It Don’t Come Easy: Ringo Starr’s Ringo at 50
Looking back on the Beatles drummer’s star-studded third solo LP
On November 2nd, Apple Records released the new-old Beatles song “Now And Then,” which combines an unreleased John Lennon demo from 1978 with later contributions from then-surviving members Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. (Read more about it in this Gillian Gaar piece.)
That same day, Starr’s third solo album turned 50. What should have been a celebration of his finest work instead became a celebration of The Beatles. Considering that Starr plays on the track, which was produced by Giles Martin, and appears in the bizarre Peter Jackson-directed video, it’s clear that he was on board, but it still seems sad that it overshadowed such a significant anniversary. In a way, his career was ever thus, but the platinum-selling Ringo took him as close to solo superstardom as he would get.
Of the Fab Four, Sir Ringo Starr (née Richard Starkey) was rarely considered the virtuoso of the group. If anything, though, the band was at their most ingenious when they joined together, combining their varied styles and interests into one world-beating whole. That isn’t to knock the solo albums, like 1973’s Ringo; it’s just that it’s hard for any one individual member to measure up to The Beatles at their most brilliant.
Consummate entertainer that he is, Starr doesn’t try to out-Beatle the Beatles on this more pop-oriented follow-up to 1970 predecessors Sentimental Journey and Beaucoups of Blues, on which he paid tribute to his formative influences to little critical or commercial success. Then again, those were Beatles-free affairs, not counting appearances from longtime associates, like producer George Martin (Giles’s father), bass player and visual artist Klaus Voormann and keyboard player and backup singer Billy Preston, who frequently steals the spotlight from the Beatles in Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary series Get Back.
On Ringo, released three years after their acrimonious split, he combines talents with all three former members to have a good time–and to show you one, too. It’s a humble, if eminently worthy goal, and he succeeds spectacularly. If he wrote only one song on his own, he brought out the most down-to-earth qualities in his writers and co-writers alike, even producing a few classic tracks along the way.
A top 10 hit in the US and the UK, Ringo begins with John Lennon’s “I’m the Greatest,” which isn’t about being great, but about being told you’re great. It was also a riff on Muhammad Ali’s nickname “The Greatest” (The Beatles had met the champ in 1964). Key line: “All I wanna do / Is boogaloo,” i.e. Ringo, in this context, isn’t trying to be the best musician, but the best party host. Further, he’s confirming that being part of “the greatest show on earth”–a reference to the Beatles–hasn’t gone to his head. He’s still Ringo.
To judge by the 83-year-old Starr’s X/Twitter feed, this isn’t an act. He loves emojis as much as the average tween, and his catchphrase is “peace and love.” He’s often pictured giving the peace sign–which, ironically, has an entirely different meaning in his native UK, but Starr has lived in the States, on a part-time basis, for years. It might seem corny or clichéd, but I believe it’s sincere, and not a pose.
For my money, the highlights are hit singles “Photograph,” “You’re Sixteen (You’re Beautiful and You’re Mine), and “It Don’t Come Easy,” all of which achieved top 10 status in the US. “Photograph” and “You’re Sixteen” even made it to #1. The bouncy, Starr-Vini Poncia co-write “Oh My My,” another single, would also prove commercially successful, but it isn’t in the same class. Though there aren’t any filler tracks, they aren’t all created equal either, like the other Starr-Poncia co-write “Devil Woman,” which includes the lines, “I wanna beat you up then I wanna be kind / And one of these days I’m gonna make you mine.”
“Photograph” combines a melancholy Harrison lyric with a surprisingly triumphant melody, slotting it between The Kinks’ 1968 “Picture Book” and A Flock of Seagulls’ 1983 “Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You).” At the time, Ringo was married to Maureen Cox, from whom he would split two years later. Then, in 1981, he married Bond Girl Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me). Forty-two years later, they’re still together. As he sings, “I want you here to have and hold as the years go by / And we grow old and gray.” Starr may be among the world’s most youthful-looking octogenarians, but he got his wish.
Non-album track “It Don’t Come Easy,” another Harrison co-write, is a heavier song in most every respect. Though the 1971 single wasn’t originally part of the album–it didn’t appear as a bonus track until 1991–it makes Ringo a stronger piece of work. It’s similar to the addition of Thin Lizzy’s hit single “Whiskey in the Jar” to post-1973 editions of Vagabonds of the Western World, elevating a fine album to classic status.
VIDEO: Ringo Starr “It Don’t Come Easy”
Though Lennon, especially in tandem with Yoko Ono, was the “Give Peace a Chance” Beatle, Starr (via Harrison) was on the same wavelength, singing, “Please, remember peace is how we make it / Here within your reach if you’re big enough to take it.” It’s a sentiment that aligns with the hopeful lyrics throughout Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions—especially “Higher Ground”–another great album from 1973.
Starr’s other #1 hit, “You’re Sixteen,” was written by the Sherman Brothers, and first recorded by rockabilly artist Rocky Burnette in 1960. The notion might seem problematic now, but it generated little controversy at the time, not least because it was a cover–in the tradition of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen”–and because Starr, then 32, had a rather different profile than Berry. It was just a song, and it’s among the album’s best, not least because Harry Nilsson provides the harmony vocals. The two men often worked together on each other’s projects, both musical and cinematic, like 1974’s ill-fated Son of Dracula. Just a year before, however, Ringo had played drums, as Richie Snare, on Nilsson’s Son of Schmilsson.
In the words of Nilsson biographer Alyn Shipton (Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter), “Of all the many-layered vocal backing tracks on Nilsson’s own albums, none came close to the perfection of this number.” Nilsson would also have a say in the Sgt. Pepper’s-inspired cover art when he suggested that artist Tim Bruckner add the inscription “Duit on Mon Dei” to the top of the piece. This Latin-like phrase, pronounced “Do it on Monday,” was a play on the British monarchical motto “Dieu et mon droit,” i.e. “God and my right.” Nilsson was so fond of the pun that he titled his 11th studio album Duit on Mon Dei.
Of the non-singles, my favorite is the twangy, Harrison-penned hoedown “Sunshine Life for Me (Sail Away Raymond),” which features drummer Levon Helm, guitarist Robbie Robertson, bass player Rick Danko, and keyboard player Garth Hudson of the Band along with banjo and fiddle player David Bromberg (Raymond was the name of the attorney who represented Lennon, Harrison, Starr, and Apple Corps in the legal action McCartney initiated against them in 1971). Starr would return the favor when he appeared in the Band’s landmark Martin Scorsese-directed concert film, The Last Waltz, in 1976.
Another highlight, the Starr original “Step Lightly,” continues the good-time country vibe with McCartney on piano, synthesizer, “kazoo” vocal solo, and backing vocals with Linda McCartney. A portion of the percussion comes from Starr, an avid dancer in his Liverpool days, tap-dancing to the rhythm. Yet another highlight is Randy Newman’s “Have You Seen My Baby,” a rollicking boogie-woogie number that calls on buzzing guitar from Marc Bolan and barrel house piano from James Booker, the “Black Liberace” himself.
Just a year before, Starr–who had a busy sideline as an actor in the 1970s–had directed Born to Boogie, a concert film about Bolan co-starring his friend Elton John (Bolan credited Starr with the black-and-white cover image adorning T. Rex’s 1972 album, The Slider). It’s a good thing he and Elton were friends, since the only thing preventing Ringo from reaching the #1 spot in the US was…Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The original version of the album ends with the Mal Evans and Harrison co-write “You and Me (Babe),” on which Starr, in Billy Shears mode, cites producer Richard Perry, who worked frequently with Nilsson, and several contributing musicians, a move that recalls Nilsson, as himself, reading the end credits in Otto Preminger’s 1968 counter-cultural comedy Skidoo! In its playful, Monty Python-like tone, it also recalls Starr’s narration for Nilsson’s 1971 animated adventure feature (with Fred Wolf), The Point!, which ends with, “That’s the end of the story, and it’s also the end of the album! So, thank you… and good night!,” while “You and Me (Babe)” ends with, “So it’s a big good night from your friends and mine, Ringo Starr.”
Starr’s friendship with Nilsson would continue until the end of Harry’s life in 1994. When I interviewed John Scheinfeld in 2006 about his documentary, Who Is Harry Nilsson (and Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?, I asked if any speakers turned him down, since most everyone who ever collaborated with Nilsson, including Perry and Yoko, appears in the film. Only Starr declined, explaining that the subject made him too emotional. Though he had gotten sober in the 1980s, Nilsson never did. Nonetheless, Starr said the director could use anything from his archives, and Scheinfeld found them invaluable.
Other personnel featured on Ringo include guitarist Steve Cropper, pianists Nicky Hopkins and Gary Wright, drummer Jim Keltner, sax player Bobby Keys, arranger Jack Nitzsche, and singers Martha Reeves and Merry Clayton.
Starr’s follow-up, Goodnight Vienna, another top 10 hit in the U.S., would follow a year later. It too was a star-studded affair, but with fewer standout tracks, other than Harrison co-write “Back Off Boogaloo,” a 1971 single that had provided his biggest UK hit. Though Lennon returned, along with his “Lost Weekend” associate, May Pang, the rest of the Fabs wouldn’t reunite with Starr until 1976’s Ringo’s Rotogravure, which marked the beginning of a commercial decline from which he wouldn’t completely recover.
With “Now And Then,” though, the final, previously unreleased song stitched together from several eras and sources, after “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” The Beatles are back on the charts again. In addition to the double A-side single with 1962’s “Love Me Do,” the song appears on the expanded re-issue of the 1973 compilation 1967-1970, which Apple will be releasing along with 1962-1966 on November 10th.
For what it’s worth, Harrison rejected “Now And Then” when the three surviving members first attempted to reconstruct it in 1995, but if it makes fans happy, and if Starr and McCartney had fun revisiting their past, I can’t begrudge the excitement it’s generated for the band and their catalog. Given the choice, though, I would rather listen to the peak-era solo albums, like Ringo, than any of this new-old material.
In 1970, music journalist Paul Moody proclaimed Ringo Starr “the rootsiest and least affected of the Fab Four.”
Though there’s no doubt he could not have constructed his third album without “a little help from his friends,” it was true then, it’s true now, and those qualities are in fabulous effect throughout Ringo.
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- It Don’t Come Easy: Ringo Starr’s Ringo at 50 - November 8, 2023
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