Yes and yes.
Put on your headphones and listen to this. Ringo may not have been a big pyrotechnical drummer, but he was rock solid. Here’s 7 takes of a rhythm track that everyone will recognize, and he nails every one of them. Unlike the other guys.
OMFG is that George who keeps fucking up the guitar part? And Paul does blorp a couple of notes here and there, too.
How about drummers that the band realized were the weak link and replaced?
The Beatles with Pete Best
KISS with Peter Criss
Bruce Springsteen &The E Street Band with Vinny Lopez
The Clash with “Tory Crimes”
Terry Chimes, AFAIK, quit The Clash every time he left; he was never fired.
And Mick Jones at least was a fan of his playing. Though IMHO Headon was a real upgrade, I don’t know that you can call Chimes a weak link per se.
No, I wouldn’t at all call Terry Chimes a weak link. Topper was invaluable to the Clash, tho, being proficient in a number of styles and instruments.
Oh, so I guess John was too shitty to play what Ringo’s playing, there.
(heh - found my strumming hand [no - not a guitarist] starting to bounce and skip along with RS)
Trying to recall somewhere that Ringo was so despondent with his perception of being, indeed, the weak link in the band, and went around (67? 68?) to each bandmate’s place and laid all the cards out on the table (and yes, despondently) to determine if they still genuinely appreciated his contributions to the band. Apparently all was cool.
Been drumming since the late eighties* and this is the first time I’ve heard about them. Behind the curve, I was.:o
*Then retired Aug/13 and haven’t sat down behind a kit since.
After reviewing this thread, I went back and listened to Paperback Writer and We Can Work It Out, which IMHO are two of the premiere displays as The Beatles musicianship as a band. Ringo’s drums are fairly high up in the mix in both songs, so it’s easy to focus on the drumming. Listen to them and then tell me Ringo was a weak link.
Yeah, it’s probably unfair of me to even introduce VU into the discussion. OTOH, they were certainly influential and Moe was there at every step.
It makes a huge impression on me to see later performances by Lou Reed of his VU songs where a very good drummer (and guitarist and bassist) accompanies him. Makes one wish that VU had had a much better drummer.
I have sometimes wondered what it would have been like to date one of Moe’s children. (She has five, I believe.) In interviews and concerts, she seems like a basic, down-to-earth person. Would you pretty much figure she was your average suburban mom, and then have it dawn on you, “Wait a minute! Your mom is Moe Tucker? THE Moe Tucker?!?”
Oh good, someone else who thinks McCartney is overrated. Apart from being an egotist (and on a par with Lennon there, another Beatle I do not value highly), McCartney always has this tendency to being either very childish or very simplistic, and this showed up in Wings when nobody could persuade him otherwise.
Ringo and George were relatively unobtrusive, if you can be that when you are a megastar, but I prefer them both to the headliners. Ringo was an OK drummer and a good fit for the Beatles; melodic rather than powerful. His life history is also more admirable.
Offhand I can’t think of any band where the drummer was the weak link, given that heavy metal just requires vigorous pounding with little subtlety, and I don’t really notice the rhythm section in any music.
I know people who know and have worked with Moe Tucker; I’m told she’s way cool. Like, sitting-in-the-kitchen-with-a-cup-of-coffee-shooting-the-breeze-for-hours cool.
Heh. I pulled up the band’s video from 1966 and Ringo just sits there…he doesn’t even drum! 
Having said that in jest, I think Ringo was the perfect drummer for The Beatles, not the weakest link at all. (BTW, happy birthday Ringo…peace and love!)
Thanks! That’s exactly the impression that I get.
Interesting. I always thought of Densmore as a hidden gem of The Doors with his often jazzy approach. And Manzarek was brilliant in his ability to turn cheesy sounding Vox Continental organ into something ethereal.
On the other hand, in my opinion Krieger was the Doors’ weakest link. A few nice touches of psychedelia and Spanish guitar, but nothing special as guitar technique is going. Not bad certainly, but far from great.
Back on topic: every post-rock band ever. I’d like the genre much more if there’s no stupid chack-poom drumming over slow-building ambient soundscapes.
Pete Townshend will say in every other documentary about The Who that Keith Moon was a terrible drummer. He likened his style to falling down the steps. Apparently Moon had meter issues when playing live. I guess skin popping horse tranquilizer might have that effect. However, for my money, Moon was the greatest drummer The Who ever had or will ever have. Shucks…I’m going to double down and say he was the greatest rock drummer there was. Astonishingly good with fills and one bizarre bass foot but that is the price you pay for playing like an electric spark.
According to Ginger Baker, all “rock” drummers are crap! 
He of course is a jazz drummer! 
I actually hated Moon’s drumming for the longest time, but have in the last decade or two completely turned around in my opinion, as I was trying to judge him by my personal favorites, which tend to be groove or pocket drummers. Keith was just so chaotic and unpredictable, rarely settling into any sort of groove or playing the same four bar phrase twice (hell, may be even playing the same one bar phrase twice.) And his busy and odd tom triplet fills, the manic kick drum, just nuts.
But it was perfect for The Who. Listening to The Who post-Moon with Kennedy Jones just did not sound like the right band to me. His approach was more traditional, more in the style of drummers I liked, but I hated it for The Who. That manic, unpredictable Keith Moon beat and energy was the life force of the band, in my opinion. (But do nite that I am not a big Who fan, though I do like them.) As someone once here described The Who to me, “while most bands played with each other, The Who played against each other.” Which sounded a bit silly, but contained a lot of truth that helped me understand them better and contextualize Keith’s role in the band. These days, I give him mad props for being a unique drummer with an immediately identifiable style that contributed significantly musically in the band he played with, which is what I want out of a great musician.
Ginger Baker is a jazz drummer. Jazz drummers are immediately identifiable, for me, and I would much rather have one in a rock band than a rock drummer.
Should be Kenney not Kennedy Jones above. Damn autocorrect got to me.