Musicianship
Influences
During his youth, Starr had been a devoted fan of skiffle and blues music, but by the time he joined the Texans in 1958, he had developed a preference for rock and roll.[179] He was also influenced by country artists, includingHank Williams, Buck Owens and Hank Snow, and jazz drummers such as Chico Hamilton and Yusef Lateef, whose compositional style inspired Starr's fluid and energetic drum fills and grooves.[180] While reflecting on Buddy Rich, Starr commented: "He does things with one hand that I can't do with nine, but that's technique. Everyone I talk to says 'What about Buddy Rich?' Well, what about him? Because he doesn't turn me on."[181] He stated that he "was never really into drummers", but identified Cozy Cole's 1958 cover of Benny Goodman's "Topsy Part Two" as "the one drum record" he bought.[182]
Starr's first musical hero was Gene Autry, about whom he commented: "I remember getting shivers up my back when he sang, "South of the Border".[183] By the early 1960s he had become an ardent fan of Lee Dorsey.[184] In November 1964, Starr told Melody Maker: "Our music is second-hand versions of negro music ... Ninety per cent of the music I like is coloured."[185]
Drumming
While Starr has acknowledged the technical limitations of his drumming for the Beatles, the overall effect of his contribution has received high praise from notable drummers. Starr commented: "I'm no good on the technical things ... I'm your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills ... because I'm really left-handed playing a right-handed kit. I can't roll around the drums because of that."[186] Beatles producer George Martin stated: "Ringo hit good and hard and used the tom-tom well, even though he couldn't do a roll to save his life", although Martin later added, "He's got tremendous feel. He always helped us to hit the right tempo for a song, and gave it that support – that rock-solid back-beat – that made the recording of all the Beatles' songs that much easier."[186] Starr commented: "I've always believed that the drummer is not there to interpret the song", comparing his drumming to painting, he stated: "I am the foundation, and then I put a bit of glow here and there ... If there's a gap, I want to be good enough to fill it."[181]
In 2011, readers of Rolling Stone magazine voted Starr as the fifth-greatest drummer of all time.[187] Journalist Robyn Flans, a long-time contributor with Modern Drummermagazine, writing for the Percussive Arts Society stated: "I cannot count the number of drummers who have told me that Ringo inspired their passion for drums".[3]Drummer Steve Smith commented on Starr's musical contribution:
Before Ringo, drum stars were measured by their soloing ability and virtuosity. Ringo's popularity brought forth a new paradigm in how the public saw drummers. We started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect. One of Ringo's great qualities was that he composed unique, stylistic drum parts for the Beatles' songs. His parts are so signature to the songs that you can listen to a Ringo drum part without the rest of the music and still identify the song.[3]
Starr influenced Phil Collins,[188] the drummer for Genesis, who said: "Starr is vastly underrated. The drum fills on the song "A Day in the Life" are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, 'I want it like that.' He wouldn't know what to do."[189] In September 1980, Lennon told Rolling Stone:
Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we even met. Ringo was a professional drummer who sang and performed and was in one of the top groups in Britain, but especially in Liverpool. So Ringo's talent would have come out one way or the other ... whatever that spark is in Ringo, we all know it but can't put our finger on it. Whether it's acting, drumming, or singing, I don't know. There's something in him that is projectable and he would have surfaced as an individual ... Ringo is a damn good drummer.[190]
In his extensive survey of the Beatles' recording sessions, historian Mark Lewisohn confirmed that Starr was both proficient and remarkably reliable and consistent. According to Lewisohn, there were fewer than a dozen occasions in the Beatles' eight-year recording career where session breakdowns were caused by Starr making a mistake, while the vast majority of takes were stopped owing to mistakes by the other three Beatles.[191] Starr is considered to have influenced various modern drumming techniques, such as the matched grip, tuning the drums lower, and using muffling devices on tonal rings, as well as placing the drums on high risers for visibility as part of the band.[3] According to Ken Micallef and Donnie Marshall, co-authors of Classic Rock Drummers: "Ringo's fat tom sounds and delicate cymbal work were imitated by thousands of drummers."[192]
Singing
Starr sang lead vocals for a song on most of the Beatles' studio albums as part of an attempt to establish a vocal personality for each band member. In many cases, Lennon or McCartney wrote the lyrics and melody especially for him, as they did for "Yellow Submarine" from Revolver and "With a Little Help from My Friends" on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[193] These melodies were tailored to Starr's limited baritone vocal range. Starr's backing vocals are heard on songs such as "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Carry That Weight".[194] He is also the lead vocalist on his compositions "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden".[195] In addition, he also sang lead on "I Wanna Be Your Man", "Boys", "Matchbox", "Honey Don't", "Act Naturally", "Good Night" and "What Goes On".[196]
Composition
Starr's idiosyncratic turns of phrase, or Ringoisms as they became known, such as a hard day's night and tomorrow never knows, were used as song titles by the Beatles, particularly by Lennon.[197] McCartney commented: "Ringo would do these little malapropisms, he would say things slightly wrong, like people do, but his were always wonderful, very lyrical ... they were sort of magic".[198] As well as inspiring his bandmates' creativity in this way, Starr occasionally contributed lyrics to unfinished Lennon–McCartney songs, such as the line "darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there" from "Eleanor Rigby".[199]
Starr is credited as a co-writer of "What Goes On", "Flying" and "Dig It".[200][nb 14] On material issued after the break-up, Starr received a writing credit for "Taking a Trip to Carolina" and received joint songwriting credits with the other three Beatles for "12-Bar Original", "Los Paranoias", "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)", "Suzy Parker", heard in the Let It Be film, and "Jessie's Dream", from the Magical Mystery Tour film.[202]
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