What else is there to say about the famous rooftop concert? Just this: every time you watch it, you pick up something new. And that something new usually can be summed up thusly: good GOD what a band.
Paul McCartney's critical reputation has been on the upswing since before this century started, so it's sometimes surprising to remember just how much the critics savaged him and his music in the 1970s. He was often lumped into with other saccharine popsters of the day, writing and singing empty confectionaries, just chasing chart success. And to be fair, that's not entirely inaccurate. Except you know which of his peers up there at #1 could sing balls to the wall rock and roll like he so casually does at about 0:29 there? None of them. (Well...Rod the Mod. But he doesn't count.)
John Lennon, of course, is at his coolest here—and when he was cool, there was absolutely no one cooler—obviously emotionally invested, and just gliding through the proceedings with that amazing voice, playing some sweet guitar, and occasionally (such as at 1:54) unleashing that zillion watt smile of his. Obviously, he was one of the great rock and roll screamers of all time, but here he goes the smooth route, gliding above everything casually, knowing that's the most musically effective way to provide counterpoint to Paul's grit.
Even the famously unhappy by this point George Harrison mainly looks pleased, and outright happy a bunch of places—usually but not always when smiling at Ringo, and who can really blame him?—all while playing that frankly weird-ass guitar part that no one else would have come up with and with fits absolutely perfectly.
Speaking of, notice the way Ringo Starr is pounding those toms. There's a very clear difference in timbre between drums hit hard and drums not hit hard, and Ringo is bashing those poor things, getting the best possible tones out of them. And check out that brief, tight and not terribly characteristic fill at 1:28, with its sweet syncopated hi-hat bark. But most of all, listen to the way he brings them back in after the breakdown, around 1:17, as George smiles and Paul hits that perfect high note. They're on a damn rooftop, having not played live in years, they're freezing--several of them wearing their wives' coats in an attempt to keep warm—and them come back in at precisely the right millisecond. If the top studio musicians in New York or Los Angeles stumbled upon these guys playing in some dingy club and heard that bit, they would have turned to each other in shock. "Did you just hear that?" "Of course I did. Good god, who are these guys?"
In a business which has never suffered a shortage of jackasses, there are few more notable than Robbie Robertson, even when accounting for his tremendous (if tremendously overstated) talented.
But this is pretty damn awesome. The transition from the Kingdom of Bahrain to Nepal is spine-tingling. And getting Ringo was a bit of musical genius.
It's always so pleasant—if (or perhaps because it's?) rare—to see footage of George Harrison openly happy. But it's not surprising that so much of that rare footage tends to happen when he's playing with one of his idols.
Such as this great clip of George—along with Ringo, Eric Clapton, Dave Edmunds, a pair of Stray Cats, a David Bowie lead guitarist and Roseanne Cash—harmonizing with Carl Perkins on "It's All Right, Mama" before playing a remarkable version of the original Scotty Moore guitar solo. Later, Clapton plays one of his more country solos ever, which is great, of course.
But the star is George. I mean, sure, the star is Perkins. But George's harmony vocals are fantastic throughout, and he takes over for "Glad All Over," easing the older master into the song, seldom taking his eyes off his hero, and seldom not grinning.
So how on earth did I miss this? It is awesome and very nearly rock and roll happiness personified:
I am incapable of hearing that song without thinking about how staggeringly homoerotic it is and how delightful it is that it literally doesn't seem to have ever occurred to the lads, and once it finally did, in the 00s, Ringo was all, "the hell with it—I'm Ringo: I do what I want."
To which I can only say: damn skippy. Rock on, Ringo.
Nearly 75 years old. And still the coolest man in rock-n-roll. Bar none.
"I love it. It's always a thrill for me when I play with Paul. It's like good friends, people who know each other and have been through a lot together. And you know, the bass and the drummer usually are friends."
Those were some of his remarks following his much-deserved solo induction into the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame (televised last weekend).
And in typical Ringo fashion, his comments are equal parts incredibly poignant and so crazily understated. His acknowledgement of he and Paul having been through it all together is just so lovely in its simplicity, the only two remaining people on this earth who could have possibly known what it was like to be in The Beatles, the only band of its kind and import that's ever existed. And then he has to throw in the whole "the bass and the drummer usually are friends." Because, you know, ho hum. That's all we are. Just the bassist and the drummer in a little band. Hangin' out. Only Ringo could make a lifelong friendship with a fellow freaking Beatle sound as simple as two close friends in an after-work garage band.
And in terms of his, "It's always a thrill for me when I play with Paul?" I cannot speak on behalf of Sir Macca, of course, but my guess is his comment would be something like, "Right back atcha, mate."
After all, that's kinda what this picture right here is saying, all by itself.
When it comes to shows I passed on, one of my great regrets is not going to see The Band when they reunited sans Robbie Robertson. At the time I'd bought into the critical consensus as Robertson being the band's Svengali. Oh foolish foolish youth.
I also passed on Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Bands which, again, in retrospect, seems so incredibly stupid. I mean, look at this line-up:
Ringo Starr
Joe Walsh
Nils Lofgren
Dr. John
Billy Preston
Rick Danko
Levon Helm
Clarence Clemons
Oh and while we're at it, let's toss in some dude named Garth Hudson now and then. Why not, right? What can it hurt?
Who in the hell in their right mind would pass up a band like that? I mean, who passes up a chance to see Levon Helm and Rick Danko together, in almost any venue or configuration? (Garth only joined them for a few shows on this tour.) An idiot, that's who.
Ringo Starr once said he was the greatest rock and roll drummer in the world. There are two ways for rock fans and/or musicians to react to this statement.
One is to laugh/scoff/mock the absurdity of such an assertion. The other is to think about it for a moment or two and then nod and more or less agree. Those who fall into the second category are people like Tony Williams and Steve Gadd, serious contenders for the title of Greatest Drummer Ever, or Jim Keltner and Max Weinberg. Phil Collins and Steve Smith and Dave Grohl. John Lennon and Paul McCartney and George Harrison. In other words, people who know what they're talking about. Into the first category goes, well, people who don't so much know what they're talking about. (Note: very often they're the ones who think they know what they're talking about. Very, very often they themselves are drummers, but have probably been playing less than a half dozen years, have been in only one or two bands or none and are big fans of playing in compound time. Chances are they'll learn eventually. Chances also are that in the meantime they'll worship Neil Peart.)
Check out the isolated drum track to "Come Together":
Pretty elementary, right? Two quick crash cymbal hits, four on the hi-hat and then an ascending roll on the toms and do it again. The verses are even more basic, just bass and toms. It's the kind of thing a drummer who's been playing for a year—or maybe even a few months—can do.
Except. As was once said of Miles Davis on Kind of Blue: there were literally dozens of other musicians who could've played everything he played on that album, no problem...but not one other person in the entire world who could've written it.
You know who wrote a drum part like "Come Together" before Ringo?
No one.
No one.
No. One.
There was no drum part like this.
No one else thought outside the box the way he did, in an almost orchestral manner. Not his friends, fellow rock superstars Charlie Watts or Keith Moon, nor monster technicians Ginger Baker or John Bonham. Maybe it's because, for all the jokes about drummers in general and Ringo in particular (especially his voice), he was a hell of a musician. His timing, his feel, his personality, his understanding of what a song needed and his willingness to play just that, no matter how monotonous for the drummer it may have been, all added up to make him the one and only guy who could have been the drummer for the Beatles.
Dave Grohl, a guy who knows just about all there is to know about amazing rock drumming, had a comment that was right on the money: "No one needs to defend Ringo Starr—he's fucking Ringo Starr. He was in the Beatles. Without him the Beatles wouldn't have sounded like the Beatles. And if the Beatles didn't sound like the Beatles, there would be no Beatles."
Listen to the track. Even with only the smallest hint of the other instruments and the vocals, it sounds just like the Beatles. Because it is.
Way leads to way, as it's wont to, and trying to find Paul McCartney inducting James Taylor into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame leads, inexorably, to watching the final rooftop concert by the Beatles yet again.
I've always loved the look on John Lennon's face of slight embarrassment mixed with his trademark mischievousness when he forgets the words and just starts singing gobbledygook—it's at the 2:04 mark.
"This type of music's all right in its place."
I love that Ringo, behind him, is laughing. But what's even better is the look Paul and John share right after as they wordlessly agree to get back on track together. And that smile on John's face, one of quietly confident pleasure, of absolutely secure trust in his musical partner, proves—as if we didn't already have more than enough proof—that John was right on target when he later said that no matter how bad things got between them, whenever they started playing music, it was always good.
But it's the very brief look John and George share shortly afterwards, during the following chorus, the small nod George gives just before the camera cuts away, that drives home that before the brilliant songwriting, before the groundbreaking studio work, before the unprecedented fame and fortune, they were very simply the finest rock and roll band ever.
Okay. So everyone knows that Ringo Starr is the most underrated drummer ever.
All hail Caestarr!
Actually, not everyone knows that. But they should. In reality, Ringo is, bizarrely, the butt of many jokes. Folks will refer to the Beatles as Two Geniuses, a Really Talented Role Player…and the Luckiest Man in History.
Which is absurd. For one thing, the Beatles might never have made it in the United States in the first place if it weren’t for Ringo; the funny-lookin’ dude with the big nose and the goofy name got a seriously disproportionate amount of the press in the early days—far more than the conventionally handsome singers. He was an easy hook for the press to go with. And keep in mind that American success was far from a given—no other British rock act had ever really made it big here before.
Then there’s the chemistry factor. When you’ve got just four guys, if any one of them isn’t quite clicking for whatever reason, even if it’s just that his sense of humor is off, it can destroy a band, or at the very least keep it from reaching its full potential. Which isn’t to say that a band has to be best friends, of course—Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey famously feuded for years, even coming to blows onstage. In fact, nobody in the Who really liked anyone else in the Who. Which is fine. That worked for them, that was their successful chemistry. Love may be all the Beatles needed, but clearly hatred worked better for the Who. And the Who’s not the only band with those kinds of anger management issues, not by a long shot. Different strokes and all that.
So Ringo’s non-musical contributions shouldn’t be overlooked. The interaction of those four personalities was a major key to the band’s success. But let’s focus on Ringo’s actual musicality.
I recall reading a Modern Drummer interview with him when I was about 13, where the pull quote was something like, “It took me years to accept the fact that I was the greatest rock drummer in the world.” And I remember thinking how absurd that was, and believing that, for pete’s sake, I was a better drummer than Ringo.
"We're gonna play soon, right, lads...?"
Which was half-right. I probably was able to play faster and more cleanly and more complicated time signatures. But to think for a moment that all that meant I was a better drummer is a sign, as if any were needed, of just how young and stupid I was. (Some things never change. Well, I’m no longer young.)
It’s my impression that most people think Ringo’s a great drummer, because he was the drummer in the Beatles, and therefore he must be a great drummer. Which seems like flawed logic, although it’s actually rock solid (so to speak).
Then there are the people who love music and are quite knowledgeable about it. This is the group of folks most likely to think Ringo sucks and to make disparaging comments about him. Another common comment from the semi-educated is “Ringo was the second-best drummer in the Beatles.” A little knowledge is a mighty dangerous thing. Paul McCartney is a brilliant musician and he’s recorded some really fine performances on drums over the years. But there’s a big difference between doing that and being a drummer. As master drummer Rick Marotta—who recorded with Paul—once said, Paul’s never played an entire gig as a drummer, and until that happens, he’s a musician who sometimes plays drums, not a drummer.
Phil Collins, now obviously first thought of as a pop singer, was one of the truly great rock drummers of the 70s, both with prog-rockers Genesis, and jazz fusion band Brand X, as well as for art rockers such as Brian Eno. He said, “Ringo 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.' He wouldn't know what to do.”
Master drummer Kenny Aronoff once said, “I consider him one of the greatest innovators of rock drumming and believe that he has been one of the greatest influences on rock drumming today... Ringo has influenced drummers more than they will ever realize or admit. Ringo laid down the fundamental rock beat that drummers are playing today and they probably don't even realize it.”
And then there's Dave Grohl, the greatest drummer of his generation, who said, “No one needs to defend Ringo Starr—he's fucking Ringo Starr. He was in the Beatles. Without him the Beatles wouldn't have sounded like the Beatles. And if the Beatles didn't sound like the Beatles, there would be no Beatles.”
"I can't hear a damn thing anyone's singing!"
Which brings us to the one group of people who virtually always give Ringo his props: drummers. Because drummers know just how damn hard it is to get exactly the right feel for any given song. They know how easy it is to play one of the same old patterns for a song, patterns which always work just fine, and how tough it can be to come up with something new, that’s not just new but also just right. They know how hard it is to practice restraint and not overplay.
And all that stuff is stuff at which Ringo excelled.
An example: the odd pattern he plays at the very beginning (and many other places in the song) of “Come Together.” There’s nothing particularly difficult about it. And yet nothing like it was ever put on record before. It’s interesting and strange and tasteful and fits beautifully—a rare and magical combination.
Another example: the odd and restrained pattern he plays on “In My Life,” where he doesn’t play quarter-notes or eighth-notes on the hi-hat, as would every other drummer in the world. Instead he merely plays whole notes, hitting the hi-hat once per measure, just before the 4. So unusual, so tasteful, so perfect. Not difficult, just rare beyond words, and yet absolutely ideal for the song.
“Rain,” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Ticket to Ride,” “She Said She Said,” “Get Back,” “Two of Us”—these songs have nothing in common save exceptional Ringo performances, imaginatively conceived and absolutely flawlessly executed.
There are dozens, nay, scores of other examples, but just listen to one of the most-neglected masterpieces in the Fab Four’s canon, “Long Tall Sally.”
Ringo rocks so hard and so tight, it’s the drumming equivalent of a diamond’s atomic structure. Getting that half-straight/half-swing feel is an almost-forgotten art, and even back then it was incredibly hard to nail as immaculately as he did during this two minutes and three seconds (two minutes and three seconds!) of perfection. Possibly Paul McCartney’s greatest rock performance as a vocalist—if it weren’t for “Twist and Shout,” it might just be the greatest vocal performance on any Beatles recording—it’s not difficult to believe that Macca was spurred to such stratospheric heights by Ringo’s asskicking. This is one of those songs that is undeniable proof of their greatness—to cover a great song done extremely well by Elvis and brilliantly by Little Richard and somehow manage to top them both is practically inconceivable. And yet there ‘tis. An unsurpassed performance by the greatest cover band in history. The fact that the cover band was also the greatest collection of writers in rock history is merely proof that the Flying Spaghetti Monsters exists and that He loves us. Oh, and did I mention that was the first take? And that they didn't even bother with a second because how do you improve upon perfection?
I said up above that there was one group of people, drummers, who always gave Ringo his due. Actually, there was one other group. It was called the Beatles.
world's greatest garage band...even on a roof
It’s no coincidence that after the break-up John, Paul and George all continued to work with Ringo on a regular basis. Even after all three of them had worked with other drummers, including magnificent drummers like Jim Keltner and Jim Gordon and the incomparable Steve Gadd—easily a contender for the shortest of short lists of Most Versatile and Just Plain Best Drummers Ever—they all kept going back to Ringo. These are guys who, it’s safe to say, knew something about creating great music, guys who knew how vital a drummer is to great music, guys who could not only afford but also had easy access to absolutely any drummer on the entire planet. And yet they kept going back to Ringo again and again and again. As George Harrsion said, "Ringo's got the best back beat I've ever heard and he can play great 24-hours a day."
Maybe, just maybe, those guys were onto something. The Beatles was one seriously exclusive club. They didn’t let just anyone in—in fact, obviously, they let almost no one in. But they not only let Ringo in, they booted a long-time member to make room.
Ringo got in the old-fashioned way: he earned it, by being one of the greatest rock and roll drummers ever.
