Ringo Starr

[Song Snippet]: Boys, by Luther Dixon and Wes Farrell, as sung by the Beatles I been told when a boy kiss a girl He takes a trip around the world Hey, hey, (bop shoo wa 'n' bop bop shoo wa) Hey, hey, (bop shoo wa 'n' bop bop shoo wa) Hey, hey, (bop shoo wa 'n' bop shoo wa) Yeah, she say you do. (bop shoo wa) My girl says when I kiss her lips Gets the thrill through her fingertips. (whoa ho!) Hey, hey, (bop shoo wa 'n' bop bop shoo wa) Hey, hey, (bop shoo wa 'n' bop bop shoo wa) Hey, hey, (bop shoo wa 'n' bop bop shoo wa) Yeah, she say you do. (bop shoo wa) Well, I talk about boys, (yeah, yeah, boys) Don't you know I mean boys? (yeah, yeah, boys) Well, i talk about boys now, (yeah, yeah, boys) Ah, boys… --------- [Interview]: John Babcock with Al Wiman and Roger Christian of radio station KWFB, Hollywood, CA The song is called 'boys'. The boy singing is called Ringo. He's called Ringo because of his passion for wearing lots of rings. Ringo is the most recent addition to the group and he's also the oldest member. Ringo’s friends call him Richie, a name he picked up in Dingle, one of the toughest areas of Liverpool. Often compared to New York's storied "Hell's Kitchen", the cobble streets and ancient buildings which surrounded his terraced home didn't hide the bomb craters which were left there in 1940, the year of Ringo’s birth. Richie went to St. Silas school in Dingle but dropped out at the age of six because of appendicitis. He had complications which resulted in hospitalization for a year. Recovering, he went back and started all over again. But at the age of thirteen, a cold got away from him and he developed pleurisy while on a trip to London. Rushed back to his Liverpool home, he spent another year in hospital. That ended schooling and Ringo went to work in an engineering company. In 1959, around Christmas time, Ringo got his first drum kit. He was eighteen at the time Ringo, the smallest member of the group, standing five feet eight inches tall, joined John, Paul, and George in the predawn era of Beatlemania, complete with beard. The beard was shaven, his sideburns saved. And the transformation began. Rule number one, forget the haircuts. And this he did. In fact, so successfully that some observers began to believe that his brown-haired locks were longer than those of George. "No, George's is longer than mine. Yeah, mine's a scruffy mess." Although Ringo has been involved in The Beatle mad movement for over a year, he's still amazed at the impact the group has made. In Ringo’s words, "None of us have quite grasped what it's all about yet. It's washing over our heads like some huge tidal wave. But we're young and youth is on our side. And it's youth that matters right now. I don't care about politics or anything. Just people. And the people certainly seems to care about The Beatles." As Ringo puts it, "We're international figures. Everyone wants to investigate us and get inside us and try to understand what makes a Beatle tick They sent big writers down to talk to us. Writers who say they want to talk to us about our sociological significance. In Birmingham, there were dozens of policemen controlling screaming fans at the studio doors while we rehearsed a television program." "Well," Ringo says, "If they didn't scream, I guess we wouldn't be where we are today. But don't ask me to explain it." For Ringo is not one for explanation, or for that matter talking either. You see, Ringo is the quiet one. He sits at his drums like some Buddhist idol and wears a worried frown more often than a smile. Once in a while, he lets a smile shatter his melancholy saying, "I'm not really miserable. It's just me face." Ringo considers his initiation into the group as the greatest single event of his life. To him, the taste of success means that his mother doesn't have to work anymore. He takes great pleasure in providing those things for his mother which increase her happiness Beatle manager Brian Epstein considers Ringo a tremendous blossoming talent. And goes a step further to say, " I think he will prove to have great acting ability, probably the greatest of the four. "Ringo sometimes refers to himself as the odd-ball Beatle, perhaps because of the fact that fate dubbed him with the distinction of being the ingredient which completed the quartet. When asked how he feels with the label of the “different” member of the group, his dry sense of humor bubbled in this reply, "Well, I, I've, you know, I've always been a drummer and I'm, I've always sat at the back so I enjoy it at the back. When they start throwing things it's a good place to be." Although he likes to sing, he prefers to please his fans by playing his drums and leaving the vocal work to the other three members of the group. When asked if he would like to take the spotlight to sing more often, he modestly replied, "Uh, no I think when we do a show one of them's enough for me. And it's more fun for the kids if three of them are singing at once than just me." "It isn't the screaming fans or the things they throw that affect me. That's normal. You get used to it. I love 'em and it's great to know they love you. It's a feeling that I might let them down." The feelings of Ringo Starr Well, Ringo’s worries in this department are completely unfounded because his fan mail often numbers the greatest. But all the fan mail and adulation heaped upon Ringo hasn't changed his attitude at all. He shares the same likes and dislikes of his fellow Beatles. As Ringo would put it, "I'm not interested in living it up. All the money's invested. I don't even know how much it is. I don't take out very much, just for clothes and a few cigarettes. When it ends, "Well", Ringo says, "I've been skinned before. But I’d like to have enough to do something. Well, something with me hands. I've always loved basket work or pottery, shaping something, making something, being able to say I did that." Right now, Ringo, along with the rest of the Beatles, is making something: musical history