What if Ringo had wound up in Texas?
Ringo Starr didn't have to end up with The Beatles. He could have been a Texas factory worker moonlighting as a country blues player. He might have been a world-class knitter.
Thankfully, fate had other plans for the now-74-year-old drummer, who celebrates spring with his just-released album Postcards From Paradiseand an induction April 18 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo act.
The Liverpool, England, native was 13 and hospitalized for tuberculosis when he first played the drums. "This woman would come in with maracas and tambourines and little drums. I played the drum the first time, and every time she came back, I wouldn't be in the bedridden band unless I got a drum," he says. During the long stay, "I learned to knit."
Postcards acknowledges his past in the title track, which features many Beatles song titles. Rory and the Hurricanes details Starr's membership in another band before he joined John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison in 1962.
"Publishing houses have asked me to do my autobiography. I've always said no, because I started doing it in song," he says. Rory is about "an actual trip with Rory (Storm) and the Hurricanes. We rented a van, and we went down to London. … We did all live together in one room (and) lived on bread and jam. We did go to this dance, and no London girl would dance with us, because of our accent, coming from the north (of England). That was three days out of our life."
By: Bill Keveney
Source: USA Today
