles disbanded, Starr released several successful singles, including the US top-ten hit "It Don't Come Easy", and number ones "Photograph" and "You're Sixteen". His most successful UK single was "Back Off Boogaloo", which peaked at number two. He achieved commercial and critical success with his 1973 album Ringo, which was a top-ten release in both the UK and the US. In addition to the Beatles' films, Starr has acted in numerous others. He has also featured in numerous documentaries, hosted television shows, narrated the first two series of the children's television series Thomas & Friends and portrayed "Mr. Conductor" during the first season of its American spin-off Shining Time Station. Since 1989, he has toured with sixteen variations of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. Starr's playing style, which emphasised feel over technical virtuosity, influenced many drummers to reconsider their playing from a compositional perspective. He also influenced various modern drumming techniques, such as the matched grip, tuning the drums lower, and using muffling devices on tonal rings. In his opinion, his finest recorded performance was on the Beatles' "Rain". In 1999, he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame. In 2011, Rolling Stone readers named him the fifth-greatest drummer of all time. He was inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a Beatle in 1988 and as a solo artist in 2015, and appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to music.
Richard Starkey was born on 7 July 1940 at 9 Madryn Street in Dingle, an inner-city area of Liverpool. He is the only child of confectioners Richard Starkey and Elsie Gleave. Elsie enjoyed singing and dancing, a hobby that she shared with her husband, an avid fan of swing. Prior to the birth of their son, whom they called "Ritchie", the couple had spent much of their free time on the local ballroom circuit, but their regular outings ended soon after his birth. Elsie adopted an overprotective approach to raising her son that bordered on fixation. Subsequently, "Big Ritchie", as Starkey's father became known, lost interest in his family, choosing instead to spend long hours drinking and dancing in pubs, sometimes for several consecutive days. In an effort to reduce their housing costs, his family moved in 1944 to another neighbourhood in the Dingle, Admiral Grove; soon afterwards his parents separated, and they divorced within the year. Starkey later stated that he has "no real memories" of his father, who made little effort to bond with him, visiting as few as three times thereafter. Elsie found it difficult to survive on her ex-husband's support payments of thirty shillings a week, so she took on several menial jobs cleaning houses before securing a position as a barmaid, an occupation that she held for twelve years.
Starkey developed appendicitis at the age of six. Following an appendectomy he contracted peritonitis, causing him to fall into a coma that lasted days. His recovery spanned twelve months, which he spent away from his family at Liverpool's Myrtle Street children's hospital. Upon his discharge in May 1948, his mother allowed him to stay at home, causing him to miss school. At the age of eight he remained illiterate, with a poor grasp of mathematics. His lack of education contributed to a feeling of alienation at school, which resulted in his regularly playing truant at Sefton Park. After several years of twice-weekly tutoring from his surrogate sister and neighbour, Marie Maguire Crawford, Starkey had nearly caught up to his peers academically, but in 1953, he contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium, where he remained for two years. During his stay, the medical staff made an effort to stimulate motor activity and relieve boredom by encouraging their patients to join the hospital band, and this led to his first exposure to a percussion instrument: a makeshift mallet made from a cotton bobbin that he used to strike the cabinets next to his bed. Soon afterwards he grew increasingly interested in drumming, receiving a copy of the Alyn Ainsworth song "Bedtime for Drums" as a convalescence gift from Crawford. Starkey later commented: "I was in the hospital band [...] That's where I really started playing. I never wanted anything else from there on [...] My grandparents gave me a mandolin and a banjo, but I didn't want them. My grandfather gave me a harmonica [...] we had a piano – nothing. Only the drums." Starkey attended St Silas, a Church of England primary school near his house where his classmates nicknamed him "Lazarus", and later Dingle Vale Secondary modern school, where he showed an aptitude for art and drama, as well as practical subjects including mechanics. As a result of the prolonged hospitalisations, he fell behind his peers scholastically and was ineligible for the 11-plus qualifying examination required for attendance at a grammar school. After the extended hospital stay following Starkey's recovery from tuberculosis, he did not return to school, preferring instead to stay at home and listen to music while playing along by beating biscuit tins with sticks. On 17 April 1954, Starkey's mother married Harry Graves at the register office on Mount Pleasant, Liverpool. He was an ex-Londoner who had moved to Liverpool following the failure of his first marriage. Graves, an impassioned fan of big band music and their vocalists, introduced Starkey to recordings by Dinah Shore, Sarah Vaughan and Billy Daniels. Graves stated that he and "Ritchie" never had an unpleasant exchange between them; Starkey later commented: "He was great [...] I learned gentleness from Harry." Starr's early life music inspirations included Lightnin' Hopkins, Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams. He would be inspired to play drums after seeing Gene Krupa do so in The Glenn Miller Story. Beatles biographer Bob Spitz described Starkey's upbringing as "a Dickensian chronicle of misfortune". Houses in the area were "poorly ventilated, postage-stamp-sized [...] patched together by crumbling plaster walls, with a rear door that opened onto an outhouse." Crawford commented: "Like all of the families who lived in the Dingle, he was part of an ongoing struggle to survive." The children who lived there spent much of their time at Prince's Park, escaping the soot-filled air of their coal-fuelled neighbourhood. Adding to their difficult circumstances, violent crime was an almost constant concern for people living in one of the oldest and poorest inner-city districts in Liverpool. Starkey later commented: "You kept your head down, your eyes open, and you didn't get in anybody's way." After his return home from the sanatorium in late 1955, Starkey entered the workforce but was lacking in motivation and discipline; his initial attempts at gainful employment proved unsuccessful. In an effort to secure himself some warm clothes, he briefly held a railway worker's job with British Railways, which came with an employer-issued suit. He was supplied with a hat but no uniform and, unable to pass the physical examination, he was laid off and granted unemployment benefits. He then found work as a waiter serving drinks on a day boat that travelled from Liverpool to North Wales, but his fear of conscription into military service led him to quit the job, not wanting to give the Royal Navy the impression that he was suitable for seafaring work. In mid-1956, Graves secured Starkey a position as an apprentice machinist at Henry Hunt and Son, a Liverpool school equipment manufacturer. While working at the facility Starkey befriended Roy Trafford, and the two bonded over their shared interest in music. Trafford introduced Starkey to skiffle, and he quickly became a fervent admirer.
Soon after Trafford piqued Starkey's interest in skiffle, the two began rehearsing songs in the manufacturing plant's cellar during their lunch breaks. Trafford recalled: "I played a guitar, and [Ritchie] just made a noise on a box [...] Sometimes, he just slapped a biscuit tin with some keys, or banged on the backs of chairs." The pair were joined by Starkey's neighbour and co-worker, the guitarist Eddie Miles, forming the Eddie Miles Band, later renamed Eddie Clayton and the Clayton Squares after a Liverpool landmark. The band performed popular skiffle songs such as "Rock Island Line" and "Walking Cane", with Starkey raking a thimble across a washboard, creating primitive, driving rhythms. Starkey enjoyed dancing as his parents had years earlier, and he and Trafford briefly took dance lessons at two schools. Though the lessons were short-lived, they provided Starkey and Trafford with an introduction that allowed them to dance competently while enjoying nights out on the town. On Christmas Day 1957, Graves gave Starkey a second-hand drum kit consisting of a snare drum, bass drum and a makeshift cymbal fashioned from a rubbish bin lid. Although basic and crude, the kit facilitated his progression as a musician while increasing the commercial potential of the Eddie Clayton band, who went on to book prestigious local gigs before the skiffle craze faded in early 1958 as American rock and roll became popular in the UK. In November 1959, Starkey joined Al Caldwell's Texans, a skiffle group who were looking for someone with a proper drum kit so that the group could transition from one of Liverpool's best-known skiffle acts to a full-fledged rock and roll band. They had begun playing local clubs as the Raging Texans, then Jet Storm and the Raging Texans before settling on Rory Storm and the Hurricanes shortly before recruiting Starkey. About this time he adopted the stage name Ringo Starr; derived from the rings he wore and also because it implied a country-and-western influence. His singing solos were billed as Starr Time. By early 1960, the Hurricanes had become one of Liverpool's leading bands. In May, they were offered a three-month residency at a Butlins holiday camp in Wales. Although initially reluctant to accept the residency and end his five-year machinist apprenticeship that he had begun four years earlier, Starr eventually agreed to the arrangement. The Butlins gig led to other opportunities for the band, including an unpleasant tour of US Air Force bases in France about which Starr commented: "The French don't like the British; at least I didn't like them." The Hurricanes became so successful that when initially offered a highly coveted residency in Hamburg, they turned it down because of their prior commitment with Butlins. They eventually accepted, joining the Beatles at Bruno Koschmider's Kaiserkeller on 1 October 1960, where Starr first met the band. Storm's Hurricanes were given top-billing over the Beatles, who also received less pay. Starr performed with the Beatles during a few stand-in engagements while in Hamburg. On 15 October 1960, he drummed with John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, recording with them for the first time while backing Hurricanes singer Lu Walters on the song "Summertime". During Starr's first stay in Hamburg he also met Tony Sheridan, who valued his drumming abilities to the point of asking Starr to leave the Hurricanes and join his band.
Starr quit Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in January 1962 and briefly joined Sheridan in Hamburg before returning to the Hurricanes for a third season at Butlins. On 14 August, Starr accepted Lennon's invitation to join the Beatles. On 16 August, Beatles manager Brian Epstein fired their drummer, Pete Best, who recalled: "He said 'I've got some bad news for you. The boys want you out and Ringo in.' He said [Beatles producer] George Martin wasn't too pleased with my playing [and] the boys thought I didn't fit in." Starr first performed as a member of the Beatles on 18 August 1962, at a horticultural society dance at Port Sunlight. After his appearance at the Cavern Club the following day, Best fans, upset by his firing, held vigils outside his house and at the club shouting "Pete forever! Ringo never!" Harrison received a black eye from one upset fan, and Epstein, whose car tyres they had flattened in anger, temporarily hired a bodyguard. Starr's first recording session as a member of the Beatles took place on 4 September 1962. He stated that Martin had thought that he "was crazy and couldn't play [...] because I was trying to play the percussion and the drums at the same time, we were just a four-piece band". For their second recording session with Starr, on 11 September 1962, Martin replaced him with session drummer Andy White while recording takes for what would be the two sides of the Beatles' first single, "Love Me Do", backed with "P.S. I Love You". Starr played tambourine on "Love Me Do" and maracas on "P.S. I Love You". Concerned about his status in the Beatles, he thought: "That's the end, they're doing a Pete Best on me." Martin later clarified: "I simply didn't know what Ringo was like and I wasn't prepared to take any risks." By November 1962, Starr had been accepted by Beatles fans, who were now calling for him to sing. He began receiving an amount of fan mail equal to that of the others, which helped to secure his position within the band. Starr considered himself fortunate to be on the same "wavelength" as the other Beatles: "I had to be, or I wouldn't have lasted. I had to join them as people as well as a drummer." He was given a small percentage of Lennon and McCartney's publishing company, Northern Songs, but derived his primary income during this period from a one-quarter share of Beatles Ltd, a corporation financed by the band's net concert earnings. He commented on the nature of his lifestyle after having achieved success with the Beatles: "I lived in nightclubs for three years. It used to be a non-stop party." Like his father, Starr became well known for his late-night dancing and he received praise for his skills.
During 1963, the Beatles enjoyed increasing popularity in Britain. In January, their second single, "Please Please Me", followed "Love Me Do" into the UK charts and a successful television appearance on Thank Your Lucky Stars earned favourable reviews, leading to a boost in sales and radio play. By the end of the year, the phenomenon known as Beatlemania had spread throughout the country, and by February 1964 the Beatles had become an international success when they performed in New York City on The Ed Sullivan Show to a record 73 million viewers. Starr commented: "In the States I know I went over well. It knocked me out to see and hear the kids waving for me. I'd made it as a personality [...] Our appeal [...] is that we're ordinary lads." He was a source of inspiration for several songs written at the time, including Penny Valentine's "I Want to Kiss Ringo Goodbye" and Rolf Harris's "Ringo for President". Cher released her first single, "Ringo, I Love You" in 1964 under the pseudonym Bonnie Joe Mason.
