All you need . . . . . . .

We said ‘Peace and Love’ at 12 noon for Ringo’s Birthday!

 UPDATE: 

on the day!

There were LOADS!

Check out Ringo’s Facebook page!

AWESOME scarcely covers it!

Birthdays! What’s HAPPENIN’? Let Ritchie tell you!

Mid-day here, there everywhere, be there . . . don’t be a Blue Meanie! 

✌🏼💜

Shades of The Beatles!

 

albums bought when they came out no.39

On November 2, 1973, Apple Records released "Ringo", Ringo Starr's third studio album, in the US. It is his biggest commercial and critical success. 

I loved this album and it contained a few tracks that still haunt me today and ones that I certainly still play

DUIT ON MON DEI!

 

Men At Work - Down Under (1981) feat.Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr Band with Men At Work ‘Down Under’ maybe not quite the audio from the live set but it’ll do to cheer us up eh?

So as so many objected to the dubbed version!

Men At Work ft. Ringo Star Band - Down Under

Carl Perkins et al - Capitol Theatre 1985 |Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

 Guessing we have posted this piece of footage before but heck its Carl Perkins with George, Ringo, Dave Edmunds, Clapton and many more besides . . . . . .  

Medley - 9/9/1985 - Capitol Theatre . . . . . how much fun are these guys having . . . . George’s face!!

Matchbox

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives”

the full  concert here

THE "GET BACK" SCENE RINGO STAR FOUND EMOTIONAL TO WATCH by Lucy Harbron

 

Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary series requires some dedication. With a run time of eight hours, the footage gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at the band as they attempt to make what would be their final album amidst the group’s collapse. As they write the record in real-time, it’s a fascinating watch. But for Ringo Starr, it contains some moments that bring back big emotions.

The energy of Get Back swings between two points: endearment and tension. On one hand, the footage gives viewers a deeply intimate look at the Fab Four’s working relationship and friendship. There are extended clips of the gang messing around, playing songs they used to cover as a teenage skiffle band, or just having a laugh. Witnessing them crafting songs is a surprisingly gripping watch as viewers are left waiting for them to find the words that the whole world knows by now as they write hits like ‘Get Back’ or ‘Let It Be’. 

But the Let It Be sessions were also going on during some of the band’s hardest times. It was clear by the end of the 1960s that the members all wanted out of the group. During Get Back, George Harrison is seen quitting and storming out, while John Lennon and Paul McCartney bicker over the future of the band. It was a point where their personal relationships were stretched to a limit, causing a rift in their collaborative relationship in turn, with McCartney and Harrison especially struggling to see eye-to-eye musically. 

But at the back of it all, from his post on his drumstand, there’s Ringo Starr. The enduring joke about the Beatles’ drummer is that Starr was always simply happy to be there, holding down the beat with his ‘peace and love’ attitude. In Get Back, the musician’s role becomes fascinatingly clear as songs take shape. Really, Starr was tactful and clever. As the rest of the band wrote, his drumming is fuss-free yet foundational. “While they’re writing the songs, I’m holding the tempo. And then, when the song is finished, I can do my stuff,” he told Vulture. Starr always saw the song as a big picture rather than merely focusing on the drums. Instead, he saw his role as one designed to back up the words and the melody, so he wrote his drum parts afterwards. “That’s because I’ll know where they’re going to sing and I try not to play over the singer like some other drummers do,” he explained.

 

But then in Get Back, the footage captures a moment where Starr steps out from his drum kit and into the limelight. During the sessions, the band were also starting to figure out some songs that would eventually live on Abbey Road, including one of Starr’s own tracks.

In the second episode, as the band relocate to their Apple studios HQ, there’s a moment where Starr starts writing ‘Octopus’ Garden’. “It’s emotional for me to watch,” the drummer said of the scene. After first writing some lyrics during a holiday, Starr sits at the studio’s piano with little more than a stream-of-consciousness scattering of phrases while Harrison comes in to help him out with guitar. 

“I got a few of those verses, and when I went back to the studio — because it was in C — George was sitting there and took an interest,” Starr remembered. “He said, ‘F flat, D minor,’ whatever. Nowhere I could go. I don’t know these chords. I’m a 12-bar guy,” he continued, admitting his own limitations beyond his signature instrument. But with Harrison’s help, the two craft the song into the track the world knows it as.

To Starr, this isn’t just a piece of musical history capturing the creation of one of the band’s timeless hits. To him, it’s a priceless piece of footage of not only two collaborators but two friends. “He always helped out, George. It was great,” the drummer said, adding an emotional message of, “I miss him every day.”

✍️ Lucy Harbron

📸 alamy

Ringo recalls the last time he saw George . . . . . .

The Beatles - Octopuses Garden

For George - RINGO - NEVER WITHOUT YOU

Ringo ❤️ for George

 What with all the lovely posts about George on his birthday a couple of days ago now and all across the Interwebbie mcthingiemabob and every day since seemingly this year as in all years since our loss and then I spotted someone had posted this from our Ringo . . . . . . . . .  

yikes, not a dry eye in the house

George Harrison fans club special

More Beatles history . . . . . .

How did the Beatles ‘Drop-T’ logo come about? 

 

These photos from May 12, 1963 at Alpha Television Studios, the first with Ringo’s old Premier kit with original logo designed by Paul. 

The second photo shows Ringo’s new Ludwig kit, which was delivered to the studios on the same day. 

Although it was never shown on The Beatles’ original UK albums, it was a familiar sight throughout the group’s years and was registered as a trademark by Apple Corps. 

The drop-T logo came about almost by accident. In April 1963, Ringo and Brian Epstein entered a store called Drum City to find a replacement for Ringo’s Premier kit.

“I had a phone call from the shop to say that someone called Brian Epstein was there with a drummer,” said store owner Ivan Arbiter.

“Here was this drummer, Ringo, Schmingo, whatever his name was. At that time I certainly hadn’t heard of the Beatles. Every band was going to be big in those days!”

At first they asked for an all-black kit, but Ringo changed his mind after seeing a swatch of Ludwig’s new oyster black pearl finish on Arbiter’s desk. When told that it was only available on Ludwig drums, his mind was made up. 

“That’s what I want,” Ringo told Arbiter, who fortunately had a £238 Ludwig Downbeat kit with the finish in stock.

Epstein didn’t want to pay for the drums, but Arbiter refused to let him have them for nothing. They negotiated, and eventually Arbiter agreed to trade the drums in return for his battered old Premier kit.

Arbiter told Epstein he wanted Ludwig’s name to appear on the bass drum head, as he’d recently begun a distribution deal with the company. Epstein agreed, but asked for The Beatles’ name on it too.

On the spot, Arbiter designed the famous drop-T logo, hastily sketched onto a scrap of paper. The capital B and dropped T were to emphasize  the word ‘beat’. Drum City was paid £5 for arranging the artwork, which was painted onto the drum head by a local sign writer.

On May 12, 1963 Ringo took delivery of his new Ludwig kit. The drums, along with new Paiste cymbals, were driven to Alpha Television Studios in Birmingham, where The Beatles were appearing on Thank Your Lucky Stars.

The kit had a 20 inch bass drum, 12×8 tom-tom, 14×14 floor tom, and a non-standard Ludwig Jazz Festival wooden snare.

“I took his old Premier drum kit from him and brought it back to the store,” said Arbiter.

“We renovated it in our workshop, and then sold it. I ripped off the bit of material from the bass drum head where he’d handwritten the Beatles’ name and threw it away. It was a terrible drum kit. It wasn’t old: he’d only had it six months or a year. But it was a brown finish, one of the worst finishes that Premier ever did… I don’t know why he got it in the first place, really. No wonder he wanted to change it. Anyway, we cleaned it up and sold it off the same week – and very, very cheaply. It would most likely be a collector’s item if we still had it today.”

At the end of 1963 the Ludwig sticker on the bass head was flaking away from all the carrying from show to show. It was taken back to Drum City, where the Ludwig logo was repainted, slightly larger than before.

This original drum head was last seen in public at the Beatles’ 1964 run of appearances at Paris’ Olympia Theatre. Ringo sold the kit at auction in 2015 and it was purchased by Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts NFL team. 

Abbey Road Tribute

Thank you to Boris for this story and these rare photos.

One of my favourite signature drummers . . . . 

Ringo and a single  (and album!) bought when it came out)

SONG OF THE DAY ANYWAY . . . . . . . . It’s Don’t Come Easy - George Harrison and Ringo Starr

 You know it . . . . . 

THE BEATLES : I SAW HER STANDING THERE & I FEEL FINE

"Sometimes, I think about how John specifically chose to sing ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ onstage with Elton at the Madison Square Garden concert, and chose to introduce the song as being by an old estranged fiancé of his named Paul, all the while wondering what Paul would think about it, and I’m left speechless.

“On that flight back to New York, John and Elton were both excited about the show. ‘We’ll have to rehearse,’ Elton said, and we discussed which songs it would be best to play. ‘Imagine’ was suggested, but John said he didn’t want to do just the greatest hits, and because Elton was already performing ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, it made sense not to play it. John proposed ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. There was something about performing a Paul McCartney number that got him going. He knew no one would expect him to do that.”

Tony King (The Tastemaker, 2023)

“We tried to think of a number to finish off with so I can get out of here and be sick, and we thought we’d do a number of an old, estranged fiancé of mine, called Paul. This is one I never sang. It’s an old Beatle number, and we just about know it.”

John introducing “I Saw Her Standing There” at Madison Square Garden, November 1974.

ALAN: I wondered exactly how you might be feeling when you closed the set with Elton, singing ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, and your jamming with Elton John and the fellas, that you never had the other three illustrious gentlemen around you. Did you feel anything strange about that?

JOHN: Well it was double strange because I used to sing a third-part harmony underneath Paul on ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. So I never actually sang the lead vocal. It was a really strange experience singing an early Beatle song that I never really sang, and singing it with somebody else. I was actually thinking, ‘Oh, I wonder what Paul will think of this’ (laughs)."

John Lennon interviewed by Alan Freeman, January 1975.

Elton and John I Saw Her Standing There (live at Madison Square garden 1974

note NOT the actual footage

I was looking at the clip at the top from the sixties and marvelling at its restoration and tweaking. Check out the interplay between them all. We often don’t mention the two guitarists of John and George in harmony and their playing together but it bears constant and close scrutiny IMHO. The need to always talk about John and Paul writing together so often minimises not only George's central position as lead guitarist but also John's takes on the guitar as so often dismissed as a mere rhythm guitar  . . . . . . the article clip I found somewhere else and found it funny if a trifle sad being from the ‘brothers’ sibling rivalry! post Beatles break up is neither artists golden moment but hey, watcha gonna do? It's there now and the main thing is being so incredibly close they made up as brothers and siblings before either John being murdered and George’s passing from cancer because as so often brothers will because of course Love is All You Need!

Check the interplay between George and John here (below) . . . .with John taking the opening riff we associate with George (well I did!) and then later George tuning as he lets John just take the pace

The interplay between the two is like two rhythm guitarists or two leads ( neither really) but the interplay is from hour upon hour of practice and all those gigs in Germany although here in Munich not the legendary escapes in Hamburg! 

Fab! Gear! SWINGING! It’s THE FABS!

The Beatles - I Feel Fine (Live At Munich, Germany)

"No, Can’t do it today. I’ll join The Beatles on Saturday!" - Ringo Starr

RINGO

I love (and loved) Ringo and have all his albums. I loved him from the films onward. I consider him a signatrure drummer of great skill and artistry

 One of my favourite anecdotes is this?

Ringo Logic 101 : 

“I got a phone call from Brian Epstein on a Wednesday asking me if I’d join The Beatles.” 

“I said sure when ? And he said it has to be today. I told him I can’t join today. I’m in another band I just can’t pick up and leave. They deserve some notice.” 

“I’ll join The Beatles on Saturday.”

Ringo Starr Speaking Of The Day Brian Epstein Asked Him To Join The Beatles On The Off The Record HBO Special With Dave Stewart in 2008. 

#beachboysbeatles101

INT: I love the Tom Snyder interview from 1975 where John talks about how proud he was of Ringo’s success.

MARK HUDSON: Yeah! Well, you know what’s interesting? Ringo gave me a great compliment one time. I’m very energetic, multi-colored beard, which you can’t see out there in radioland, it’s pretty frightening, and when Ringo sings, I really get him energized because he’s always insecure about his voice, and Ringo always says, 

“I wanna be James Brown. I walk up to the microphone, l’m Bing Crosby.” 

So that Ringo thing that we love so much, he would rather be Little Richard or Stevie Wonder or James Brown. And I always sort of like make him feel like he can hit notes that he never could.  

And one time in the studio he said, “You know, you remind me of John,” because whenever Ringo had to sing a song, he’d get insecure, and evidently, from what Ringo said, that John would come out and say, “Alright Ring! Here we go man!” and he would start this thing like a football player.  

“You can do it! Here we go! Hit that note! With a little help from my friends!” and he would hit the note and he says “John had this thing that made me feel so confident,”and a huge compliment to me, saying that made him feel the same way. 

And it’s only because I quote Lennon, “Nothing you can do that can’t be done.” And I think that was a way of life, and I think that was the way John felt that way about Ringo. And that’s when we look at John’s first solo album, its three guys playing on it: Klaus Voorman, John Lennon and Ringo Starr, and that goes to show you the faith that obviously John had in him, was you know, three guys is pretty naked, and this day and age usually we do things to cover up.

— Interview with Mark Hudson (who produced five studio albums for Ringo) from Beatlology Magazine (May/June 2003 Edition)

RINGO & PAUL :: Rainy Days & Mondays [reflectismo]

THIS IS NICE

RINGO & PAUL: A MINI COMPILATION

More often derided than truly appreciated Ringo as one of the world’s greatest drummers. Name another signature drummer?

I can name him as soon as I HEAR him!

BTW The apocryphal story that has one of the Beatles is being asked if Ringo is the world’s greatest drummer “He’s not even the greatest drummer in The Beatles!” is a pathetic example of a joke! It was said by the risible Jasper Carrott and shows an ignorance of a deceptively simple style/ 

It isn’t!

McCartney offers a further, more emotional reminiscence: “I probably bore him by telling him the moment when the three of us realised he was The Guy. In my recollection it’s at the Cavern and there’s me, John and George — which, right there, is pretty cool — standing at the front doing our thing, facing out on the mics. And then behind us there’s this new guy depping, who we knew we liked — we’d seen him in another band. But now he was playing with us. And it just felt so different. It felt so amazing, and it just locked in with what we were all about. And I have this very vivid recollection of kind of looking at John and him looking at me and looking at George and him looking at me, and the three of us are going, ‘What the fuck, this is fucking amazing!” As McCartney describes this, he wipes his eye. “And as you can see, it gets emotional. There was a moment.” 

Keith Smith, Assistant Engineer: All I can say about Ringo is that you just have to listen and watch him playing drums with Paul on bass, it’s pure synergy. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. He is a completely unique drummer and when they play together it’s as near to perfect and natural as I have ever witnessed. It is something that still to this day hasn’t changed.

McCartney digresses for a moment to describe the most recent example of getting-together-with-Ringo, nine days before this conversation, at the end of his show at Dodger Stadium: “Just the other night we finished our tour in Los Angeles and Ringo got up and we were doing 'Helter Skelter’ together, and when I wasn’t on the mic, in the solo breaks and stuff, I really made a point of turning round and watching this guy drum. And thinking, 'My God, you know, the memories across this ten-yard gap here,’ with him on the drums and me on the bass. The lifetime that’s going on here, and here he is! And I was just listening to him during that song. I was doing my performance but basically [he sings] When I get to the bottom I go back to the top — as I’m doing that bit, there’s normally just the guitars sort of playing, but Ringo did what’s on the record” — McCartney sings the drum part to demonstrate — “building. So I’m going, 'Oh yeah, great.’ So you know it’s a sort of magic.”

“It’s always a special experience to play with Paul,” says Ringo now. “I love Paul and I love his playing and, you know, we spent a lot of time together in the sixties.”

FOR GEORGE [Harrison] I Feel Fine (Live At The BBC / 1994 Digital Remaster) REVOLVER - + George | Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

 Did we post this?  . . . . . . .. . can’t recall . . . . . .don’t care . . . . . . . . after watching the Scorsese profile of George George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011) and thinking I should really watchThe Beatles: Get Back again (fourth time? Yeah no problem . . . .) I watched the Beatles film last night The Beatles: Eight Days a Week the programme made by Ron Howard 

 . . . . . . . . . . .and how about this one . . . . . . . after George’s New Years Dingo Dong? . . . . . . . .this!

sorry the previous version was removed and I can’t think why, it is a classic and a great advert for the album ‘Brainwashed'

Ringo recalls George’s last words to him . . . . . . . . . Scouse humour right there . . . .up to the end

George Harrison : Living In The Material World [trailer]

Joe has the last word . . . . . . . . . . (I’m pretty sure we all knew it but I had it confirmed recently that this was at Olivia’s request. Not a dry eye in the house . . . love to her and Dhani and everyone who ever knew him!) LOVE is the answer

SONG OF THE DAY Ringo Starr - Love Don't Last Long

• Track Name

  Love Don't Last Long

• Album

  Beaucoups of Blues

• Artist

  Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr - Love Don’t Last Long (1970)

"Ringo’s second LP was surprisingly a country LP recorded in Nashville with all the studio greats.  It didn’t get much love at the time, but it’s actually not bad  Ringo obviously doesn’t have great voice, but his voice has personality to spare, and he has a feel country music.  "

Bought this when it came out as all of the Beatles work . . . . . . . . my favourite signature drummer

Ringo Beacoup!

Song of the Day :: George Harrison - While My Guitar Gently Weeps (live)

 Lovely version despite being filled with Eighties fashion statements (sic!) here's George and friends at The Prince's Trust Gala in 1987

thanks for the reminder from the Twilight Zone . . . .    .       .         .

Scotch & Coke! The Beatles drink of choice and Paul fondly remembers early Beatles fun!

 RINGO STARR

Ritchie was the Grown Up!

we couldn't get anything like 'Bourbon' back then Jack Daniels was unheard of, a British Teacher's blended malt if we were lucky. We found more exotic brands later when we visited the American Heyford Airbase up the road and went to their shops (although not allowed to) for brands like Marlboro, and if we were lucky something really exotic like Chesterfields and later Kent! Jack Daniels made me throw up! 7 Up we had never heard of either and we had to stick to Whites lemonade . . . . . .  ha ha ha ha great memory Macca

we always loved Ringo . . . . . . 

One missing . . . . . . . . Ringo off out down the Off Licence buying Bourbon for the boys!?

John, George, Paul and I though Phil Spector at first but it's Glynn Johns

Rainy Days and Mondays

Paul and Ringo . . . .and then there two

Poignant message and sad realisation after the posts about the anniversary of George's death

I love the affection on display here. he unashamed brotherhood between Paul and Ringo is unmissable and the emotion in the upper clip is again unashamedly honest. I love them both for this . . . . . . always have

 . . . . . . . for brothers lost

 GEORGE'S LAST WORDS TO RINGO

The last weeks of George's life, he was in Switzerland, and I went to see him, and he was very ill. And, you know, he could only lay down. And while he was being ill and I'd come to see him, I was going to Boston, cos my daughter had a brain tumour. And I said, "Well, you know, I've got to go, I've got to go to Boston" and he was... phew, it's the last words I heard him say, actually... And he said, "Do you want me to come with you?" Oh, God. So, you know, that's the incredible side of George."

& The Buckaroos LIVE in Alexandria VA 1989

I nearly missed a cracking good post from Floppy Boot Stomp the other day and it is really worth downloading. I first came across Buck Owens when checking out the cover songs The Beatles did and Ringo sang 'Act Naturally' all those years ago. Then I realised my taste for a pure kind of Country music and the then new country stars of Dwight Yoakam amongst others who regularly sang Buck Owens songs. Still going strong here in 1989 and live is a real treat and of course great quality. It cheered me up no end on a Monday morning here. Give it a try if you like true and pure country this is the real deal!

BUCK OWENS

& The Buckaroos LIVE in Alexandria VA 1989

Here at Floppy Boot Stomp

MP3 format

Liner notes as follows:

Buck Owens & The BuckaroosThe BirchmereAlexandria VA1989-03-01 Soundboard @320


01. Love's Gonna Live Here02. Together Again03. Act Naturally04. Put A Quarter In The Jukebox05. Truck Drivin' Man06. Crying Time07. Hot Dog08. Key's In The Mailbox09. Memphis10. Under Your Spell Again11. Open Up Your Heart12. My Isle Of Golden Dreams13. Tall Dark Stranger14. Excuse Me (I Think I've Got A Heartache)15. Foolin' Around16. Waitin' In Your Welfare Line17. Sam's Place18. Above And Beyond19. Hello Trouble20. Wipe Out21. I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)22. Swinging Doors23. I've Got A Tiger By The Tail24. Streets Of Bakersfield25. Johnny B. Goode26. Playboy27. Big In Vegas28. Buckaroo29. Gonna Have Love