In another thread, jackelope told the following story:
I’ve often heard that Ringo’s drumming skills have been very underrated, but I was wondering if any drumming Dopers could mention what particular Beatles tunes (or sections of tunes) illustrate innovative drumming of its time.
Well, I’m surprised because I’m old enough to remember the Beatles when they hit the U.S.
My guess to what Ginger Baker could possibly mean is that, in the early 60s, the drums were pretty much in the background in rock and roll. Guitars, trumpets, saxophones, keyboards – anything else could take the lead. Drummers primarily kept the beat, with an occasional cymbal crash.
If you listen to early Beatles music, you’ll hear Ringo’s drumming much higher in the mix. Not that they were brilliant licks by any stretch of the imagination, and they didn’t compare to the guitar playing, but the drums were certainly more a part of the song. Listen to “She Loves You.”
By '66 or so, that was standard practice. It paved the way for Keith Moon and Ginger Baker, so I guess Ringo should be given some credit.
Ringo could probably play up to Ginger Baker’s standards, allowing certain handicaps…he just appreciated the song’s integrity so much. His nearly perfect tempo is often overlooked.
If Ringo actually did the drumming, putting aside the rumor’s of Paul’s re-doing them later, it was quite good.
The rumors are true, to an extent. In the late '60’s Paul in fact did do the drumming for a few Beatles songs, but it didn’t cause a huge blowup between the boys
Listen to it especially in songs like “In My Life” or “Rain.”
DAMN fine drumming!
Listen to some of the drumming on the second of the Anthology series. Quite good. Makes me wonder if Paul and John told him to tone it down.
Remember, when Ringo joined the Beatles he was far more professional than the others.
Of course Ringo could never play lead like Ginger could.
Ringo did play with a band that changed things, including where the rhythm section figured in. And he was an adaptable player. He was not mightily blessed in the flexible fingers department, but that’s not necessarily important if you consider music before pyrotechnics. I consider Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side a great tune, and there aren’t any supersonic fingers present on it.
Ginger could play lead, and did. While I listened to him in awe, that was probably his greatest weakness. And I liked 'em both (as well as Charlie Watts) - in a quarter century of my own playing, though, I paid more attention to John Bonham, Mitch Mitchell, Kenny Clarke and Eddie Van Halen. Nevertheless, Ringo did bring something to the party besides just being lucky, IMHE.
How about that bit at the beginning of “The End”? Wait…the beginning of the end? Now I’m frightened.
I saw the thread title and thought, “Oh, I’ll tell the story again of my friend Tom and his interview with Ginger Baker…”
Looks like I’ve been beaten to it. Anyway, I’m not a drummer, but I’ll take Kunilou’s interpretation: the Beatles turned up the drums in the mix, making them stand out and, possibly, illuminating concepts that weren’t clear before.
Oh, now that I re-read the OP, the question was about specific songs. I’ll second “She Loves You.” Also “All I’ve Gotta Do,” “In My Life,” “You Won’t See Me,” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” and (later) “Don’t Pass Me By.” (The latter is mentioned mainly for the snare sound; very loose and splashy, as opposed to the usual tight, sharp sound.) Oh, and “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road,” though I’ve heard that’s one on which Paul redid the drums; not sure.
That’s off the top of my head; if you want, I’ll go find some more examples.
Oh, heck! How could I forget the amazing drumwork on “A Day in the Life”? Turn that one up and be amazed.
I would second jackelope’s take that “Tomorrow Never Knows” as innovative and also offer “Ticket to Ride” - both use a syncopated beat that moves the song along and is a lot more than just simple 4/4.
Yes, the mix mattered, too. Heck, listen to “Drive My Car” to hear what George Martin did with Paul’s bass. The overall separation of the parts so each could be heard within the integrated whole is a key aspect to their overall sound, at least in the years before all of the layering of sounds and fuller orchestration occurred.
The Beatles have endured for too long as a musical force for anyone to credibly insult the playing of any of them. Without question, the first thing that matters for any rock band is the songs, and the Beatles have the best ones overall. But a lot of people want to say “yeah, they had great songs, but, boy, there weren’t the best musicians”, if only because some people like to tear idols down. Well, there’s two ways to rate musicianship - absolutely and relatively. From an absolute standpoint, Ringo (and George) were well-respected by their peers (for the most part - see Baker’s comment, or Clapton’s and others re: George), and influenced all players after them. Relatively, it would be hard to argue that they could have better served the songs they played on - that’s what the Beatles did better than anyone - play for the song. From that standpoint, Ringo and George deserve ultimate respect, IMHO.
So, bottom line - I try to get past the “drummer geek” technique thinking and the “Beatles geek” mindless worship thinking and ask myself - “Does the song work? Do the individual pieces and overall arrangement serve the song?” THAT’s was really matters to me…
A drummer cheking in here: Paul my have re-done some of the early drumming parts, but give a listen to the “Live at the BBC” double CD set. Nice licks, good mix, and definitely Ringo on the skins. I’d also add “Here Comes The Sun” to the mix for great fills and Ringo handling the many assorted time changes in the song.
Drollman! Over 200 Posts with a spelling mistake!
Another drummer chiming in with one more thing to consider. As I understand it, in most of the Beatles early recordings, micing the drum kit was done with one mic. One. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, until you listen to most drummers (heck, me); the ability to balance the relative volume of four different sound sources produced from four different limbs (two of them being feet)… This is no small task. (John Bonham was also a master of this; record in a big room with one mic…) . Also, this means no ‘do-overs’ for different parts of the song. Sure, you could still punch in a flubbed fill, but you can’t go in a fix a single snare hit or too-soft bass hit. Sit in on a recording session and they’re usually tweaking the volume of different aspects of the drums within a song, then running the whole thing through a compressor to even it up. Beatles showed what could be achieved with a great engineer and great playing, using gear that you couldn’t give away today.
I’m going to chime back in here, because I’ve just played some of the early songs off the One compilation.
A problem with evaluating Ringo’s musicianship originally is that no matter how well the records were produced, we were listening on really crappy hi-fi’s, portable stereos and AM car radios. Any instrument (or singer for that matter) that wasn’t in the lead pretty well got lost.
Listening to “A Hard Day’s Night” in my youth, about all the drumming I could hear was the cowbell and cymbals. Having just listened to it with much better equipment, I was impressed by how Ringo used the drums, changing from simply hitting tempo in the bridge to doing riffs in the chorus, etc.
Like I said, he wasn’t a great technical drummer. But he did understand how to use the drums in a song. I think George Martin probably mixed the drums higher in the recordings BECAUSE of Ringo’s drumming, not in spite of it.
Are you referring to Ringo’s one and only drum solo while with The Beatles?
Originally he didn’t want to do it, but the other three coaxed him into it.
Come on people, sometimes the guy couldn’t keep a beat.
I’ve heard him compared to the drummer for the Count Basie Orchestra – I suppose he meant Sonny Payne, the “April in Paris” era drummer. Professional and amateur drummers I’ve known all tend to agree that in the right hands, the drumming is not an instrument of time-keeping (the bass line keeps the tempo, as I understand it), but one of volume and direction. As a huge Beatles fan, I invariably ask about Ringo’s drumming, and have never heard an ill word.
I’m probably the only person in the world who thought 3 more minutes of Toad on the remix in the Cream box set was a good thing. And was disappointed when it wasn’t more drum solo.
The essentials are Bonzo, babes!