I read of another reason Ringo got the job. Pete Best was consistently inconsistent about showing up on time (or at all) for studio sessions. While waiting for him one day, George Martin lost patience and told the Fab Three that they needed to be a more professional band: "Do you know of a lad who is not only a good drummer, but can also show up?"
By the way, I never really thought about Ringo’s drumming until the remasters came out. I’ve been listening to them with my head stuck between good speakers. I now call them the “Ringo’s Damn Good” remasters. He even plays some bongos that I’d never heard before!
Pete Best never missed an EMI studio session (there was only one and it was a test). Martin told Epstein that he would use a session drummer for recordings which wasn’t really a big deal. Even Ringo was sidelined for the Beatles first record. Pete was fired mostly because the Beatles finally had the juice to recruit a better drummer…and one they personally liked.
Bite your tongue. Garfunkel was (and possibly still is) an excellent vocalist, even though Simon was the driving musical force of the duo.
I was watching an old clip the other day of McCartney talking about recording “Hey Jude” and how they hadn’t realized when they started recording that Ringo had gone to the bathroom (the others couldn’t see the drum booth from where they were). So the opening is drum-free. Meanwhile Ringo sidles quietly back in and simply picks up the beat at the perfect moment.
i was going to mention the fact that Josie wasn’t the lead singer in the cartoon voice wise it was the African-American chick to the point that when Boomerang reran the series I was asked " no one threw a fit that Josie’s singing voice was a black girl ?"
If we are required by law to include a Beatle, the real answer is Stu Sutcliffe, who sometimes played with his back to the audience to hide his nervousness and incompetence.
Sutcliffe died tragically from a brain aneurysm at the age of 21.
Except for the whole brain aneurysm thing, Stu would be the perfect answer. Joined the band cuz he was pals with the group’s leader, had little talent and less interest and zero business being in the band, was just there because he looked cool. Of course his death was the best thing that ever happened to the Beatles, particularly McCartney, who never would have picked up a bass.
Stu didn’t die until a year after he left the band. It was his own decision and John, who concentrated heavily on success, would have squeezed him out as soon as he found someone better.
She’s an interesting case. I’ve long defended her drumming, but I could see the point more with suggesting her than with somebody like Ringo. Her drumming may be fairly crude and minimal, but it is powerful and the perfect backdrop for Jack White’s noodling. It never gets in his way, and the drum parts have a lot of charm and soul to them. There’s a rock-and-roll looseness and grit without being out-of-time, if that makes sense. You know how some jazz players swing and some cats just can’t? Megan is the same way with rock. I love her playing, and the era of Jack White’s music I liked the best was with the White Stripes. I saw them play once life and, holy shit, those two could make a lot of noise, and Meg had me tapping my foot and shaking my ass, which is what I want a good drummer to do.
And there’s no doubt she was part of the initial success of the Stripes. Not just the minimalist drumming, but the look, the persona, the weird lore they had about each other back then. If you had, I dunno, Matt Cameron back there, it just wouldn’t be the same.
George’s first couple were amazing and some of Paul’s work has been pretty good. I really don’t care for John Lennon’s work from what I heard(outside the Beatles, I mean).
Replace “death” with “leaving the Beatles.” As @RealityChuck pointed out, he left the band before his death. (His heart and talent were in art, not music.)
They run the gamut from very good (though never innovative or boundary-pushing) through pleasant and enjoyable to very bad. And, more than the other three, Ringo has always gotten by with a little help from his friends.
If the question is “least talented strictly in a musical sense,” he has to be a very strong contender. If it’s a more general question about the ability to bring something to the band, no matter what, well, he did a world-class job of bringing the punk.
Hanna-Barbera sort of did. The comic book character that preceded the cartoon was Black and the tie-in record producer hired a professional (Patrice Holloway) to play the part as the singer, both in the cartoon and live action on stage (NOT the regular voice actor in the cartoon, also a Black woman, just the singing voice). H-B got cold feet about having an integrated cartoon and tried to make a last minute change, but after a tense stand-off with the adamant producer who refused to fire Holloway, they backed down.
She sang lead on the theme, but didn’t do all the leads. Cheryl Stoppelmoor aka Cherie Moor aka Cheryl Ladd of Charlie’s Angels fame, sang a number of them as well.
I don’t know enough about heavy metal hair bands, or pop mega bands like Journey or Foreigner. I’d suspect there were at least a few bassists in those groups who did little other than pound out 16ths and contribute “attitude.” Never was a fan of Journey or Foreigner - couldn’t even tell their tunes apart, but they were HUGE when I was younger. And every time I hear one of their songs I think, “Man - what a simple bassline!”
When in college, my band broke up and I was looking for other gigs. A metal cover band offered me a spot, but the music completely bored me and I just couldn’t see myself wearing spandex and playing shirtless. Of course, after I declined I couldn’t help but realize that that band played far more often, for more money and larger crowds than all of the other bands I was in combined!
Ringo had a very successful solo career after the Beatles broke up. He had big hits with ‘Back off Boogaloo’, ‘It Don’t Come Easy’, ‘Photograph’, ‘You’re Sixteen’, ‘Oh My My’, and ‘Only You’ all making it into the top 10 on the US charts. “Beaucoups of Blues” and “Ringo” are good albums.
The thing about Ringo is that everyone wanted to play with him. He had no problem getting former Beatles or other industry heavyweights to play on his albums, so they are almost all musically excellent…
Well, pounding out 8ths usually, but I get what you mean. But, still, in some of those contexts, you really don’t want anything with too much movement or melody in the bass. Like the Pixies would sound all wrong to me if Kim was doing some complicated walks or too many syncopated fills (she does use syncopation nicely on “Gigantic” in the chorus) instead of the usual picked root eighth notes I hear on much of the stuff. Same with something like Smells Like Teen Spirit. Just eighth-note roots in the verses – I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s funny, because one of the most difficult things I had to record was simply playing a repeating octave riff on piano for about 4 minutes through the whole song, and doing so without trying to introduce any kinds of accents to the playing. Devilishly simple. Just because something is “easy” to play doesn’t mean it’s easy to play well.
Plus it’s always fun seeing someone who is a jazz or classical or folk player try to do some “simple” things in the rock context. They often play it much too bashfully, not enough attack, not the right feel, even though they’re playing all the right notes. I notice this mostly among drummers, but definitely bassists, too. USE A PICK! IT’S ALLOWED! Bite into those strings if you’re doing finger style!
