Actors - Ringo Starr

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	Actors - Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey, MBE (born July 7, 1940 in Liverpool, England), known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is a popular British musician, best known as drummer for The Beatles. Ringo is known for his reliable, steady drumming and innovative fills. His everyman personality made him an easy fit with the other Beatles. He was the oldest member of the band, and the last one to join the now familiar Fab Four lineup.

Starr married Maureen Cox in 1965, and they had three children, Zak, Jason, and Lee. The couple divorced in 1975; and in 1981 Starr married actress Barbara Bach, most famous for her role as Major Anya Amasova (female lead and main "Bond Girl") in The Spy Who Loved Me
.

Early years

Starr's parents split up when he was young; and his mother re-married (to Harry Graves). He was raised in the working class Dingle area of Liverpool. He went through two serious illnesses as a child and spent a total of three years in hospital, thereby falling considerably behind in school; after his last visit to the hospital, at age 15, he could barely read and write.

Like the other Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, young Ritchie (as he was known in those days) also eventually became caught up in Liverpool's Skiffle craze. In 1957, he started his own group with Eddie Miles called The Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group; then he joined The Raving Texans in 1959, a quartet that played while Rory Storm sang. During this time, he got the nickname Ringo, because of the rings he wore, and because it sounded "cowboyish" (probably a reference to John Wayne's character in Stagecoach
), and the last name Starr so that his drum solos could be billed as "Starr Time".

Starr first met The Beatles in Hamburg, in October 1960, while he was performing with Rory Storm and The Hurricanes. When The Beatles removed Pete Best as their drummer on August 16, 1962, Starr was their choice to replace him.

Although Storm was magnanimous about losing Starr, Best fans were upset, holding vigils outside Best's house and fighting at the Cavern Club, shouting "Pete Best forever! Ringo never!"

Role in The Beatles

Starr's drumming style played a pivotal role in the music played and recorded by The Beatles. He filled a role that he was hired for in 1962, then went on to establish a new approach to rhythm in popular music that continues to grow in its significance and influence with every decade since the Beatles recorded their music. Starr is left-handed yet plays a right-handed kit; his tendency to lead with his left hand contributes to his distinctive drumming style.

"Before Ringo, drum stars were measured by their soloing ability and virtuosity," said drummer Steve Smith. "Ringo's popularity brought forth a new paradigm in how the public saw drummers. We started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect. One of Ringo's great qualities was that he composed unique, stylistic drum parts for The Beatles songs. His parts are so signature to the songs that you can listen to a Ringo drum part without the rest of the music and still identify the song."

Many drummers list Starr as a including Max Weinberg of The E Street Band, Liberty DeVitto of Billy Joel's band, Phil Collins, and others. According to Collins, Starr is "vastly underrated. The drum fills on the song 'A Day in the Life' are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, 'I want it like that.' They wouldn't know what to do." In his extensive survey of The Beatles' recording sessions, Mark Lewisohn confirmed that Starr was both proficient and remarkably reliable and consistent. According to Lewisohn there were less than a dozen occasions in The Beatles' eight-year recording career where session 'breakdowns' were caused by Starr making a mistake, while the vast majority of takes were stopped due to mistakes by the other three members. Starr has commented that the most difficult drumming he has ever performed was on The Beatles song "Rain". Starr is also notable for having advanced various modern drumming techniques (for playing and recording) such as the matched grip, placing the drums on high risers for visibility as part of the band, tuning the drums lower, using muffling devices on tonal rings, along with his general contributions to The Beatles as a whole.

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Actors - Ringo Starr

Early years

Role in The Beatles

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