Ringo not only makes some astute comments about the
price of fame, but is right on target about the lack
of diversity on the radio...


Still a star, the Beat(le) goes on ...



By George Varga
POP MUSIC CRITIC

September 5, 2003


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DATEBOOK

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Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band
7:30 p.m. Sunday

Humphrey's Concerts by the Bay
2241 Shelter Island Drive
Point Loma

Sold out

(619) 523-1010



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BEVERLY HILLS – "Everybody is a star in the
All-Starrs, but I'm the biggest."

Ringo Starr makes this declaration not as a boast but
as a simple statement of fact about his stature in the
latest edition of his All-Starr Band. The group
concludes its 2003 North American tour with a sold-out
San Diego show Sunday night at Humphrey's Concerts by
the Bay. But Starr knows all too well that – as one
of only two survivors of The Beatles' most famous
lineup – his Fab status as a member of the most
popular and influential rock band ever remains
undiminished. And like former band mate Paul
McCartney, he's now happy to embrace that lineage, in
contrast with how all four former Mop Tops largely
disavowed their Beatles past after the group
acrimoniously disbanded in late 1969.

"We wanted to break up to find our identity, and I
think we distanced ourselves from The Beatles to try
and find it," said Starr of the long-defunct band,
which in 2000 again topped album charts around the
world with "1," a greatest hits compilation.

Imitations: both cheap, chic
With more than 200 versions of "Yesterday" alone
recorded by other artists, The Beatles are easily the
most covered band in rock history. Here is a highly
subjective look at the best and worst Fab Four covers.


The Five Worst Versions of Beatles' Songs 1. "Lucy in
the Sky With Diamonds," William Shatner

2. "I Am the Walrus," (tie) Jim Carrey and Leo Sayer

3. "Baby, You're a Rich Man," The Fat Boys

4. "Day Tripper," Mae West

5. "Fixing a Hole," George Burns

The Five Best Versions of Beatles' Songs
1. "Come Together," (tie) Ike & Tina Turner and
Michael Hedges

2. "Every Little Thing," Yes

3. "Drive My Car," Bobby McFerrin

4. "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away," Eddie Vedder

5. "She's a Woman," Jeff Beck



"It wasn't easy then, or now. Because, even today,
it's still 'Ringo, that Beatle guy.' And you have to
get over that and just start living your life."

Since forming his first All-Starr Band in 1989
following years of drug-and alcohol-fueled abuse that
nearly cost him his life, a clear-eyed and sober Starr
has devoted himself to the musical career he nearly
squandered with his debilitating habits.

"You know, I fully understand that God has some
purpose for me," he said. "And I don't know quite what
it is yet, but I'm still here and open to his
suggestions."

The bearded drummer has also come to terms with the
fact that, no matter how many solo albums or All-Starr
Band tours he does, he'll always be regarded as a
Beatle first.

"You just say, 'OK, that's it,' " he said during a
pretour interview in a plush Beverly Hills hotel
suite. "You have to resign yourself to: 'That's me;
I'll be that (Beatle) to millions of people.' And
that's how it is.

"This is what I do. Every time I'm putting a tour
together, people ask: 'What are you doing it for?' And
I do it because I'm a drummer, I'm a musician and I
love to play."

Previous All-Starr Band lineups have included Todd
Rundgren, Peter Frampton, ex-Cream bassist Jack Bruce
and several members of The Eagles. His latest group
has a decided '70s-'80s slant, thanks to Paul Carrack
(Ace, Squeeze), John Waite (The Babys), Colin Haye
(Men At Work) and returning All-Starr Band drummer
Sheila E, who rose to fame playing with Prince.

"You have to have hits from the '70s, '80s or '90s –
I have all you need from the '60s," Starr said. "You
have to play an instrument, you have to want to have
fun in the summer, and you have to support the rest of
the band. Once we get all that straightened out, we
have a lot of fun. I don't go on the road to be
tortured, especially by my own band."

At 63, this Liverpool native is old enough to have
grown up before rock 'n' roll became the lingua franca
of young and not-so-young people everywhere. The man
born Richard Starkey is also youthful enough to
cherish the fact that nothing excites him as much as
anchoring and driving his no-nonsense All-Starr Band,
the lineup of which generally changes from tour to
tour.

He also proves as much on his latest solo album,
"Ringo Rama," which features such stellar guests as
Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Shawn Colvin, Pink
Floyd's David Gilmour, Van Dyke Parks and jazz bass
great Charlie Haden.

Released in the spring, it received generally
favorable reviews. But like almost every Starr solo
album since the mid-1970s, "Ringo Rama" was largely
ignored by commercial radio and by his fans, who
nonetheless pack his concerts.

His fate is shared by many other veteran rockers,
especially those who experienced their greatest
success in the 1960s and '70s but are now regarded as
anathema by a music industry devoted to promoting the
latest young pop flavor of the week.

"It's very difficult for all us, if we're not 22, to
get on radio," the still Beatle-slim Starr said with a
sigh. "I mean, we can get on the golden oldies
(stations), and we're grateful for that. But to get on
the mainstream radio playlists is very difficult."

Is there anything this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
inductee can do to remedy the situation?

"No. I've had lunch with them all (radio programmers),
and it didn't help," he said, sighing again. "It is a
frustration, because you think, 'Well, just listen to
the music.' But I just make the records. That's the
bit that I like to do. And then we put it out and
wherever it lands, it lands."

The 13-song "Ringo Rama" includes the song "Never
Without You," a touching homage to former Beatle
George Harrison, who died of cancer in late 2001. It
features a bluesy solo by Clapton, who shared guitar
duties with Harrison on The Beatles' classic "While My
Guitar Gently Weeps."

"It was easy to write, and it was difficult to
record," Starr noted of the song. "Because on all my
(solo) albums George was on them, and this would've
been the track he should've been on. So instead, it
was the first time we ever had to sing about George
without him being involved on the album."

"Ringo Rama" also makes repeated musical references to
the Fab Four, from the use of such lyrical snippets as
"tomorrow never knows" on "Love First" to the musical
paraphrasing of both "She Loves You" and "Back in the
U.S.S.R" on the rollicking "Memphis in Your Mind."

"I have no qualms about throwing in any line I've
heard, by anybody," Starr said. "A good line, you're
welcome to borrow it."

But what is perhaps most notable about the album is
how this amiable grandfather re-establishes himself as
a spunky, rock-solid drummer. Witness the tricky
syncopations and charged fills he plays on "Instant
Amnesia," or the muscular backbeats he lays down on
"Trippin' on My Own Fears" and the unfortunately
titled "I Think, Therefore I Rock 'n' Roll."

"I am reasserting myself, because the drums are part
of my personality," Starr affirmed. "So it was a
conscious decision that we'd rock a little more on
this album, and I'd be a little louder. And you
mentioned the fills – the fills to me are the
drummer's art. That's where the emotion comes in."

Both with and without the most famous rock band ever,
he has an unerring knack for playing what is exactly
right for the song at hand and for supporting his band
mates, not upstaging them.

"My greatest strength is my timing – I have great
timing," Starr said. "And I always work with the song.
It's not a failing that I feel I have, but it can't be
too tricky for me, otherwise I won't enjoy it. I do
not play jazz . . . .

"I used to go see acts who were so busy entertaining
themselves on stage, I felt left out. And that doesn't
happen when I'm on. I include the audience in
everything we're doing. Because we're just players
making music and we like to play. You need the contact
of the sweat and the pumping of the blood. You need to
feel that."

source:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20030905-9999_1c5ringo.html




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