Ringo Starr is having a very eventful year
Back when his old band was still together, Ringo Starr didn't just play a reliable backbeat or sing the occasional number penned especially for him, like "Yellow Submarine" or "With a Little Help From My Friends."
The Beatles' percussionist, when he wasn't keeping time behind his drum kit, was also an indefatigable shutterbug. That much is clear from the scores of images he dug out of his personal archives to put on display earlier this month at the National Portrait Gallery in London, images that also form part of a collection he released last week as a coffee-table book titled Photograph.
"I'd opened a case that came out of an old storage of mine," Starr tells The Week. "I'm like — what's in this trunk? It was full of photo books and negatives. Hundreds and hundreds of negatives. I was like — wow! I've got some great photos."
The resulting large-sized volume he assembled is a veritable treasure trove for Beatles fans, packed with the kind of candid shots of the group in its happy days that only one of four people in the world could have taken. Shots like the one of Beatle guitarist George Harrison leaning against a studio window to smash his nose against it, trying to make Starr laugh.
They were still an unbreakable unit back then, and the drummer was clearly indiscriminate, wanting to record it all.
By: Andy Meek
Source: The Week
