Ringo Starr was a member of the biggest band in Liverpool and in Hamburg — top pay, top of the bill, top of the heap. Why would he leave all that to join a group that was still struggling to make it?
RINGO STARR & HIS ALL-STARR BAND
>> Where: Blaisdell Arena
>> When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday
>> Tickets: $59.50, $89.50, $125 and $175
>> Info: ticketmaster.com or 866-448-7849
“I told them I loved the front line,” said Starr, explaining why he left Rory Storm & the Hurricanes in the summer of 1962 to join a fledgling band called the Beatles.
Countless books, magazine articles and newspaper stories have been written about Starr’s years backing “the front line” of Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison as a Beatle and his decades of success as a solo artist after the Fab Four broke up in 1970.
Starr, 76, will add a career first on Tuesday when he plays Blaisdell Arena with the All-Starr band — his debut concert in Hawaii.
“My dream’s finally coming true,” he said. “I don’t do the bookings, but in the ’80s I spent a lot of time in Maui — we would rent Willie Nelson’s house — but it’s been a while since we’ve been back. I like to say we’re playing in Hawaii so that Todd (Rundgren) can go home for the night.”
Rundgren is a member of the All-Starr Band and has a home on Kauai. Starr, who has been married to American actress-model Barbara Bach since 1981, has homes in Los Angeles, England and Monte Carlo.
Asked whether he planned to do any sightseeing while in the islands, Starr responded with a quip reminiscent of the Beatles’ first film, “A Hard Day’s Night.”
“If I was, I wouldn’t be telling you, would I?” he said, explaining that it’s much easier to go out in public when people don’t know he’s in town.
“When I’m on tour, that’s what we do: We get to the gig, we do it the best we can, we have a lot of fun and then we’re off, either for the day or off to the next gig. I do five gigs a week usually, so there isn’t a lot of time to go visiting. It’s the most difficult time, actually, to go and visit anything because everybody knows you’re there. If I just, like, fly in any Tuesday, it’s easier.”
The other members of the All-Starrs are Steve Lukather (Toto), Gregg Rolie (Santana and Journey), Richard Page (Mr. Mister), Warren Ham (Kansas) and Gregg Bissonette (whose extensive credits stretch from hard rock to mainstream jazz). They’re his favorite version of the All-Starrs since he founded the group in 1989.
“I used to break down the All-Starrs every 18 months and get a new band together, but this band has been together over four years,” Starr said. “We get on really well, we play really well, we support each other very well and if one of us insults the other, it doesn’t last longer than an hour, so it’s a gang of guys on the road who love doing it.”
Concertgoers can expect to hear Starr’s biggest hits as a solo artist — the choices include “It Don’t Come Easy,” “You’re Sixteen” “The No-No Song,” “Photograph” and “Back Off Boogaloo” — as well as some of the songs he sang with the Beatles and some of the hits of the acts represented by the All-Starrs.
“This is why I do it: I love to play,” he said. “I didn’t start out to be, like, big and famous. I wanted to play anywhere. I played in clubs and weddings — whatever — I just wanted to play. And I still get that opportunity. How great is that?”
Borrowing a line from one of Starr’s early hits, life did not come easy for him. He was born Richard Starkey in a working-class district of Liverpool, England, during the first year of World War II; much of the city would be destroyed before the war was over. His parents divorced when he was 4, and he had little contact with his father after that. He was 6 when he contracted peritonitis after what should have been a routine appendectomy; he was hospitalized for a year and fell behind in school. At 13 he contracted tuberculous and missed an additional two years of school recovering in a sanitarium. It was there he discovered he enjoyed playing drums.
Starr’s formal education ended at 15 when he was unable to take the examinations required to continue school. He struggled for several years but began playing professionally at 17. Two years later he was able to quit his job as an apprentice machinist and play music full time with Rory Storm.
It was while he was working with Storm that Richard Starkey became Ringo Starr.
It’s obvious now that he made the right choice in joining the Beatles, regardless of whether Pete Best, the Beatles’ original drummer, was fired for lack of drumming skills or because of jealousies within the group. Best had fans and there were protests at first, but by the end of the year, Starr had won them over. Crowds would call for him to sing, and, starting with the group’s first album, “Introducing the Beatles,” in 1963, almost every Beatles album had a “Ringo song” on it. His tunes included “Boys,” “I Wanna Be Your Man,” “Act Naturally,” “Yellow Submarine” and “With a Little Help From My Friends.”
In response to a “What if?” question, Starr doesn’t think Rory Storm & the Hurricanes would have gone on to bigger and better things.
“Rory was the biggest band in Liverpool, but we didn’t make records as Rory & the Hurricanes. We made a demo once in Hamburg — I haven’t got a copy, I don’t know where it went. That was the only recording we ever did while I was there.”
The Hurricanes recorded two singles and a song for a compilation album after Starr left; none of the recordings charted anywhere. Storm disbanded the group in 1967. He died in 1972.
On the other hand, Starr says that if the Beatles had been able to resolve the personal issues that led to their breakup, the group could have eventually resumed touring on the scale now enjoyed by the Rolling Stones and other superbands.
Another factor that kept them from regrouping years ago was that songs on the albums made after the Beatles quit touring were “too complicated to have the four lads do them on the road,” Starr said. Decades later, with synthesizers, computers and the other technology able to provide backing tracks and studio special effects, “you can do anything, so I think we would have pulled it back together.”
Despite Lennon’s death in 1980 and Harrison’s in 2001, Beatles fans everywhere are still asking, Would Starr and McCartney, ever work together again?
“We have no problem playing together, but as soon as you mention it, they think you’re getting back together. We’re not getting back together. We’re just really good friends. We’re the only ones who know what it was really like, and we share that, but he’s got his gigs he’s doing and I’ve got mine.”