Re-examining the underrated Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr tells a story about how he almost ended up in Houston.

He was known as Richard Starkey then, a teenager enchanted by a recording he heard by Lightnin' Hopkins. According to venerable songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard, Starr planned to move to Texas, get hired working on an oil rig, and during his off hours, he'd pursue the blues great.

But the man who would be Ringo decided the immigration paperwork was too much hassle, so he played drums in a Skiffle band in Liverpool instead. They were called the Texans.

He then joined a promising band called Rory Storm and the Hurricanes before getting hired to tighten up the sound of a different promising young band that needed a better drummer.

"It's funny to hear him talk about it," Hubbard said. "He'd say, 'Oh before that band, I played with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.' And I said, 'That band,' um, you mean the Beatles? 'Oh, yes … '

"It's funny, you sit and talk to the guy, he's so nice. 'Would you like a cup of tea?' Sure. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you're thinking, 'That's a (expletive) Beatle.' "

Starr was fond of Hubbard's 2006 album, "Snake Farm," named for the notable museum off Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin. "He loved that I toured with just a drummer," Hubbard said.

A few years later, Hubbard covered Starr's "Coochy Coochy."

"He said nobody ever thinks of him as a songwriter," Hubbard said. "Well, I like his songs. He's such a musician. And he loves musicians. I'm honored to know the guy because besides being a Beatle, he's a great musician."

And yet Ringo often is treated as a second-class Starr. Sure, musicologists and Beatles superfans might appreciate exactly what he did, but too often the drummer for the most influential rock band of all time is regarded as a fortunate goofball lucky to be keeping the beat for such a group. "Particularly in Britain it was, 'There's them and there's him,' " Starr wrote in the "Beatles Anthology" book.

Yet, as we get closer to Starr's Thursday date at the Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land, it's worth trying to retrack the narrative about this musician.

Honorary Texan

Yes, Ringo has Texan tendencies. For starters, his chosen stage name sounds like a mash-up of sheriffs from old Hollywood westerns.

And the Hubbard association is just one of Starr's Texas ties. Commerce native and veteran songwriter Gary Nicholson had two co-writes - "Shake It Up" and the title track - on Starr's new album "Give More Love." They've collaborated on several songs over the past decade.

In 1976, Starr contributed vocals to "Men's Room, L.A." on Kinky Friedman's "Lasso From El Paso" album.

"He's just a walking piece of history," Friedman said. "He once told me the one regret he has is that he never got to see the Beatles."

The drummer with some skill

"The lads don't want you."

How has that phrase never been used as an album title? It's poetic in its harsh simplicity … and poor Pete Best, the Wally Pip of popular music, will forever be known as the guy who kept time for the Beatles before Starr.

That said, listen to the Beatles' "Anthology 1." The band before Starr's arrival isn't the same as the one for which he anchors the drum kit. Once was the time he was the guy in the Beatles with the experience. The notion that he was the luckiest man alive, a Starr hitched to a shooting star, is preposterous.

"Something about him, I have a feeling if this guy had been in any other band it would've been very successful, too," Friedman said. "And maybe he'd have had more control over it all."

Watching Ron Howard's "Eight Days a Week" documentary on the Beatles as a live band, I was struck with the forceful quality Starr brought to the band's music. Maybe the vocals made the girls scream, but Ringo gave those songs a visceral wallop.

Still, he wasn't a brutish basher, an approach that has earned reverence over the years for hard-hitting animals Ginger Baker, John Bonham and Keith Moon. And he didn't really swing like the session pros and jazz guys.

But go back through the teen-idol years and the Beatles' evolution, and you hear a guy playing in a melodic manner that always serves the song. He also never serves up the same sound twice. The pure joyousness of the Beatles' early work is all consuming. Later the band's experimental moves would draw attention. Starr stamped all of it.

Houston native and first-call drummer Chris Dave - whose many credits include work with Jay-Z and Maxwell - said as a player, Ringo "has a great vibe."

My favorite Beatles song

I recognize other Beatles' songs as more infectious or more experimental or more sophisticated. But I love George Harrison's "Long, Long, Long," a meditative tune about finding some peace following a period of spiritual restlessness.

Harrison's vocal is high, echoed and crystalline. Starr's percussion on the song is a thing at which to marvel: It doesn't mirror the vocal but rather has a dissonant, jarring effect that represents the crooked journey. If played too sweet and soft, the percussion would lack a role in the song. A shade more combative, and it would distract from Harrison's story.

Starr engages in a remarkable dialogue with his guitarist and friend. If you listen to just about any Beatles song, you can find him creating parts that are sympathetic to the composition.

Solo stuff

A friend recently asked on Facebook whether "Ringo," released in 1973, was the best solo album by a Beatle. His community laughed off the suggestion. But "Ringo" certainly warrants a seat at the table.

No fan would rank the 60-plus solo Beatle records the same way. And only a deliberately defiant few would rank any of those records with anything released by the Beatles. Still, there are some diamonds in there, and "Ringo" is among them. It's not perfect. "You're Sixteen, You're Beautiful (and You're Mine)" is the kind of cover that proves regrettable with time. But it is impeccably performed with spots by all three of the other Beatles (plus Billy Preston), four-fifths of the Band, Marc Bolan, Steve Cropper, Harry Nilsson and other pros. It's more than the original All Starr Band. "Photograph" is a wonderful single. Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby" is perfectly suited for Ringo's Ringoness. It's an album that deftly juggles joy and sadness.

I guess I'd put the album as my fifth favorite. Maybe fourth - it depends on my capacity for frivolity on a day when McCartney's "Ram" plays.

And Ringo's reputation as a musician might be growing. Four of his songs appear on Ethan Hawke's three-disc Beatles' "Black Album," which the actor curated from the members' solo recordings. That's a better percentage than Ringo got on Beatles' albums.

"Photograph" and "It Don't Come Easy" are beyond question in the grand Beatles canon. But even decades later, Ringo had some magic left. "Never Without You," written for Harrison two years after his death, is both mournful and celebratory.

Odds and ends

That striking cover image on T. Rex's "The Slider" album from 1972 - Bolan looking mysterious and menacing in a Mad Hatter-type hat - is credited to Starr. Bolan and Starr crossed paths more than a little. Bolan plays on "Ringo," and Ringo's 1974 tune "Back Off Boogaloo" sounds a lot like a T. Rex song.

Producer Tony Visconti swears he took the photo of Bolan, though. Ringo, can we get a ruling?

Have you heard the Georgia Satellites rave-up of Ringo's "Don't Pass Me By"? It's a terrific rock song, and malleable enough to be reimagined.

I just learned "Ringoism" has its own entry in Urban Dictionary. Some Ringoisms became quite ubiquitous: "Tomorrow never knows," "a hard day's night" and "eight days a week." He was the Beatles' Yogi Berra.

I assumed Ringo played on Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" since he was in the video. Turns out he didn't.

Still, Ringo's had his time providing rhythm for various artists, another indication he's has more than just the clout of a former Beatle.

Ringo is all over the '70s, keeping time for records on which you'd expect to find him, such as those by John Lennon and Harrison. Also Nilsson, Leon Russell, Bob Dylan and Carly Simon employed his beats.

Does any great pop musician have as needlessly goofy a reputation?

We all know the Beatles typology. Lennon was the genius. McCartney the charismatic charmer. Harrison the understated master. And Star, he's often seen as the fortunate fool.

Maybe it's because Ringo was the sad-eyed guy who played the jester. Maybe it's because he was the drummer, often the jokester in a band. He certainly didn't run from the role, not publicly, at least.

"He's always taken everything with a light hand on the tiller," Friedman says. "Whereas some of the guys in his band did not. They took themselves more seriously."

Other drummers over the years may have earned greater technical admiration, be it jazz players or session guys. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a guy who sent more kids behind a drum kit than Ringo Starr, who did more to establish a percussive vernacular for the three-minute rock song.

"Ringo's a damn good drummer," Lennon said in an interview published in "Anthology." "He was always a good drummer. He's not technically good, but I think Ringo's drumming is underrated the same way as Paul's bass playing is underrated."

Ringo's fills were always interesting, and created little breaks from which Lennon and McCartney could launch into another verse.

In some ways, Starr is the most clearly defined of the Beatles. He wasn't the scowling recluse like Harrison. He wasn't burdened by creative indulgences like Lennon. He hasn't spent decades as McCartney has fighting perceptions about his role in the most storied band.

He was the Beatles' spine. Or maybe its magnetic north or its home. Amid change and tumult, he was a creative contributor. But he was also its constant.

Maybe the joker role was a defense mechanism - get to the joke before they do. Maybe it's a smart jester playing to his strengths. Thumbing through the large booklet packaged with the "Ringo" LP, I noticed for the first time the front page included an address for a fan club.

Not Starr's fan club. But rather a fan club for Jim Keltner. Ringo's drummer.