Ringo goes country again, tours, turns a nonchalant 85
Less-is-More Lefty Dummer Overdoes the Guest List
Ringo Starr turns 85 on July 7, and as rock’s Most Beloved Figure, it’s silly how much the public underrates him. He plays off that misperception, radiating both humility and skill. As rock found itself slipping deeper into middle age, before his All-Star Band became a staple, Starr’s take on adulthood never needed underlining: he would sing these songs as long as we’d have him. His time grows shorter, but he handily upstages many of his peers. This piece ran in the Boston Phoenix in 1989, just as “rock adulthood” began to shirk its irony…
THE BEATLES' CAREER was such a lesson in the merits of the shared spotlight, it's a wonder George and Ringo took so long to put the gimmick to work as soloists. Harrison stumbled along into one vinyl dead end after another, retired for a few years, and then made a huge, if quaint, comeback in 1987 with Cloud Nine. But it wasn't until last year's Traveling Wilburys project that his talents were put to their best use: playing lead and trading vocals with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne made so much musical sense that people forgot that's how George earned his fame—as a co-equal, not a leader.
Ringo, now 49 and sober, has taken the Wilbury cue. After making his comeback record in New Orleans two years ago (it has yet to be released because of production squabbles), he's gotten the itch to perform again. But instead of starring in a pathetic one-man star vehicle, he's put together a band of his big-league buddies and fashioned an oldies revue built around his bottomless charm. Rock's most underrated drummer is still the one with the most friends, so he didn't have any trouble enticing Joe Walsh, Dr. John, Nils Lofgren and Clarence Clemons (from Springsteen's E Street Band), Rick Danko and Levon Helm (from the Band), Billy Preston, and fellow skin-meister Jim Keltner for a vaudevillian act where every member has his moment. The only problem with the show is, there may be a few too many friends up there to help Ringo get by.
The ensemble was chunky but snug, and the heavy qualities worked best on Joe Walsh's arena workouts (his Eagles hit "Life In The Fast Lane," and his own "Rocky Mountain Way"), which won the loudest acclaims.
Try as he might, Billy Preston couldn't quite steal the show the way he had from George Harrison's 1974 tour with "Will It Go Round In Circles" and "Nothing from Nothing," though these stale cotton-candy soul trifles were far and away better than sitting through Clemons' numbers ("You're a Friend of Mine," and the second half's doo-wop anticlimax). Too long by about a third, the show still had enough chestnuts to keep you going.
No one can complain who gets to hear Levon Helm sing both "The Weight" and "Up On Cripple Creek." Bassist Danko sang Ringo's favorite Band number, "The Shape I'm In," and a graceful, reverent version of Buddy Holly's "Rainin' in My Heart"—the song that provides "Dear Prudence" with its line: "The sun is up, the sky is blue." Except for "Candy" (from his recent In a Sentimental Mood), Dr. John stuck to sure bets: "Iko Iko" and "Right Place Wrong Time." Nobody did a double take when Joe Walsh began the second half doing his best Don Henley imitation on 1973's "Desperado" (Walsh didn't join the Eagles until 1976's Hotel California). Then again, this wasn't a show to keep score at.
The tour, sponsored by Diet Pepsi, seems axiomatic of late-'80s pop. When Ringo sings his Beatle tunes (even Buck Owens' "Act Naturally," Carl Perkins' "Honey Don't," and of course the final encore, "With a Little Help from My Friends"), guess who collects a royalty? Michael Jackson, Pepsi's biggest spokesman. And the project is produced by David Fishof, the man who packaged the Turtles, Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, Spanky and Our Gang, and the Association as the "Happy Together" tours, plus the Dirty Dancing concerts and the Monkees. It's the kind of evening where the hits upstage the band and the lighting design feels amateur. That Fishof gives himself a page at the back of the program book tells you how big promoters have gotten—they consider themselves part of the act. So it's come to this: Sgt. Pepper's Billy Shears has wound up working for the benefit of Mr. Kite.
and…
Ringo Offbeats playlist: cowbell in “You Can’t Do That,” shaggy dog silence on final break in “Ticket to Ride,” four against three in “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” (“When I hold you/In my arms…”); crash course in understated control
Solo Beatles Deluxe Karma Ballast: why-come Ringo plays on so many solo projects
James Parker’s Starr description in The Atlantic, 2014: “Ringo, the absurdist Beatle, syncopates his hair and stirs his drum kit with a distant smile, as if resigned and reconciled already to the madness…”
Fast Ram Inexhaustible:
more Beatles clips:
"Nobody Told Me There’d Be Days Like These"
https://bit.ly/rileygetback, Copper magazineWBUR’s On Point with Robin Young:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/11/23/beatles-let-it-be-sessionsSpecial guest on Switched-On Pop, the award-winning music podcast:
https://switchedonpop.com/episodes/the-beatles-get-back-let-it-beComplete 70m interview here (lots more detail):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-HilGuVRlcefFohZhQo9lUbYTyqjrLqB/previewMore on Peter Jackson for The Conversation:
https://theconversation.com/the-beatles-get-back-glosses-over-the-bands-acrimonious-end-169914Beatles BONUS ROUND:
https://timrileyauthor.com/beatles-bonus-round/
Jeanie Seely shares Ringo’s birthday, shares songwriting credit with Randy Newman on Irma Thomas’s “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand” (1966) from this Black Mirror episode ("Fifteen Million Merits," 2011):
noises off
From the archives: Taboo sex jingles in Babygirl and Dying for Sex; how the Woodstock documentary hits differently every 20 years; and Ali Farka Touré’s grinning polyrhythms
“On the right, real interest in the general welfare became secondary to a crusade bent on unconditional and permanent victory. An entanglement with something resembling religion gave it claims to a special righteousness that owed nothing to fact or reason or to the conventions of civilized politics.”—”Notes From an Occupation,” by Marilyn Robinson, New York Review of Books, June 26
riley rock index: obits, bylines, youtube finds, reference sites, pinterest, beacons.ai, random deep link
Good one, my friend. Ringo always makes the top 50 in my book (and you know what I mean, maestro). 💀