In defense of Ringo

 Yes, I'm now gonna post about the other disrespected Beatle, Mr Ringo Starr.  

He's been called "the luckiest man in the world", "just along for the ride", and worse of all, straight out saying he sucked.

For sure, if you're standard of what's good is John Bonham (unbelievable), Neil Peart (technically brilliant, but IMO, like a robot, not in a good way) or Keith Moon (innovative, but IMO not sometimes able to fulfill the basic requirements of a drummer, like playing a shuffle or in 6/8 or staying in time), then Ringo might come up short.  He's not gonna be flashy.  Can't do the technically brilliant things.  What Ringo does seems simple.  He sits in the song and doesn't stand out.

Or does he???  It is well documented that in the 1970s with all the flashy drumming going around, a common phrase was repeated in studios all over the world, namely "play it like Ringo."  Which means, keep it simple.  Make the song look good, not you.  In other words, be in a band.  Now in some bands, like the above mentioned, the drummer being out front is a huge part of those bands.  Those drummers fit perfectly in those bands.  So, although what Ringo does seems simple, he is ALSO fitting into his band.  In his band, bombast isn't the order of the day.  Ringo needed to be extremely flexible.  A listen to the Beatles catalog from front to end (in progress right now, more next time), Ringo had to be able to play on I Saw Her Standing There, with its straight-ahead Chuck Berry rocker style, the kind of Latin "What'd I Say" style on I Feel Fine, the country shuffle of Act Naturally, the almost techno, "not a loop but sounds like one" of Tomorrow Never Knows and "tom tom city", as he described it, with tons of strange and continuously changing signatures on Here Comes the Sun.  Moon is great, but can you seriously tell me that the Who's catalog is that diverse?  Zeppelin's certainly was, and that's why Bonham was so great, along with his technical brilliance, he had to be flexible.  Bonham in the Beatles, however, would never have worked.  He was far too heavy-handed, which worked in his band perfectly, but not in the Beatles.  Peart?  I really just don't like his style at all.  Don't want to get into it, but I don't feel like his playing has any life.

Another thing Ringo does well is make very "hooky" drum parts that stand apart from the song itself.  Who wouldn't recognize Come Together without the rest of the song?  Or Ticket to Ride?  Or Tomorrow Never Knows?  Or A Day in the Life?  or She Loves You?  The list continues really.  The "hookiest" band in the world is that way, in many ways because all 4 of them can create hooks that stand apart from the song. 

One more song that I have come to appreciate is Ringo's work on In My Life.  I saw a video on YouTube once where there was a drummer who was doing a Q&A and he was asked about what makes a drummer "good?"  He used In My Life as an example.  He said, this is what a "good" drummer would do and he proceeded to absolutely butcher it, playing way too much and too busy.  The song didn't come through.  Then he did what Ringo did.  It's really difficult to imagine what else could have been played on that song.  Hitting the high hat only once on each measure?  What other drummer would have done that?  But the part is perfect.  No other drummer could play that any better.  Yes, another drummer could play "more", but it wouldn't have been better because how do you improve it?  I don't think you can.

If you dig into the Beatles catalog a bit, you'll hear the multiple takes that would be done on a song, oftentimes taking multiple takes to create a unified whole.  In order to do that in those days, you had to have a drummer with a great sense of time.  There was no "slow down the tempo and keep the same key" plug-in.  If you slowed or speeded the tape, the key would change.  Fortunately, they had a human click track (that didn't exist either) in Ringo.  

Pete Best has been kicked around enough, so I don't want to do that here.  But one listen to the Beatles Anthology should put to rest the "why did they kick Pete out" stuff.  Ringo was better, by a mile.

Ringo didn't just fit in music-wise.  His personality fit in perfectly.  Ringo was, very often, who they rallied around.  If you are a big Beatles fan like me and know how fast things started to disintegrate after Sgt Pepper, it can be downright emotional to hear John and Paul sing background vocals on With a Little Help From My Friends.  Or George bringing his best guitar work to Octopus' Garden.  Or hear the "reunion on vinyl" on the Ringo album.  All 3 of them contributed songs, vocals, and instruments.  The thought of them all doing that for any one of the other 3 is impossible.  

Ringo was a huge star (pun intended) in Liverpool.  His band was far bigger than the Beatles in the beginning.  The other Beatles think of Ringo as a grown-up.  He had a car.  He was older.  He had a steady gig.  One day when Pete Best was out, Ringo sat in.  Paul described it as the other 3 looking at each other knowing that was it.  It took a bit, but George finally got his way and Ringo got in.  I've heard it said that no great band has a bad drummer.  I absolutely agree with that and the Beatles had the perfect drummer for them.  Generations of drummers have been influenced by him.  A drummer friend of mine, very critical of Ringo even had to give him some credit when he found out that he was a lefty playing on a kit set up for a righty.

Ringo had no ego.  He just wanted to make the song better.  In my mind, that's the most important thing that anybody in a band can do.  Nobody did that better than the one and only Ringo Starr.