Ringo Starr

Eight respected drummers speak in appreciation of Ringo.

My apologies if this has been posted here before.

I can always tell if someone is just parroting someone else in an effort to appear knowledgeable and cool when they talk shit about Ringo being a mediocre drummer.

They sure as hell didn't come by that opinion from listening to "Ticket to Ride" or "Tomorrow Never Knows."

Funny you should say that, Reno. I also forwarded the YouTube link to my old drinking buddies in Colorado, including my drummer friend. He expressed the nearly exact flipside of your statement:

"Of course they'll only say great things about Ringo. They have reputations and future earnings to protect against the repercussions of hundreds of millions of Beatlemaniacs still left in the world. In the humble opinion of a completely unknown drummer who doesn't give a shit what they think, Ringo's the most famous completely mediocre stick-slinger on the planet."

Eh, whatever. I stand by my assessment that anyone dismissing Ringo does so just to try to establish themselves as somehow knowing better than everyone else. Until three musical geniuses fire their drummer specifically so they can hire this guy because they're so impressed by his skills, I'll take his opinion with a grain of salt.

I always wonder about these people.

They hear The Beatles and think "well, this song has some merit, I guess, but it could be SIGNIFICANTLY improved. Like, a slightly better drummer would really lift this to the next level."

Its like saying "That Jimmy Page is a good guitarist, but he is no Yngwie Malmsteen. "
Ringo kept the early rockers rolling along and played with such a definitive conviction on Hey Jude. I put Hey Jude up there as one of the most iconic drum tracks. The sound is as close to perfect (not that Ringo had anything to do with the studio sound, etc.) as a drum sound can be. All the little fills etc are impeccable, but loose.
The galloping Get Back is another iconic beat. Its easy to kick back 40 years later and say how simple the beat is, but the reality is that he gives the song a perfect rollicking feel.
The guy wasn't the best from a technical stand point, but he added alot to the feel of some of the best pop/rock songs of all time.

The only Beatle I'd want to get trapped in an elevator with.



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THe most beloved BEATLE of all, RINGO answered his fan mail.

Quote

They hear The Beatles and think "well, this song has some merit, I guess, but it could be SIGNIFICANTLY improved. Like, a slightly better drummer would really lift this to the next level."

it takes both a great band and a happily married man at least twice to find the right timekeeper get it right.



Post Edited (09-11-15 22:01)

> Its like saying "That Jimmy Page is a good guitarist, but he is no Yngwie Malmsteen. "

That's precisely the sentiment one of my other college drinking buddies had toward Ringo. "I'll say one thing -- he's no Neil Peart, Mike Portnoy, Mark Zonder, Gavin Harrison ..."

I told them, "Sure he isn't. But none of those drummers would've fit in with the Beatles. In fact, everything else being equal, if those other drummers had been born 15 or 20 years earlier, they wouldn't have fit in with rock & roll at all. They probably would've gravitated toward jazz, because rock & roll would've seemed like too limited a vehicle for their playing."

It's the whole more = better fallacy.

If the same logic that people apply to Ringo being substandard is applied to singers, the same people who hate on Ringo ought also to consider Cristina Aguilera to be the greatest singer of all time, because she's never content to sing a simple "la" when she could be singing "laAAAaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaAaAaAaAaaaaa....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA." She can make the "Do Re Mi" song into an epic, but not in a funny way the way Sparks did.

I'm sure Ringo could've showed off a lot more than he did. But he was smart enough and a good enough drummer not to.

Forget Cristina Aguilera! What about the prime mover of melisma… none dare call him Morrissey!



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

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For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®