Ringo Starr Biography

Richard Starkey - Ringo Starr - was born in a small two-story terraced house in the Dingle area of Liverpool, on July 7, 1940, making him the oldest Beatle, three months older than John. His father, who's name was also Richard, was originally a Liverpool dock worker, and later worked in a bakery where he met Ringo's mother Elsie. His parents broke up in 1943, and Elsie later married Harry Graves, who little Richie called his "step ladder".
Although remaining cheerful throughout his childhood, it was filled with hospital time, for appendicitis at 6, at which time he went into a coma for two months, and a cold which developed into pleurisy when he was 13, causing him to miss much school. By fifteen he could just barely read and write.
Like the other Beatles, young Ritchie also eventually became caught up in Liverpool's Skiffle craze. After starting his own group with Eddie Miles called The Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group in 1957, he joined The Raving Texans in 1959, a quartet which played while Rory Storm sang. During this time, he got the nickname Ringo, because of the rings he wore, and because it sounded "cowboyish", and the last name Starr so that his drum solos could be billed as "Starr Time".
Ringo Starr first met the Beatles in Hamburg in October 1960 while there performing with what had become Rory Storm and The Hurricanes. Ringo Starr joined the Beatles on August 18, 1962. Rory Storm was magnanimous about the theft of his drummer, but Pete Best fans were upset, holding vigils outside Pete's house and rioting at the Cavern Club, shouting "Pete Best forever! Ringo never!" His health would cause him problems again later, he missed three quarters of the 1964 tour of Scandanavia, Holland, the Far East and Australia, because of acute tonsillitis (he had them taken out later, during the next Christmas break). He was replaced in the Beatles during this time by Jimmy Nichol.
The Beatles' first movie, originally to be called Beatlemania became to be called A Hard Day's Night because it was something Ringo Starr had said one evening after a long and particularly grueling session.
Ringo Starr married his long-time girlfriend Maureen Cox on February 11, 1965, and they had three children, Zak, Jason and Lee.

In His Own Words
Ringo Starr on his favorite Beatles album:

The second side of Abbey Road is my favorite. I love it. 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window,' and all those bits that weren't songs-- I mean they were just all the bits that John and Paul had around that we roped together."
"And the White Album is important to me for different reasons. One-- I had left the band on the White Album. We're doing this album, and I'm getting weird-- saying to me-self, 'I've gotta leave this band. It's not working,' you know. So I just said, 'Okay, I'm going on holiday,' and I went away for two weeks. (laughs) And, uhh, that's when I left the band. And then I got a telegram from John saying, 'Great drums' on the tracks we'd done. And I came back and it was great, 'cuz George had set up all these flowers all over the studio saying welcome home. So then we got it together again. I always felt it was better on the White one for me. We were more like a band, you know."
"See, I never really liked Sgt Pepper. I mean, I think it's a fine album. All the work we do is fine. But I think I felt like a session man on it. We put so much on it-- strings and brass-- and you'd sit 'round the studio for days, you know, while they're overdubbing other things. It is a fine album, but just for me emotionally I prefer Abbey Road and alot of the White Album.

Ringo Starr on joining the Beatles:

When I was with Rory (Rory Storm and the Hurricanes) the Beatles were nothing. They weren't even formed, you know. And later on when we went professional.... I stopped work at twenty and went to Butman's holiday camp to play in the Rockin' Calypso. Usually every night they had a steel band. Well, we went down this one afternoon and there's John and Paul, and they were teaching Stuart Sutcliffe how to play bass. That's how loose it was for them. I mean, we were the professionals and they were just like, the boys, you know-- these struggling artists in those days. And so we went away to play, and we'd come back to Liverpool. And while we were doing this-- 'cuz we did it for two years. And then we'd go to Germany, and that's where I met the Beatles."
"We got back to Liverpool, and I was just in bed one afternoon 'cuz we were up all night and sleep all day. Uhh, Brian Epstein came over. He says, 'Will you sit in with the Beatles? Pete (Best) isn't well.' So I got up, and he had this big car-- drove me down there. And I played that afternoon then the other show at Southport that evening. So, we played the afternoon session and we went to this "Crocodile Club,' something like that it's called, and stayed there all afternoon gettin' crazy. Mainly just drinking in those days... and then we drove off to Southport and did the show. And it was very nice-- 'Here's your money,' you know, but we got to know each other a bit. We talked about me joining, vaguely. It was like, 'Well, would you like to?' Yeah, I'd like to."
"They were the only band I'd go and watch in Liverpool. They were big in Liverpool by then, not the world but just Liverpool. It was like the world. It was the monsteral move of a lifetime, you know, it was like 'How dare they throw Pete out!' Because I was well known there, half of the audience were for me. There was two chants going on-- 'Pete forever, Ringo never!' and you know, 'Ringo forever, Pete never!' So there was these chants while we were trying to play, all this stuff going on. And George got a black eye-- some guy punched him because I joined the band. (laughs) Can you imagine someone punchin' him 'cuz I joined, you know. And he was the main instigator anyway, George, for getting me in 'cuz he liked me playing."