Klaus Voorman conobbe i Beatles ad Amburgo nel 1966, fu l’autore della copertina di Revolver e suonò il basso in tanti dischi di Ringo Starr, John Lennon e George Harrison, quando Paul diede la notizia della fine dei Beatles, si pensò che sarebbe stato lui il sostituto di Paul.

Nel 2009 ha pubblicato un album in cui ha ripreso le canzoni che più ha amato e con gli amici con cui ha suonato, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Cat Stevens, Dr. John e tanti altri.

qui il video della registrazione della track di apertura I’m in love again con Paul alla chitarra, piano e voce e Ringo alla batteria.

Ringo ha suonato anche su You’re sixteen.

presenti anche due brani di George: My sweet Lord e All things must pass.

Su radio tre il 22 e il 23 dicembre, sono state trasmesse due lezioni di musica a cura di Franco Fabbri, in questa trasmissione vengono analizzate le incisioni dei fab four, buon ascolto a questi link

http://www.radio3.rai.it/dl/radio3/programmi/puntata/ContentItem-f5d5e0ce-7766-45e2-984c-80fb9669a701.html#

http://www.radio3.rai.it/dl/radio3/programmi/puntata/ContentItem-c28a7367-0d87-4e2e-9ba0-913f6e3bc8fb.html

Ascoltate questo brano tradizionale interpretato anche dagli hollies del 1966 e ditemi se non vi ricorda un altro brano edito da John Lennon qualche anno più tardi?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQcnwcsepu0

qui anche la versione di Joan Baez

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeQ_RYWTUEA

Nell’ottobre uscì un album di Ringo Starr che passò molto inosservato: “I WANNA BE SANTA KLAUS”,  che voleva rinverdire la tradizione dei Beatles di brani natalizi.

Nell’album è presente anche una riedizione di Christmas time is here again. regalo natalizio del 1967 dei Beatles ai propri fan.

A 92 anni è morto Ravi Shankar, colui che insegnò a suonare il sitar a George Harrison, fu grande merito del maestro far conoscere la musica indiana al grande pubblico europeo, tante anche  le collaborazioni con il mondo della musica colta occidentale.

Prese parte al concerto per il Bangladesh organizzato da Harrison e il pubblico occidentale non era abituato a queste sonorità, infatti applaudì all’accordatura degli strumenti e Shankar diede prova di grande ironia, dicendo “Grazie, se vi è piaciuta l’accordatura, vi piacerà molto di più quando suoneremo”.

Quanta nostalgia e che diverso approccio richiede l’ascolto di un disco in vinile, per chi non ha buttato via il proprio impianto e possiede ancora intatta la collezione in vinile questa è proprio una grande tentazione.

http://beatles.com/vinyl/

Nel 1975 per l’album Young americans David Bowie incontrò John Lennon che colloborò alla registrazione della cover di Across the universe, da un riff di Carlos Alomar e il refrain FAME cantato da John Lennon, David elaborò la canzone, il contributo di John è minimo, ma ottenne lo stesso i crediti della canzone.

IAN PAICE (Deep Purple): “Ringo aveva un feel unico che emerge dai dischi dei Beatles. Quella di Ringo non è stata fortuna come qualcuno asserisce, ma talento”
http://www.jamonline.it/pages/articolo.aspx?item_id=1433

Paul McCartney
“Paul has been recently quoted as saying that Ringo Starr is still his favorite drummer, much to the amazement of the drumming community and the world at large. McCartney’s worked with Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro- he can have the pick of anyone, just about, but he still loves Ringo.”

John Lennon
“Ringo’s a damn good drummer. He was always a good drummer. He’s not technically good, but I think Ringo’s drumming is underrated the same way Paul’s base-playing is underrated. Paul and Ringo stand up anywhere with any of the rock musicians.”

George Harrison
“Ringo’s got the best back beat I’ve ever heard and he can play great 24-hours a day.”

Kenny Arnoff — “I consider him one of the greatest innovators of rock drumming and believe that he has been one of the greatest influences on rock drumming today… Ringo has influenced drummers more than they will ever realize or admit. Ringo laid down the fundamental rock beat that drummers are playing today and they probably don’t even realize it. (Modern Drummer,Oct. 1987) . . Ringo always approached the song more like a songwriter than a drummer. He always served the music

Max Weinberg — “D. J. Fontana had introduced me to the power of the big beat. Ringo convinced me just how powerful that rhythm could be. Ringo’s beat was heard around the world and he drew the spotlight toward rock and roll drummer. From ;his matched grip style to his pioneering use of staggered tom tom fills, his influence in rock drumming was as important and wide spread as Gene Krupa’s had been in jazz.”

Jim Keltner — “I will always be there to support him. He’s more than a dear friend. He’s like an idol. He’s everything to me. I still think of him musically every time I sit down and play drums. He’s a very important guy to me.

Phil Collins, drummer for Genesis — “I think he’s vastly underrated. The drum fills on A Day In The Life are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, ‘I want it like that.’ They wouldn’t know what to do.

Andy Sturmer, drummer for Jellyfish — “Ringo is a great guy and really amazing drummer. He has that feel that’s between a shuffle and straight eights — Ringo territory that nobody else can do. He played some amazing stuff on that

D. J. Fontana — “I was playing maracas or something behind him, just listening to him. I swear he never varied the tempo. He played that back beat and never got off it. Man, you couldn’t have moved him with a crane. It was amazing. He played a hell of a back beat, Man, and that’s where it’s at.”

George Martin — “Ringo always got and still gets a unique sound out of his drums, as sound as distinctive as his voice. … Ringo gets a looser deeper sound out of his drums that is unique. …This detailed attention to the tone of his drums is one of the reasons for Ringo’s brilliance. Another is that although Ringo does not keep time with a metronome accuracy, he has unrivaled feel for a song. If his timing fluctuates, it invariably does so in the right place at the right time, keep the right atmosphere going on the track and give it a rock solid foundation. This held true for every single Beatles number Richie played … Ringo also was a great tom tom player.

Mike Finkelstein — “If you have ever been in a band where you had to recreate Beatle songs, you would have realized that Ringo Starr was no slouch. Those drum parts were very tricky and subtle. He did have a special ability to create interesting rhythmic structures within the music. This gave the Beatles a unique sound without loosing that distinctive drive in rock and roll. … Ringo moved smoothly from verse to chorus without loosing the groove by subtly changing a texture in the rhythm. Ringo is an important drummer to study well.”

Peter Blake — “Ringo is one of the most important drummers of the 20th century. While he hasn’t got any technique to speak of, he realizes how important It is for a song to feel good. His feel is absolutely tremendous. He got some great sounds on the Beatles records. It wasn’t all production and microphones, a lot of it was down to the way he tuned them. … He has tremendous basic ability. Obviously there were people playing in a straight-forward manner before him, but he had a definite feel and he changed pop drumming around. He changed the sound from hat of the high-pitched jazz drummers. I think he’s tremendous.”

George Martin — “Ringo has a tremendous feel for a song and he always helped us hit the right tempo the first time. He was rock solid. This made the recording of all the Beatle songs so much easier.”

Kenny Aronoff — “He consistently came up with new ideas that always seemed perfect for the song, but it wasn’t just a matter of him picking a basic beat for a song, because lots of drummers could do that. Ringo definitely had the right kind of personality and creative ideas for The Beatles music. You will rarely find a Beatles song without something noticeable that Ringo played or didn’t play.”

Al Kooper — “Sgt. Pepper was the album that changed drumming more than anything else. Before that album, drum fills in rock and roll were pretty rudimentary, all much the same, and this record had what I call space fills where they would leave a tremendous amount of air. It was most appealing to me musically and the sound of the drums got much better. What I had to figure out now was what am I going to do to get drums to sound like that.”

Don Was — “Ringo’s drums are one of the greatest things you can have on a record.”

Mike Portnoy: As a drummer were you picking up on what John Bonham, Ginger Baker and Keith Moon were playing?

My early classic rock heroes, the big three, were Keith Moon, John Bonham, and Ringo Starr; those were the big three. But then there was also Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell, and John Densmore and all of that late ‘60s, early ‘70s stuff was a huge, huge part of me developing as a musician. And then later on in the mid-70s came progressive rock and then in the ‘80s came more metal but it all began for me in the classic rock world of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
“I would say when we formed the band it was kind of like we wanted to be a cross between Iron Maiden and Rush.”
You were able to learn about playing drums from Ringo Starr?
Ringo is the guy. I mean the Beatles are literally my favorite band of all time. They were from the minute I was born until here at the age of 43. The Who and Zeppelin were also up there but really at the end of the day the Beatles are it for me. Number one.

Steve Gadd: Oh, and Ringo Starr was there, too. I had played with him on one of his solo records, so we were old friends. It was great being around him; he’s so inspiring.”

What kind of musical dialogue do you have with somebody like Ringo? Even though he’s one of the greatest drummers in rock ‘n’ roll history, he’s very unlike you in that he doesn’t read or write music, never studied theory…

“Yeah, I know what you mean. We had a great time together. See, Ringo comes from a different kind of school, and I find that totally exciting and challenging. How he does what he does…it’s so different from what other drummers do. If somebody approaches music or their instrument in a way that’s unique, I want to be around that person. To me, there’s something to learn there.”

Chiunque abbia figli o nipoti piccoli conoscerà sicuramente il trenino Thomas, in inglese “Thomas and friends”, la serie che tra origine dai romanzi di W.V. Awdry, questa fu trasmessa per la prima volta nel 1984 e nelle prime due serie vide come voce narrante la partecipazione di Ringo Starr.

50 anni di Beatles!! Il 5 ottobre 1962 venne pubblicato in Gran Bretagna il primo singolo della band di Liverpool, la versione di Love me do è quella con Ringo Starr alla batteria, nell’Lp invece è presente la versione col turnista Andy White, il retro fu Ps I love you con Andy White alla batteria e Ringo alle Maracas.

Il brano raggiunse un non soddisfacente diciassettesimo posto, ma la fama sarebbe esplosa a breve con la pubblicazione del secondo singolo Please please me.