Before reading this post it might help if you read Day 1 of 7 Days of Starr about his childhood.
Ringo
had outgrown his illness after age sixteen, but a few years before his
sixteenth year he was diagnosed with pleurisy it was in this hospital visit he
had grown a liking to drums. Prior to the hospital he had seen drums in a music
store on Park Road, the store had all instruments like guitars, banjos and what
not but it was the drums that he was drawn too but they were too expensive. He
was given a harmonica by his grandfather when he was seven, a mandolin and
banjo, and a piano was around but he never had much interest in any of them. It
had to be the drums; that was it. When he was in the hospital he started
hitting cabinets next to the bed with cotton bobbins, there was nothing else to
do. A teacher would come in and teach the child patients, one subject would be
music where the kids would be allowed to play percussion instruments like
triangles, tambourines, and the drums; Ringo would only play if he could play
the drums.
He bought his first drum for thirty shillings. His uncle played
banjo or harmonica and his grandparents played mandolin and banjo, and he would
play his drum. When he was fifteen he began singing in choir. His favorite
music at the time was The Four Aces’ ‘Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing’, Eddie
Calvert, and David Whitfield. Hank Williams was another favorite of his, he had
a love for country. When Skiffle was coming out he became a fan of Johnnie Ray
but he found his hero when he was sixteen, Frankie Laine; Bill Haley and Carl
Perkins later became other favorites of his. When he met Roy Trafford, years
later, they would soon share the same love for music and ease on their teddy
boy days to become musicians.
"Ritchie joined the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group with Ed Miles, the boy who lived next door. Roy Trafford and Johnny Dougherty - they all worked together in the same place. Eddie used to take his guitar to work every day. He was a smashing fellow - if ever a lad should have got somewhere he would have. I believe he's the Hank Walters & His Dusty Road Ramblers."-Elsie Gleave, The Mersey Beat
Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group |
At age seventeen the skiffle sound had boomed thanks to Lonnie Donegan and The Vipers.
Roy Trafford, Eddie Miles (a lathe operator where Ringo and Roy worked and would go by the name Eddie Clayton), John Dougherty, Frank Walsh, and Ringo
started their own skiffle group. His first band was called the Eddie Clayton Skiffle
Group. It was around this time that Ringo had received his first drum kit for
Christmas from his family. With his drums he took three lessons from an older man,
after three lessons it became too routine
for Ringo and he never returned. After his lessons and he set up the drums in
his bedroom; he only played their twice due to complaints from the neighbors.
The band started playing at the factory where they worked, then moved onto
doing weddings, which lead to them soon being regulars at Peel Street Labour Club along with appearances at the Cavern Club.
At age eighteen Ringo
began thinking about emigrating to the United States with his friend Johnny and
live with one of his favorite Blues musicians, Lightinin’ Hopkins; Ringo even
got paper work from the Embassy to go. By this time he was beginning to become well
known as a drummer in Liverpool’s best bands like The Darktown Skiffle Group
then with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes leaving his band with Eddie and Roy who
had become wrapped up in their own personal lives of starting families and
focusing more on their careers.
“I thought Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were great. They were the first ones in Liverpool who really wanted to get into rock’n’roll.” -Ringo Starr, Anthology
Rory Storm and the Hurricanes |
Ringo auditioned for Rory; a blonde haired, front man singer,
with guitarist, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Byrne (“…was Liverpool’s Jimi Hendrix.”), in
1958 after Ringo had bought his new drum kit, an Ajax single-headed kit from
Frank Hessy’s music shop. On first impression Ringo looked tough to the
Hurricanes, as he still dressed in his Teddy boy apparel. That was the impression
Ringo got often, even when The Beatles met him, they were a bit frightened by
him because of his appearance. Ringo passed the audition and became known as
one of the greatest drummers in Liverpool during the time, everyone wanted him;
some groups didn’t even want Ringo as a drummer, they wanted him as a bassist
or anything they could get him to play.
Rory Storm and the Hurricanes |
The
Hurricanes started playing at various places, one being at The Cavern Club on
Mathew Street, where they were kicked off stage for being a progressive
rock’n’roll group rather than a jazz or skiffle group that the audience wanted
to hear. It was around 1959 when it had been announced that those born after
September 1939 would be safe from being enlisted into war which was fantastic for Ringo,
he stopped working at the factory and
decided he was going to be professional with Rory; the DHSS said ‘He left the
factory to join a dance band.’. The Hurricanes were offered a gig to play for
£16 a week at the rock and Calypso Ballroom in Butlins. His family told him,
“'You’ll come back in three months, and you’ll only be semi-skilled when you do.'” -Ringo Starr, Anthology
Ringo’s response was,
“I don’t care. Drums are my life, I want to be a musicians and I’m going away with Rory to Butlins to fulfill this dream.” - Anthology
They were in Butlins for three months where
they decided to give each other names, John Byrne became Johnny Guitar, and
this is when Ringo, became Ringo because of the amount of rings he wore. He
began calling himself Ringo Starkey, but Starkey didn’t flow well with his new nick
name so he dropped with ending and added an extra ‘r’ making Richard Starkey to
Ringo Starr.
Rory Storm and his Rockette? |
The Hurricanes were in
Butlins and the right time, the summer months, where they would perform week
after week doing their performances of songs like Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Whole
Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and Rory’s athletics of jumping over Ringo’s head after
he finished playing the piano that was located behind the drums. From Butlins The Hurricanes were offered gigs
playing at American army bases in France.
“The problem was we need a girl singer, because the army didn’t want to look at us guys. So we found a blonde girl in Liverpool (whose name I can’t remember) and we went out there and played in all those bases in the wilderness.”-Ringo Starr, Anthology
It was during this time that the
French were fighting the Algerians and once the band got to Paris by train they
were forced off, which wasn’t the most welcoming experience but the band
overcame that and stayed in cheap rooms; they survived off of hamburgers and
Hershey bars that they got at solider prices. By autumn 1960 Rory Storm and the
Hurricanes were to play in Hamburg, Germany where everything seemed to fall
into place.
George, Pete, Paul, John at the Cavern |
"We were cowards. We got Epstein to do the dirty work for us."- John Lennon, Anthology
Ringo and The Beatles |
"Ringo never, Pete Best forever!"George was even headbutted and received a black eye outside of the Cavern by a Best fan. But that all died down and Ringo became (in John Lennon's words) The greatest drummer. George described the situation in a joke matter saying, "How many Beatles does it take to screw in a light bulb? Four." Ringo being the fourth piece.
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