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The Beatles in 1962. From left: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr (Photo: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty)<\/p>\nIn the still insatiable demand for Beatles content, author and music writer Tom Doyle\u2019s definitive biography of the band\u2019s unsung hero is, like a Ringo Starr drum fill, extremely well-timed. Ringo: A Fab Life takes an engaging, meticulous view of the life \u2013 and myths \u2013 of The Beatles\u2019 drummer, fleshing out with sharp analysis the well-documented events, while detailing with no little sparkle some of the lesser-known aspects of Ringo\u2019s remarkable career. Here are 10 takeaways.<\/p>\n
Yes, Ringo really was the best drummer in The Beatles<\/p>\n
It\u2019s remarkable that the notion Ringo Starr wasn\u2019t a good drummer has endured as a pop culture myth for decades, as if the best band of all time had a plodder behind the kit. Doyle, a drummer himself, makes a great case for Ringo as not just a great rock\u2019n\u2019roll drummer \u2013 his inventive drumming on \u201cShe Loves You\u201d was, Doyle says, \u201cthe beat that helped sell a million records\u201d \u2013 but as an artful, emotional interpreter of song. Ringo is painted throughout as the ordinary bloke with an extraordinary talent, albeit one without a pretentious bone in his body. <\/p>\n
But Doyle highlights his \u201clateral thinking and approaching the others\u2019 songs from obtuse angles\u201d, a technique he calls \u201cpicturing the song\u201d that is best exemplified in the shape-shifting beat of \u201cA Day in the Life\u201d. \u2018\u201cFour thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire\u2019 \u2013 boom ba bom. I try to show that \u2026 the disenchanting mood,\u201d Ringo said by way of explanation.<\/p>\n
The Beatles in 1962. From left: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr (Photo: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty)<\/p>\n
Ringo held onto an imposter syndrome due to being \u2018the last man in\u2019<\/p>\n
Ringo\u2019s pre-Beatles reputation in Liverpool and beyond was high; as plain old Richard Starkey, his drumming, particularly with popular Merseybeat combo Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, was so good that George Harrison pushed the band to replace the doomed Pete Best (even though Ringo didn\u2019t think much of The Beatles when he first met them in Hamburg in 1960: \u201cThey were just a bunch of scruffs.\u201d) <\/p>\n
But being the last to join such a close knit, not to mention obscenely talented, entity left Ringo with an outsider feeling he never truly shook off. When Ringo was too ill to start the Beatles\u2019 first world tour in 1964 \u2013 Ringo spent lengthy periods of his childhood in hospital \u2013 the band temporarily replaced him with Jimmie Nicol, leaving Ringo fearing he\u2019d \u201cdone a Pete Best\u201d. His crisis of confidence during The White Album sessions in 1968 led to him briefly leaving the band.<\/p>\n
The other Beatles never fell out with Ringo \u2013 apart from Paul McCartney, once<\/p>\n
But a feature of the book is how much the other Beatles think of Ringo \u2013 take the telegram they sent him asking him to rejoin the band in 1968: \u201cYou\u2019re the best rock \u2018n\u2019 roll drummer in the world. Come on home, we love you.\u201d While the other three endured testy relationships at various stages (if not outright hostility), Ringo was the affable, emotional centre of the group; one book chapter is even titled \u201cThe Glue\u201d in tribute to Ringo\u2019s easy-going sociability. <\/p>\n
But there was one notable exception. In the messy post-split aftermath, Ringo was tasked with delivering McCartney a letter stating he\u2019d have to move the release date of his first solo album, McCartney, so as not to clash with The Beatles\u2019 final album, 1970\u2019s Let It Be. Paul went mad, throwing Ringo out of his house, with their relationship breaking down for several years; Ringo\u2019s 1972 hit \u201cBack Off Boogaloo\u201d is allegedly an uncharacteristic swipe at McCartney.<\/p>\n
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The Beatles at their first US press conference in 1964 (Photo: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty)<\/p>\n
\u2018Ringo for President\u2019 \u2013 Ringo was America\u2019s favourite Beatle<\/p>\n
At home, Ringo was always more of a punchline than the others. But it was a different story in America. When Beatlemania first stormed the States in 1964, it was Ringo who won hearts and minds, starting at that famous very first press conference where it was he, alongside George, who was making quick-fire quips and Elvis impressions. US magazine Saturday Evening Post said as much, stating Ringo \u201cevokes paroxysms of teenage shrieks everywhere by a mere turn of his head\u2026 When he flips his hair, the kids flip theirs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRingo for President\u201d therefore became a fun and irreverent campaign (T-shirts, caps, banners) that still exists today. It didn\u2019t stop there; Ringo was the subject of several hit songs of the era, including Cheryl Sarkisian\u2019s \u201cRingo, I Love You,\u201d \u201cRingo Did It\u201d by Veronica Lee, The Starlettes\u2019 \u201cRingo\u201d, Rex Miller\u2019s comedy track \u201cRingo\u2019s Doctor\u201d and the Young World Singers\u2019 \u201cRingo for President\u201d, later covered by one-time Beatles friend, the disgraced Rolf Harris.<\/p>\n
Ringo took his wife\u2019s affair with George Harrison very well<\/p>\n
It was a pre-Christmas party in 1973 when George Harrison just blurted it out: \u201cI\u2019m in love with your wife,\u201d he told Ringo of Maureen, stunning both his old bandmate and the assorted guests \u2013 including Maureen herself and George\u2019s wife, Patti. It was a messy, complicated love triangle \u2013 Lennon would later state the situation was \u201cvirtual incest\u201d \u2013 but Ringo, hardly a stranger to extra marital affairs himself, reacted in the moment with remarkable grace and goodwill. \u201cBetter you than someone we don\u2019t know,\u201d he replied in a steady manner. <\/p>\n
While his marriage to Maureen would last just another three years before he took up with his lover Chris O\u2019Dell (leading to lengthy alimony battles), Ringo and George somehow managed to put it all behind them and move on.<\/p>\n
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Ringo Starr with his wife Maureen in 1972 (Photo: Bettmann)<\/p>\n
In 1976, Ringo had his own \u2018Britney\u2019 moment<\/p>\n
By the mid-70s, Ringo had entered a dark place. The early promise and success of his initial solo career \u2013 he\u2019d enjoyed a run of great top 10 singles including \u201cPhotograph\u201d and \u201cIt Don\u2019t Come Easy\u201d \u2013 had given way to diminishing returns of lazy and poor records. Suffering from the \u201cjet-setting blues\u201d \u2013 a party lifestyle lived between Monaco, LA and London for tax purposes \u2013 he was now directionless, drinking heavily and taking lots of cocaine. <\/p>\n
So one day in Monte Carlo, feeling \u201chot\u201d, he went to the barbers \u2013 though there is a story that it was actually Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham who did the deed \u2013 and had his hair and eyebrows shaved off, radical for a Beatle. \u201cI went mad,\u201d he later said. \u201cIt was a time when you either cut your wrists or your hair, and I\u2019m a coward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ringo\u2019s \u2018lost years\u2019 threw up some weird ventures<\/p>\n
Out of love with drumming \u2013 not to mention drinking heavily \u2013 Ringo\u2019s attempts to find meaning in his post-Beatles wilderness years led him to some off-kilter choices. His record label Ring O\u2019Records (name suggested by Lennon) was perhaps at least an understandable undertaking, though Ringo\u2019s disinterest led to failure. More bizarre was ROR, an interior design company set up with Robin Cruikshank that promised, as Doyle writes, \u201cmodern, artful, flashy furniture for the wealthy hipster\u201d. <\/p>\n
For a while it was a success: David Bowie, Elton John and Chistopher Plummer were customers. In 1982 the company signed a $10 million contract to design the interior of the Mushrif Palace in Abu Dhabi. Ringo left in 1986, just after he\u2019d begun what\u2019s surely his best non-music gig: voicing Thomas the Tank Engine, the peak of 80s children\u2019s television. As he\u2019d said previously: \u201cI like kids. I used to be one.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ringo\u2019s attempts to find meaning in his post-Beatles wilderness years led him to some off-kilter choices<\/p>\n
Ringo\u2019s addiction plumbed terrible depths<\/p>\n
Professionally, Ringo struggled on during the 1980s, making bad movies and worse albums. But things were much worse personally. With his drink and drug addiction out of control, his decade was punctuated with awful incidents. <\/p>\n
He nearly died in a car crash with his soon-to-be new wife, former Bond girl Barbara Bach, in 1980; his public appearances on TV chat shows were drunken and embarrassing; worse still, with Ringo (at his own admission) dragging Barbara into addiction with him, the pair\u2019s relationship could turn toxic. They openly fought \u2013 sometimes physically \u2013 in public. He and Barbara finally got sober in 1988, his life since calm and positive, full of, as he would say, \u201cpeace and love\u201d.<\/p>\n
All these years on, Ringo is still processing his incredible life<\/p>\n
Given Ringo\u2019s \u201chellishly rough\u201d start in life \u2013 a father who absconded when he was three, a poverty-stricken upbringing in the Dingle area of Liverpool, a sickly, near-death childhood that saw his grandad nickname him \u201cLazarus\u201d \u2013 it wasn\u2019t even certain he would survive into adulthood. That he went on to live one of the most remarkable lives in history, one that remains unceasing in its fame and adulation to this day, is still something that Ringo hasn\u2019t fully reckoned with at 85 years old. <\/p>\n
\u201cI make more right moves than left moves,\u201d he once quipped to Doyle in one of his typical aphorisms as he tried to explain what happened. But receiving an honorary doctorate at the Berklee College of Music in 2022, he admitted his life was \u201csome strange fairy tale\u201d he\u2019s at a loss to rationalise. As he told Doyle himself: \u201cI try not to overthink it.\u201d<\/p>\n