I have a strange whole bunch of love this man. I don't know why, maybe it's cos everyone's mean about him. And he's so charmingly ugly. And I like his drumming.

NOT CRAP

What Ringo played on "Tomorrow Never Knows" is more incredible than anything Keith Moon played in his entire life.

NC

My ex used to think that Ringo was the best looking Beatle.

I don't know what that might say about me.

kerble wrote:

placeholder wrote:I know I've said this before, but you can rearrange the letters in his name to spell "o-ring".

"o-ring arrts"

o-ring rats, r.

Hey Faiz, now do one for Barry Womb!
(work "bomb" into it)

-A

madmanmunt wrote:My ex used to think that Ringo was the best looking Beatle.

I don't know what that might say about me.

That you dated Marge Simpson?

-A

At the moment I am reading two Beatles' books. In one bathroom is the already mentioned 'Beatlesongs' book which goes song by song, record by record and gives factual and aural history for each track from interviews and published information sources. That is a great read... you can open it up on any page and just start reading from there....

At the same time in the other bathroom is Geoff Emerick's newish tell all 'Here, 'There, and Everywhere' about his time engineering their records. His take is very interesting because he was that fly on the wall from the very beginning (as a tape op) until very close to the end. He characterizes Ringo as a very regular Joe... mostly reading comic books, drinking tea, and playing chess when not doing a take... not very involved beyond playing what he was asked to play. While playing he was often lead by Paul who from what Emerick says a better drummer than Ringo, a better guitarist than Harrison (Emerick seems to really dislike Harrison), and a better arranger than them all. I believe Paul did play a few sessions of drums as well (Come Together, etc) as many of the guitar solo type parts.

I hate to hear people dissing McCartney. I know he comes off as very full of himself and has put out some limp post Beatles stuff (as well as some GREAT post Beatles stuff... 'McCartney', 'Ram') but his writing and bass playing are some of my most favorite parts of the Beatles.

Ringo had a unique style of drumming mostly because he was a lefty playing a righty kit... so he often lead with the 'wrong' hand when doing fills... that is what Rain is such a good take... totally not what another drummer would do.

Mayfair wrote:I believe Paul did play a few sessions of drums as well (Come Together, etc) as many of the guitar solo type parts.

Paul McCartney played the (really good) guitar solo on "Taxman."

He later said he added those faux-Indian touches to that solo because George loved Indian music and "Taxman" was his song. That was a nice bandmate thing to do.

Anyway- other than Taxman and 1/3 of the solo duels on "The End"- what other "guitar solo type parts" did Paul play on Beatles records?

Angus Jung wrote:Anyway- other than Taxman and 1/3 of the solo duels on "The End"- what other "guitar solo type parts" did Paul play on Beatles records?

He played a surprising amount of guitar. You should check out a book by a guy called Hamlyn - The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions.
It note-by-note, every song. It might sound insufferable, but you'll never listen to some songs the same way again. I still pan things at times just to show a friend how one track did triple duty.
Taxman, in fact, is one of those tracks.

Anyway, it will tell you who played what and when. There are a few holes, but not many.

Back on topic, I held Ringo in much higher regard as a contributor after reading it. The other three guys did more, but it's not like Ringo was just sitting there thinking about how luck he was. We've been led to believe that somewhat, and Ringo, to his credit, has always just laughed it off. He may be the cheesiest Beatle in a lot of ways, but he sure is humble.

-A

sorry, but i think ringo brought virtually zero to the beatles.
the songs paul plays drums on sound at least as good.
the songs ringo wrote were wack.
the drum solo on "the end" sucks.
i'm curious what things would've been like with pete best.
i think nick mason has slightly more musical personality and that's saying something.

A couple of great stories from Patton Oswalt on another forum made me search out this thread and cast my vote for NC.

You might have anticipated my vote from my screen name...

patton wrote:When people asked Ringo, "What do you say to people who say you're not a good drummer?", he always replied, "I tell them I was the drummer in The Beatles."

Also, I don't know if you guys have heard that awesome George Martin Beatles mash-up CD, but, apparently, when Martin was isolating each track and element, he spent a few hours listening to Ringo's drumming. And then he called Ringo up, and said, "Richard, I was just listening to all your drum tracks, and...they're really good." And Ringo said, quietly, "Yeah, I know."

On days when I go into the studio to play on someone else's record, and I try to play with as much swing, conciseness and humor as Ringo, they never say "Wow, could you play, like, more fills and stuff? Do you have a second bass drum you could play?"

They generally say "How should we make out this check? Can you be here tomorrow?"