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Ringo Starr: Role in The Beatles
Although some have tried to downplay his contributions to the band, Starr's unique drumming style played a major role in the overall sound of The Beatles. To this day, many drummers list Starr as a major influence including Max Weinberg of The E Street Band, Liberty DeVitto of
Billy Joel's band,
Phil Collins, Andy Sturmer of Jellyfish, and others. According to Collins, Ringo is "vastly underrated. The drum fills on "A Day in the Life" are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, 'I want it like that.' They wouldn't know what to do." in his extensive survey of The Beatles recording sessions, Mark Lewisohn confirmed that Starr was both extremely proficient and remarkably reliable and consistent -- according to Lewisohn, there were less than a dozen occasions in the Beatles' entire eight-year recording career where session 'breakdowns' were caused by Starr making a mistake, and that the vast majority of takes were stopped due to mistakes by the other three members. Starr has commented that the most difficult drumming he has ever performed was on the Beatles song "Rain."
Lennon, McCartney and Harrison have all said that Ringo was the best rock and roll drummer in the world, although when asked in an interview once "Is Ringo Starr the best drummer in the world?"
John Lennon quipped "He's not the best drummer in the Beatles!" This was in reference to the White Album song "Back In The USSR", in which Paul was forced to do the drumming; Ringo had stormed out earlier and didn't return for two weeks. Paul was also on the drums in "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", since only Lennon and McCartney were available.
In addition to his drumming, Ringo's easygoing, everyman personality played a major role in the Beatles' success, combining very effectively with Lennon's wit, McCartney's charm, and Harrison's quiet seriousness.
Ringo's musical talents were primarily confined to drumming, rather than singing or songwriting.However Ringo generally sang at least one song on each studio album; this was seen as a canny move in establishing his vocal personality as a prominent part of the band. In some cases
John Lennon or
Paul McCartney would write the lyrics and melody especially for him, as Lennon did with "With a Little Help from My Friends", from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and as McCartney did for "Yellow Submarine" from Revolver. Often these melodies would be deliberately limited to take into account Starr's vocal range—most of "With A Little Help From My Friends" is sung within the space of five notes.
Of all the Beatles, Ringo did the least songwriting. The Beatles explained that when he would present a song as a contender for an album cut, the song would (to them) be a clear knockoff of another popular song, but Ringo would not recognize the similarities until they pointed it out. Ringo did, however, write "Don't Pass Me By" (on The White Album
) and also "Octopus's Garden" (on the album Abbey Road) albeit with quite a bit of help from
George Harrison. The former continued to show the taste for country music that Ringo had brought into the band on earlier albums, such as on Rubber Soul's co-write "What Goes On."
In addition Ringo contributed a number of lyrical ideas and song titles to Lennon and McCartney, although usually unintentionally. One of the most famous examples of this was the title for the band's first motion picture, A Hard Day's Night. Starr had emerged from the studio after a long day of work and commented to the others that it had been a "hard day's..." - before he finished his sentence, Starr noticed that it was now night time and added "night". Lennon and McCartney liked the twisted phrase enough that they decided to use it as the title for the still untitled movie the band had been filming. Another example is the title to "Tomorrow Never Knows".
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LiteratureFull album from Sonseed, the 1980s Christian band that did "Jesus is a Friend of Mine"
Who can forget Sonseed's wonderful song, "Jesus is a Friend of Mine," which we posted here last week? Cabel's Blog LOL found a copy of Sonseed's 1983 album, First Fruit, and made it available for download. Unfortunately, he didn't like it very much: If you're an internet completist, you'll probably get a kick out of it. But please note: you've already heard the best song! (Although, to be fair, "Say Yes" is only a few musical degrees away from a Ringo Starr Beatles B-Side.) After quickly skimming through the songs, I have to agree. Sonseed: The Full Album...
Published: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:52:01 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the article
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