Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey MBE born 7 July 1940 better known by his stage name Ringo Starr is an English musician singersongwriter and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles When the band formed in 1960 Starr was a member of another Liverpool band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes He became The Beatles drummer in August 1962 taking the place of Pete Best In addition to his contribution as drummer Starr featured as lead vocals on a number of successful Beatles songs in particular With a Little Help from My Friends Yellow Submarine and The Beatles version of Act Naturally as cowriter with the song What Goes On and primary writer with Dont Pass Me By and Octopuss Garden As drummer for The Beatles Starr was musically creative and his contribution to the bands music has received high praise from notable drummers in more recent times Starr described himself as your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills technically limited by being a lefthanded person playing a righthanded kit Drummer Steve Smith said that Starrs popularity brought forth a new paradigm where we started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect and that Starr composed unique stylistic drum parts for The Beatles songs In 2011 Starr was picked as the fifthbest drummer of alltime by Rolling Stone readers behind drummers such as John Bonham Keith Moon and Neil Peart Starr is the most documented and critically acclaimed actorBeatle playing a central role in several Beatles films and appearing in numerous other movies both during and after his career with The Beatles After The Beatles breakup in 1970 Starr achieved solo musical success with several singles and albums and recorded with each of his fellow exBeatles as they too developed their postBeatle musical careers He has also been featured in a number of TV documentaries hosted TV shows and narrated the first two series of the childrens television series Thomas the Tank Engine Friends He currently tours with the AllStarr Band