Latest / DISGRACELAND / Ringo Starr: Busted by Mexican Federales, Threatened by French-Canadian Separatists, and the King of Feel

Transcript

Ringo Starr: Busted by Mexican Federales, Threatened by French-Canadian Separatists, and the King of Feel · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:13
Speaker 1: Ringo Star are insane. A hostile audience nearly ruined his
0:19
Speaker 1: debut as the Beatles drummer because they wanted him out
0:22
Speaker 1: of the band. French Canadian separatists in Montreal threatened his life.
0:27
Speaker 1: He was followed and detained by Mexican federales hell bent
0:30
Speaker 1: unlocking him up for good. He nearly killed himself and
0:34
Speaker 1: his wife when he drove his Mercedes into not one
0:36
Speaker 1: but two lampposts in a rainstorm. And despite a decade's
0:40
Speaker 1: long running gag that he wasn't creatively on par with
0:44
Speaker 1: his fellow Fabs and the Beatles, Ringo Star made some
0:47
Speaker 1: of the most profound innovations in rock drumming, creating some
0:51
Speaker 1: of the greatest drum tracks on some of the greatest
0:53
Speaker 1: songs of all time. Unlike that music I played for
0:57
Speaker 1: you at the top of the show. That wasn't from
1:00
Speaker 1: a great song. That was a preset loop from a
1:03
Speaker 1: mellotron called Phantom Buddha MK one. I played you that
1:08
Speaker 1: loop because I can't afford the rights to breaking up
1:11
Speaker 1: is hard to do by Neil Sadaka, And why would
1:14
Speaker 1: I play you that specific slice of down doob Doo,
1:18
Speaker 1: Down Down Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was
1:22
Speaker 1: the number one song in America on August nineteenth, nineteen
1:26
Speaker 1: sixty two, And that was the day that Ringo star
1:29
Speaker 1: played his first gig with the Beatles at the legendary
1:32
Speaker 1: Cavern Club, a gig that nearly ended in a riot.
1:37
Speaker 1: On this episode, hostile audiences French Canadian separatists, Mexican Federales,
1:43
Speaker 1: and Ringo Starr. I'm Jake Brennan and this this disgrace Land.
2:16
Speaker 1: You could tell they were Federales because they looked exactly
2:19
Speaker 1: like they did in the movies. The military costumes who
2:22
Speaker 1: were elaborate, downright theatrical, even jackets stiffly buttoned up to
2:26
Speaker 1: the neck, crown hats with little visors nestled perfectly atop
2:29
Speaker 1: their heads. But this wasn't a Sergio Leoni or Sam
2:33
Speaker 1: PECKINPAM movie. James Coburn and Ernest Borgnin weren't going to
2:36
Speaker 1: come to your rescue with shotguns, Draan. This was real life.
2:41
Speaker 1: This was Guadalajara Airport. This was the dawn of the
2:44
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. February nineteen eighty, to be exact, Ringo Starr
2:50
Speaker 1: was trying to go incognito, you know, like a man
2:53
Speaker 1: with no name, but it wasn't working. Everyone knew Ringo's name,
2:57
Speaker 1: and that is to say they knew the stage name
2:59
Speaker 1: that long since eclipsed the name his mother gave him.
3:02
Speaker 1: He had also just become the first Beatle to ever
3:05
Speaker 1: step foot in Mexico. Thus the Federales in the cafe doorway,
3:11
Speaker 1: Ringo worked on his breakfast of Champions champagne. It was
3:15
Speaker 1: better than lukewarm coffee, plus at the blood flowing for
3:18
Speaker 1: what was sure to be a multiple wine bottle kind
3:20
Speaker 1: of day. At this point, most of his days were
3:24
Speaker 1: the ones he remembered. At least. His friend Keith Allison,
3:28
Speaker 1: formerly of Paul Revere and the Raiders, sat next to him.
3:31
Speaker 1: The two were on a layover in Guadalajara on their
3:34
Speaker 1: way to Durango to shoot a prehistoric slapstick comedy called Caveman.
3:39
Speaker 1: They carried a few suitcases with them, including a road
3:42
Speaker 1: case that held a four track tape recorder and a
3:45
Speaker 1: guitar in case inspiration struck and the Federales sized up
3:49
Speaker 1: the cases that sat next to Ringo and Keith and
3:52
Speaker 1: thought about all the illegal drugs that must be inside,
3:55
Speaker 1: maybe a brick of marijuana, just like the one Japanese
3:58
Speaker 1: cops found on Ringo's former bandmate Paul McCartney at the
4:01
Speaker 1: Narita International Airport one month earlier. Paul did ten days
4:05
Speaker 1: in a hardcore Japanese prison for that offense. Now in Guadalajara,
4:11
Speaker 1: Mexican authorities were hoping they could follow suit another Beetle
4:15
Speaker 1: busted and that would be movie bueno. But the Federales
4:18
Speaker 1: that could mean a serious bump take home pay. Ringo
4:22
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't a movie, but still he couldn't help
4:25
Speaker 1: but hear music playing his head as he returned the
4:27
Speaker 1: federals dead eyed stare. He heard in akarina trumpet's whistling
4:32
Speaker 1: a soprano recorder that sounded like a dying coyote, a
4:36
Speaker 1: soundtrack to Ringo's own personal Mexican standoff. And the Federales
4:42
Speaker 1: finally walked up to Margo and Keith and asked to
4:44
Speaker 1: see their passports. Ringo began to panic. He couldn't be
4:49
Speaker 1: that stupid, right, not after what happened to Paul. He
4:52
Speaker 1: hadn't smuggled any drugs in his luggageer so he thought,
4:56
Speaker 1: he was sure, pretty sure, And then again, there were
4:59
Speaker 1: entire years in the last decade that he couldn't even remember.
5:01
Speaker 1: His brain was pickled. Fuck, Ringo thought, just you know,
5:06
Speaker 1: act naturally. Ringo's act was either too natural or not
5:12
Speaker 1: natural enough. The Federals weren't satisfied with a stinking passport.
5:17
Speaker 1: They took the duo to a cramped private room and
5:20
Speaker 1: they dug through the pockets of Keith's jacket. They looked
5:22
Speaker 1: inside Ringo's boot like it was a cavernous vessel for
5:25
Speaker 1: contramand and the Federals told Ringo and Keith to take
5:29
Speaker 1: out their wallets. Then they tapped the bills on top
5:32
Speaker 1: of a slab of black marble on a table. The
5:35
Speaker 1: marble was so black that any white residue that fell
5:38
Speaker 1: from the bills would be noticed immediately. The Federals just
5:41
Speaker 1: needed a speck to fall on that marble, a flake,
5:45
Speaker 1: some dust. Ringo told them that their efforts were in
5:48
Speaker 1: vain and they weren't going to find anything privately to himself.
5:53
Speaker 1: He hoped to God they wouldn't. Ringo wasn't simply anxious.
5:59
Speaker 1: He was so annoyed by all the unwanted attention. He
6:02
Speaker 1: was currently receiving. He had spent a good chunk of
6:05
Speaker 1: the past decade trying to distance himself from the Beatles,
6:08
Speaker 1: trying to leave the past in the past and finally
6:10
Speaker 1: move on. And now the only reason his shit had
6:13
Speaker 1: been seized and searched was because of that past. When
6:17
Speaker 1: the Beatles broke up in nineteen seventy, at the height
6:20
Speaker 1: of an unprecedented career that seemed to have no ceiling,
6:23
Speaker 1: Ringo let the other guys in the band cool off.
6:26
Speaker 1: They could be angry. Ringo wasn't the getting angry tight.
6:30
Speaker 1: He'd just hang around until they were ready to get
6:32
Speaker 1: back together. As it became increasingly obvious that a reunion
6:36
Speaker 1: was never going to happen, what with Paul and John
6:39
Speaker 1: waging a public war and song, Ringo finally just got
6:43
Speaker 1: on with it. Feeling like an equal to Paul, John,
6:46
Speaker 1: and George had been hard enough from the start. Ringo
6:49
Speaker 1: may have been the oldest Beadle in age, but he
6:51
Speaker 1: was the last to join. The other three had already
6:54
Speaker 1: developed a brotherly bond, and they'd spent the better part
6:56
Speaker 1: of two years perfecting it. Ringo felt like a heel
7:00
Speaker 1: and on the joke, even though he was as witty
7:02
Speaker 1: as any of them. He was even known as the
7:04
Speaker 1: Funny Beatle. The producer George Martin was underwhelmed by Ringo's
7:09
Speaker 1: playing and replaced him with another drummer on his very
7:11
Speaker 1: first recording session with the band. The version of Love
7:15
Speaker 1: Me Do, released as a US single and on the Beatles'
7:17
Speaker 1: debut album, Please Please Me, featured not Ringo on drums,
7:21
Speaker 1: but session man Andy White. Ringo was relegated to tambourine.
7:25
Speaker 1: Only the UK single release featured their earlier take with
7:28
Speaker 1: Ringo on drums. In later years, George Martin explained that
7:32
Speaker 1: he'd already booked White to play before Ringo had joined
7:35
Speaker 1: the band, but that testimony contradict's studio logs that clearly
7:38
Speaker 1: show the Abbey Roah production team was unsatisfied with Ringo's contribution.
7:43
Speaker 1: Ringo never really shook the stigma of being just the
7:46
Speaker 1: drummer and the Beatles. Did it bug him that he
7:49
Speaker 1: couldn't write a song that could go toe to toe
7:51
Speaker 1: with his bandmates? Sure was he frustrated that he couldn't
7:54
Speaker 1: play any other instruments besides the drums, of course, but
7:58
Speaker 1: that didn't mean he was creatively challenged. There's a joke
8:01
Speaker 1: that's often attributed to John Lennon, though it was actually
8:04
Speaker 1: made by a comedian after John's death. That goes Ringo
8:07
Speaker 1: wasn't the best drummer in the world. It wasn't even
8:09
Speaker 1: the best drummer in the Beatles. Consider, however, that when
8:13
Speaker 1: Ringo briefly quit the band during the making of the
8:15
Speaker 1: White Album, it took all three of the other Beatles
8:18
Speaker 1: to cobble together a decent drum track for Back in
8:20
Speaker 1: the USSR. I'm serious. Next time we listen to the
8:24
Speaker 1: White Album's opening track, listen to the drums. That is
8:27
Speaker 1: the sound of Paul, John and George all trying very
8:30
Speaker 1: hard to do the thing that Ringo did very simply,
8:33
Speaker 1: don't come easy, lads. The truth was that Ringo was
8:36
Speaker 1: an innovator. Never before had the way the drums were
8:39
Speaker 1: played been such a central component to the construction of
8:42
Speaker 1: a song in the history of popular music. There's br
8:46
Speaker 1: and Ar before Ringo and after Ringo, and no one
8:50
Speaker 1: played the same after Ringo hit the scene. But in
8:53
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty that wasn't Ringo's legacy. Ringo remained the fool,
8:58
Speaker 1: the funny Beatle, the non creative one, the one who
9:00
Speaker 1: wasn't rated very highly, just a lucky kid from Liverpool's
9:03
Speaker 1: tough end who happened to catch the break of a lifetime,
9:06
Speaker 1: and he was pretty goddamn sick of hearing about it.
9:10
Speaker 1: Sitting in a private room at the Guadalajara Airport with
9:13
Speaker 1: federales tearing through his luggage, Ringo was forced to hear
9:16
Speaker 1: about it, talk about it, and think about it all
9:19
Speaker 1: over again. He just wanted to be someone else. But
9:22
Speaker 1: who exactly could he be if not a beetle? How
9:25
Speaker 1: would Ringo star to find himself in the nineteen eighties
9:28
Speaker 1: and beyond could he even summon the energy to try?
9:33
Speaker 1: Just a few years before Ringo's star physically altered his
9:36
Speaker 1: appearance and hopes that it would change who he was,
9:39
Speaker 1: he walked into a barber shop and said, take it
9:42
Speaker 1: all off. They shaved his head, his beard, his mustache.
9:45
Speaker 1: The only hair he had left on his head was
9:47
Speaker 1: his eyebrows. But if this barber were showing photographs, one
9:51
Speaker 1: could plainly see that he had even severely sinned. The
9:54
Speaker 1: wooly caterpillars above Ringo's eyes. He had never looked less
9:58
Speaker 1: beutlesque than all of it life. At the time Ringo
10:03
Speaker 1: said that he did it because where he was living,
10:05
Speaker 1: Monte Carlo was too hot and he needed to cool off,
10:09
Speaker 1: But later in an interview with People magazine, he gave
10:12
Speaker 1: a very different reason. It was a time when you
10:15
Speaker 1: either cut your wrists or your hair. Ringo set and
10:19
Speaker 1: I'm a coward. It was widely known throughout Liverpool that
10:43
Speaker 1: Ringo Star was the best. Other drummers wish they could
10:47
Speaker 1: play like. Most bands thought seriously about replacing their drummers
10:50
Speaker 1: with Ringo because no one played like Ringo. Ringo's technique
10:55
Speaker 1: was homegrown. Unlike other drummers who held the right stick
10:58
Speaker 1: over hand style left stick underhand style, Ringo opted for
11:02
Speaker 1: an odd match stick style approach, which meant he held
11:05
Speaker 1: both of his drum sticks overhand, and despite being left handed,
11:09
Speaker 1: he played his drum kit as if he were right handed,
11:12
Speaker 1: which meant that he led with his left hand while
11:14
Speaker 1: moving across the drums from left to right, and he
11:17
Speaker 1: looked cool as shit doing it. No one looked cool
11:21
Speaker 1: as a Ringo Star. In the early nineteen sixties, he
11:24
Speaker 1: how cooled his band leader Rory Storm of Rory Storm
11:26
Speaker 1: of the Hurricanes, when he shook his head in ecstasy
11:28
Speaker 1: from behind the kit. He had a beard. At the
11:31
Speaker 1: time when young musicians were clean shaven, impresentable to take
11:34
Speaker 1: home to mom. He drove a zephyr zodiac. He was
11:37
Speaker 1: the coolest motherfucker in the room, in any room. But
11:41
Speaker 1: tonight August nineteenth, nineteen sixty two, at twenty two years old,
11:45
Speaker 1: on stage at the soon to be legendary Cavern Club
11:48
Speaker 1: in Liverpool, perhaps the most important night of his professional
11:51
Speaker 1: life up until that time, Ringo did not feel cool.
11:55
Speaker 1: He felt woefully inadequate, like an impostor. The cavern was packed,
12:00
Speaker 1: raucous applause quickly gave way to rabbit shouts and heckles.
12:04
Speaker 1: Ringo had never experienced such a volatile live and all
12:07
Speaker 1: of his year's drumming with other bands, the voices in
12:10
Speaker 1: the audience weren't chanting for another song. They were chanting
12:13
Speaker 1: for another drummer, and Ringo didn't know if he'd make
12:16
Speaker 1: it out of the dance seller alive. As each second passed,
12:19
Speaker 1: it felt more and more like his first gig as
12:21
Speaker 1: the Beatles drummer would wind up his last. Okay, so
12:26
Speaker 1: technically it was his second gig as the Beatles drummer.
12:28
Speaker 1: The first had taken place at the Horticultural Society danced
12:31
Speaker 1: the night before, but who's a fuck about the Garden Show.
12:35
Speaker 1: This was the first gig that mattered. This was the
12:38
Speaker 1: Cavern Club, the claustrophobic underground venue that was to early
12:42
Speaker 1: rock and roll what CBGB's would beat a punk. It
12:45
Speaker 1: was where early Beatles fans lost their collective shit while
12:48
Speaker 1: witnessing some of the most cathartic live music ever performed.
12:52
Speaker 1: And there was one thing the majority of those Beatles
12:54
Speaker 1: fans agreed on that night. Pete Best Forever Ringo Never.
13:00
Speaker 1: They shouted it over and over again. Pete Best, Forever,
13:04
Speaker 1: Ringo never. Pete Best, Forever, Ringo never. Best, of course,
13:12
Speaker 1: was the Beatles' original drummer up until a few days before.
13:15
Speaker 1: His sacking came as a shock to fans. He had
13:18
Speaker 1: been there from the beginning through the band's formative touring years,
13:22
Speaker 1: but in the eyes of John, Paul and George, Pete
13:24
Speaker 1: never really fit into the goon show vibe of the band.
13:27
Speaker 1: As Paul McCartney once said, we were the wacky trio
13:30
Speaker 1: and Pete was perhaps a little more sensible. So the
13:34
Speaker 1: band did the sensible thing. They fired Pete. Technically they
13:39
Speaker 1: had their manager, Brian Epstein, fired Pete Best. Pete felt
13:43
Speaker 1: like he'd been stabbed in the back. He was so
13:45
Speaker 1: distraught that he actually contemplated tying a rock around his
13:48
Speaker 1: neck and jumping in the Mercy River. Other Liverpool drummers
13:52
Speaker 1: were equally shocked to them. Replacing Pete even for one
13:55
Speaker 1: gig was tantamount to a scab crossing a Union picket line.
13:59
Speaker 1: When Johnny Hutchinson, drummer for a rival band called the
14:02
Speaker 1: Big Three, was asked to keep pete seatwarm for Ringo,
14:05
Speaker 1: who was tying up loose ends with Rory Storm, Hutchinson
14:08
Speaker 1: immediately declined. I wouldn't join the Beatles for a gold clock.
14:12
Speaker 1: He said. Pete Best is a very good friend of mine.
14:14
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do the dirty on him. The Beatles' own
14:17
Speaker 1: road manager, Neil Aspinall, was doing the dirty with Pete.
14:20
Speaker 1: Best's mom was the father of Pete's newborn half brother.
14:25
Speaker 1: Even he was on Pete's side at first, Neil refused
14:28
Speaker 1: to set up Ringo's drums at shows. The coup happening
14:31
Speaker 1: in the drum seat of Liverpool's greatest band was not
14:34
Speaker 1: without some serious disturbances in both the band's camp and
14:38
Speaker 1: its fanatical fan base, and right now in the depths
14:42
Speaker 1: of the Cavern Club, it seemed a disturbance of savage
14:45
Speaker 1: proportions was about to break out the chance and screams
14:48
Speaker 1: from the audience, who were getting louder. Ringo tried to
14:51
Speaker 1: tune them out, try to keep on playing, swinging the
14:54
Speaker 1: beat like a motherfucker and shaking his head in the
14:56
Speaker 1: way that typically got fans worked up into a frenzy.
14:59
Speaker 1: But he couldn't concert. All he could hear was the
15:01
Speaker 1: incessant Ringo never, over and over and over. It made
15:06
Speaker 1: him feel less than unwanted, like he was trying to
15:09
Speaker 1: insert himself into a family that didn't want him there.
15:12
Speaker 1: And Brian Epstein was paying him twenty five pounds a week,
15:15
Speaker 1: unheard of money for a drummer in Liverpool, but it
15:18
Speaker 1: wasn't worth this. The crowd moved like a pregnant wave
15:23
Speaker 1: at sea. Ringo could sense something horrible was about to happen.
15:27
Speaker 1: All those angry people were about to crash on the stage,
15:30
Speaker 1: swallowing up Paul John and George first, and then last,
15:33
Speaker 1: and most definitely least Ringo. They'd destroy him he was
15:38
Speaker 1: up on the drum, throwne all by himself, no protection.
15:42
Speaker 1: He never felt so vulnerable in his life. Long before
15:48
Speaker 1: he was Ringo star he was Richard Starkey, but he
15:52
Speaker 1: had always been vulnerable. His father walked out when little
15:55
Speaker 1: Richie was just three years old. When he was six,
15:58
Speaker 1: his appendix burst and he was rushed into surgery to
16:01
Speaker 1: have it removed. Nowadays, this procedure is fairly straightforward, but
16:06
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty seven it was extremely risky. The doctors
16:10
Speaker 1: told Richie's mother three times throughout the night that he
16:13
Speaker 1: wouldn't make it. When he did pull through, the kids
16:16
Speaker 1: at school gave him his first nickname, Lazarus. Richie put
16:20
Speaker 1: that nickname to the test when, at the age of thirteen,
16:23
Speaker 1: he was hospitalized for a second time. This time was worse.
16:27
Speaker 1: This time he'd had to fight harder if he wanted
16:29
Speaker 1: to see another day. This time it was tuberculosis TB
16:34
Speaker 1: Next to London. Liverpool had whathered the most casualties and
16:37
Speaker 1: architectural destruction of any British city during the war, four
16:41
Speaker 1: thousand dead from Hitler's bombs. The place was reduced to
16:44
Speaker 1: smoldering rubble. The air was choked with the Kenzieans, a
16:48
Speaker 1: breeding ground for TP especially in the Dingle, Liverpool's rough
16:52
Speaker 1: working class neighborhood, were Ringo lived with his mother in
16:56
Speaker 1: the Dingle is where he returned after two years at
16:58
Speaker 1: the Heswald children His Hospital, after rebilitating himself back to
17:02
Speaker 1: good health, well good enough health, Richie was still more
17:06
Speaker 1: fragile than the other kids, more vulnerable. He found that
17:10
Speaker 1: our first hand on the mean streets of Dingle, to
17:13
Speaker 1: survive meant first he had to have the look striped
17:16
Speaker 1: jacket and trousers, string tie, hair grease back like a
17:20
Speaker 1: duck's arse. The name teddy boy may have sounded sweet,
17:23
Speaker 1: but the Dingle gangs that wore the InVogue look like
17:26
Speaker 1: a badge were tough as hell. Being fragile in all
17:29
Speaker 1: which he looked for protection in the gangs. He was
17:32
Speaker 1: roughed up a few times, but he never caught a knife,
17:35
Speaker 1: and he never knifed anyone else. But he saw other
17:37
Speaker 1: boys get stuck. He saw blood spill out by the docks.
17:42
Speaker 1: One kid get the ship pounded out of him with
17:43
Speaker 1: a hammer, another lost his eye. Richie couldn't handle it.
17:48
Speaker 1: He couldn't imagine this being his life, day in and
17:50
Speaker 1: day out, stuck in the goddamn dingkle, breathing the filthy air,
17:54
Speaker 1: watching his back at all times for fear of a
17:56
Speaker 1: jump from a rival gang. He needed something to get
17:59
Speaker 1: him out for good, and he was pretty sure he
18:02
Speaker 1: had that something too. He had found it during those
18:05
Speaker 1: two long years inside the children's hospital. During the music
18:09
Speaker 1: classes that the hospital provided, Richie discovered the drums. The
18:13
Speaker 1: kit was rudimentary, but he loved the sound of me,
18:16
Speaker 1: the sound he made. From that point on, it's all
18:20
Speaker 1: he wanted to do. He never returned to school. He
18:23
Speaker 1: just wanted to make a racket. Playing the drums, and
18:27
Speaker 1: playing the drums better than anyone else in town would
18:30
Speaker 1: lead him to another gang, a rock band, which is
18:33
Speaker 1: what rock bands are at their core, gangs. For this role,
18:37
Speaker 1: he had to wear the right outfit, just like he
18:39
Speaker 1: had as a teddy boy skulking around Liverpool, but he
18:42
Speaker 1: also chose a fashion accent that was unique to him,
18:45
Speaker 1: rings that covered his fingers, and those rings led directly
18:49
Speaker 1: to his next nickname, a nickname that he would fully
18:52
Speaker 1: embrace for the rest of his life, even when people
18:55
Speaker 1: used it against him. Pete Best Forever, Ringo Never Jesus Christ,
19:04
Speaker 1: the peap Best. Fans at the Cavern were going to riot.
19:07
Speaker 1: Ringo could feel it. There was nowhere to run down
19:10
Speaker 1: here and nowhere to hide. The cavern was a goddamn
19:13
Speaker 1: fire hazard. Ringo began to regret his decision to leave
19:16
Speaker 1: Ory's Storm in the hurricanes and then, for a reason
19:19
Speaker 1: that was never made clear to him, a dissenting voice
19:22
Speaker 1: rang out from the surly majority. Up with Ringo. A
19:26
Speaker 1: few more voices began to chime in, Ringo Forever, peepe
19:30
Speaker 1: Best Never. Ringo tried to find comfort in the sudden
19:34
Speaker 1: positive reinforcement. He played white knuckled Phills to the rest
19:37
Speaker 1: of the set. The tide was stammed, if not entirely turned,
19:41
Speaker 1: yet no one let a finger on Ringo George, on
19:44
Speaker 1: the other hand, he wasn't so lucky. An irate fan
19:48
Speaker 1: headbutted and ran under his eye when he came off
19:50
Speaker 1: the stage. The group was hustled up the stairs and
19:53
Speaker 1: out of the club under the protection of a burly doorman,
19:56
Speaker 1: and though the fans would eventually embrace Ringo as the
19:59
Speaker 1: cheeky fourth ma member of the group, being accepted didn't
20:02
Speaker 1: me being safe. If there was one thing Ringo knew,
20:06
Speaker 1: it was that one could never have too much protection,
20:10
Speaker 1: because what happens tomorrow, well, one never knows. We'll be
20:19
Speaker 1: right back after this. We're we're, we're. Ringo Star was drunk.
20:29
Speaker 1: He'd been knocking back booze by the bottleful well before
20:32
Speaker 1: dinner at Pinocchio's, his favorite restaurant in the place he
20:35
Speaker 1: now called home. Monte Carlo didn't just have great restaurants.
20:39
Speaker 1: It offered shelter for a wealthy musician looking to avoid
20:43
Speaker 1: paying eighty three percent of his earnings to the UK government.
20:46
Speaker 1: Ringo's Monte Carlo shelter was swank a condo on the
20:51
Speaker 1: thirty third floor overlooking the Mediterranean, but most nights the
20:55
Speaker 1: view went unadmired. Ringo was such a regular fixture at
20:59
Speaker 1: the Loewe's case that it felt more like his home
21:02
Speaker 1: than his actual home did. The staff were so used
21:05
Speaker 1: to seeing his face and taking his money that they
21:07
Speaker 1: let him deal blackjack to gamblers who were so filthy
21:10
Speaker 1: rich they didn't even know what a fucking beetle was.
21:14
Speaker 1: On this night, however, Ringo wasn't playing with a full deck,
21:18
Speaker 1: though he was full of wine. Wine helped him care
21:21
Speaker 1: less that he was spending way too much money on
21:24
Speaker 1: gambling and nightclubing. The Beatles had only just legally dissolved
21:28
Speaker 1: the year prior, in nineteen seventy five, which meant that
21:31
Speaker 1: after five long years of Allan Klein's even longer read tape,
21:35
Speaker 1: Ringo finally got the financial windfall he'd been waiting for.
21:39
Speaker 1: He prioritized spending his money over making records. It was
21:44
Speaker 1: like all the things they said about him were true.
21:46
Speaker 1: Ringo Star wasn't brilliant like the other lads. The New
21:50
Speaker 1: York Times put it bluntly in a nineteen seventy five article,
21:53
Speaker 1: Ringo was the Beatle quote generally judged the least exceptional
21:57
Speaker 1: in terms of talent, unquote a self fulfilling prophecy. And
22:02
Speaker 1: so was this night at Loew's. The rooms spawn almost
22:06
Speaker 1: as fast as the roulette tables, slot machines rang out,
22:09
Speaker 1: cards shuffled, champagne glasses clinked. Ringo began to argue with
22:13
Speaker 1: an employee. Why was he arguing? He couldn't be sure,
22:16
Speaker 1: he could barely see straight. Within minutes, he was tossed
22:19
Speaker 1: outside onto the lonely sidewalk. It would be a while
22:23
Speaker 1: before they invited him back. The nineteen seventies were rough.
22:28
Speaker 1: The decade began auspiciously enough, and in nineteen seventy one,
22:32
Speaker 1: Ringo released one of the greatest solo Beatles singles of
22:34
Speaker 1: all time, it Don't Come Easy. It hit number one
22:37
Speaker 1: on the Canadian charts and number four on the UK
22:40
Speaker 1: and US charts. Even better, it outsold all three of
22:44
Speaker 1: his ex band made singles released at the same time.
22:47
Speaker 1: Maybe it was beginner's luck. Ringo had a few more
22:50
Speaker 1: hits with Back Off, Boogaloo and a Photograph, but each
22:54
Speaker 1: subsequent album he released so less and charted lower. Some
22:58
Speaker 1: of his records in the mid to late nineteen siies
23:00
Speaker 1: didn't even make the charts in the UK. And then
23:04
Speaker 1: there was the divorce. And I'm not talking about the
23:06
Speaker 1: split from the Fab four. Ringo's first marriage to Maureen
23:11
Speaker 1: Cox was flaming out hard. Ringo and Maureen, or Mo
23:16
Speaker 1: as she was known, first began dating wayback during the
23:19
Speaker 1: Cavern club days, and they were young when they tied
23:22
Speaker 1: the knot. He was twenty four and she was eighteen.
23:25
Speaker 1: And as the whirlwind of fame beget the existential crisis
23:28
Speaker 1: of the Beatles' breakup, which was then compounded by Ringo's
23:31
Speaker 1: descent into alcoholism, the marriage buckled. To deal with the
23:35
Speaker 1: ensuing heartache on wee. In despair, Ringo pulled to John
23:39
Speaker 1: Lennon and flew out to Los Angeles to get high
23:42
Speaker 1: with a little help from his friends. That men night
23:45
Speaker 1: after night of copious drinks with Beatle John the Who's
23:48
Speaker 1: Keith Moon, Alice Cooper, and Harry Nilsen, the La singer
23:52
Speaker 1: songwriter beloved by the Beatles, who had struck up a
23:54
Speaker 1: brotherly friendship with Ringo. When the group switched things up
23:58
Speaker 1: and partied in London, Ringo's good friend Mark Bowlan of
24:01
Speaker 1: t Rex would join them. In La. The lubricated crew
24:04
Speaker 1: of so called Hollywood Vampires haunted the Sunset Strip. They corroused,
24:09
Speaker 1: they cavorted, they emptied every bottle they could find, and
24:11
Speaker 1: they could hardly remember any of it. In fact, Ringo
24:15
Speaker 1: had to be reminded of the crazy shit he did,
24:18
Speaker 1: like the fact that he and Harry made a seriously
24:20
Speaker 1: awful rock and roll vampire foot that no one saw,
24:23
Speaker 1: called The Son of Dracula, or that he recorded a
24:26
Speaker 1: single called No No Song where he actually sings about
24:29
Speaker 1: not drugging or drinking anymore. It's a great song, by
24:32
Speaker 1: the way, or that he and Keith Moon managed to
24:35
Speaker 1: get the Turtles flow and Eddie fired from their DJ
24:37
Speaker 1: gig at LA's kro Q after they showed up, and
24:40
Speaker 1: Ringo slurred the word fuck fifteen times in ninety seconds
24:44
Speaker 1: live on air. And the dumbest shit was the shit
24:48
Speaker 1: you could easily forget. What Ringo could never forget, however,
24:51
Speaker 1: was the worst stuff, the most depressing stuff, like when
24:55
Speaker 1: Mark Bolan died at twenty nine in nineteen seventy seven,
24:58
Speaker 1: or when Keith Moon died at thirty two in nineteen
25:01
Speaker 1: seventy eight. Both Mark and Keith died with their legacies intact.
25:06
Speaker 1: They were both still members of the bands that made
25:08
Speaker 1: them famous, and they were both regarded as geniuses. Ringo
25:12
Speaker 1: shudder to think what would the world say about him
25:15
Speaker 1: if he stopped breathing tomorrow? From where he typically sat
25:21
Speaker 1: high above the rest of the Beatles on his drum riser,
25:23
Speaker 1: Ringo Starr couldn't help but feel exposed. Maybe it was
25:27
Speaker 1: the Cavern Club PTSD, but tonight at the Montreal Forum
25:31
Speaker 1: he felt even more exposed than usual. It was a
25:34
Speaker 1: sitting guck. He knew there were trained sharpshooters in the audience,
25:38
Speaker 1: ready at a moment's notice to put a deranged fanatic
25:41
Speaker 1: in the crosshairs. He knew that the guy sitting on
25:44
Speaker 1: the side of the stage next to his drum riser
25:46
Speaker 1: was actually a Montreal detective and playing clothes, but that
25:49
Speaker 1: didn't make him feel any safer because the authorities weren't
25:53
Speaker 1: on the lookout for your run of the mill hysterical
25:55
Speaker 1: Beatles fan, not the kind who screamed, cried, pulled their
25:59
Speaker 1: hair up, even dislocated their shoulders, shocking for a good view,
26:03
Speaker 1: which is what actually happened a month earlier at the
26:05
Speaker 1: North American tour opener in San Francisco. No, they were
26:10
Speaker 1: looking for the people who had sworn to murder Ringo
26:12
Speaker 1: star on this very evening. It was September nineteen sixty
26:18
Speaker 1: four and the Beatles were playing two shows in one
26:20
Speaker 1: night at the Forum. According to that day's edition of
26:24
Speaker 1: Montreal newspaper, French Canadian separatists with an anti Semitic agenda
26:29
Speaker 1: had threatened to shoot Ringo at the show because he
26:31
Speaker 1: was Jewish. The thing was, Ringo wasn't Jewish. The fact
26:36
Speaker 1: that he wasn't who the anti Semitic lunatics thought he
26:39
Speaker 1: was didn't offer Ringo a whole lot of comfort. To
26:42
Speaker 1: be honest, neither did the plain closed cops sitting next
26:44
Speaker 1: to him. What was he gonna do catch the bullet?
26:48
Speaker 1: After his drums had been set up, Ringo re arranged
26:51
Speaker 1: all of his symbols so instead of laying flat as
26:53
Speaker 1: they usually did, they were turned up to face the audience.
26:57
Speaker 1: Could copper alloys stop a speeding bullet? Ringo had no clue,
27:01
Speaker 1: but it was worth a shot. The first show of
27:04
Speaker 1: the night was difficult enough. Ringo couldn't take his mind
27:07
Speaker 1: off the death threat or his eyes off the strange
27:09
Speaker 1: people in the audience, and the second show wasn't a
27:12
Speaker 1: hard day's night. It was torture, worse than his Cavern
27:15
Speaker 1: debut as Pete Best's replacement. Any drum fill could be
27:19
Speaker 1: his last, but Ringo lasted until the end of the show.
27:22
Speaker 1: As soon as the final chord of the final song,
27:25
Speaker 1: Long Tall Sally rang out, Ringo descended from his drum
27:28
Speaker 1: rise there deep into the bowels of the Montreal Forum,
27:30
Speaker 1: where he felt a little safer. He wouldn't feel entirely
27:34
Speaker 1: secure until they got the hell out of Montreal, which
27:36
Speaker 1: they did immediately. The bad Nicks plans to stay the
27:40
Speaker 1: night and instead ran for their lives. When the Beatles
27:44
Speaker 1: stepped onto a plane later that evening, they had only
27:47
Speaker 1: been in Montreal for ten hours and they would never return.
27:51
Speaker 1: Their departure was witnessed by three hundred Canadian Beatle fans
27:55
Speaker 1: and dozens of policemen. Ringo looked out the window at
27:58
Speaker 1: the crowd as the plane began and a taxi down
28:00
Speaker 1: the runway. He wondered if his would be assassin was
28:03
Speaker 1: among the throngs staring back at him. He escaped death
28:07
Speaker 1: that day, but he never escaped the feeling that whether
28:11
Speaker 1: it was a fanatic with a gun or a fan
28:13
Speaker 1: with a crush on a different Beetle, there would always
28:16
Speaker 1: be someone waiting in the wings to knock him down.
28:42
Speaker 1: Hundreds of fans were waiting when Ringo star stepped out
28:44
Speaker 1: of the private room at the Guadalajara Airport. Word got
28:48
Speaker 1: around that a Beetle was about to be handcuffed to Mexico,
28:51
Speaker 1: just like Paul had demanded in Japan, but the federales
28:55
Speaker 1: found nothing they were wrong about. Ringo. He and his
28:58
Speaker 1: friend Keith Allison, we're free to go. The fans, however,
29:03
Speaker 1: wouldn't let Ringo leave. They all wanted to touch him.
29:07
Speaker 1: They asked in Spanish for an autographo. In nineteen eighty,
29:11
Speaker 1: Ringo had been out of the Beatles for longer than
29:12
Speaker 1: he'd been in the Beatles. It was still all anyone
29:15
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about. No one wanted to talk about
29:18
Speaker 1: Ringo's latest solo record or movie. It was always when
29:22
Speaker 1: was the band getting back together? Was Ringo really hiding
29:25
Speaker 1: drugs somewhere in his luggage? Ringo had Paul McCartney's recent
29:29
Speaker 1: bust in Japan to thank for that last bit. Ringo
29:33
Speaker 1: put on his sunglasses and kept his head down and
29:35
Speaker 1: pushed his way through the crowds so that he could
29:37
Speaker 1: catch his connecting flight to Durango. When he arrived, he
29:40
Speaker 1: sent Paul a three word telegram thanks. A lot more
29:45
Speaker 1: negative attention followed. Ringo's girlfriend turned fiance of six years,
29:50
Speaker 1: Nancy Andrews, sued him when he left her for his
29:52
Speaker 1: Caveman co star, playboy, model and former Bond girl Barbara Bach.
29:57
Speaker 1: Nancy lost the lawsuit, put the case in reduced the
30:00
Speaker 1: legal term palimony into the lexicon, as well as the
30:03
Speaker 1: right in California for unmarried partners to sue for the
30:07
Speaker 1: division of property following a split. In December of nineteen
30:11
Speaker 1: eighty John Lennon was shot, and aside from mourning the
30:14
Speaker 1: loss of his dear friend, Ringo mourned the fact that
30:17
Speaker 1: the Beatles could never come together again. Even though he
30:20
Speaker 1: had previously distanced himself from his past and the biggest
30:24
Speaker 1: band of all time, it was crushing to know that
30:26
Speaker 1: he and the other Fabs couldn't eventually drift back to
30:29
Speaker 1: each other when the time was right. And then, in
30:33
Speaker 1: May of nineteen eighty one, Ringo crashed his white Mercedes
30:37
Speaker 1: three point fifty s l on a rainy road outside
30:40
Speaker 1: London with Barbara and now his wife in the passenger seat.
30:43
Speaker 1: The car went off the road, hit one lamp post
30:46
Speaker 1: and then another, rolled over and wound up on the
30:49
Speaker 1: other side of the highway. Ringo was thrown from the
30:52
Speaker 1: car when it hit either the first or second lamp post. Luckily,
30:56
Speaker 1: neither he nor Barbara sustained any major injuries, but his
31:00
Speaker 1: solo career was the next to hit the skids. He
31:03
Speaker 1: was dropped from RCA. He couldn't convince labels in the
31:06
Speaker 1: UK or the US to release his music. He was
31:09
Speaker 1: a Beatle and he couldn't get a label to sign him.
31:13
Speaker 1: His ninth solo album, nineteen eighty two, s Old Wave,
31:16
Speaker 1: only saw releasing Canada and Germany, and it was the
31:19
Speaker 1: biggest flop of his career. Ringo had gotten what he'd wanted.
31:24
Speaker 1: He'd been left alone and no one asked him about
31:27
Speaker 1: the Beatles anymore, and no one asked about anything really.
31:31
Speaker 1: By his own account, Ringo could be found at the
31:33
Speaker 1: bottom of a bottle. He drank eight days a week.
31:36
Speaker 1: Having been left alone meant being left to his own
31:39
Speaker 1: devices and even worse vices. Barber drank with them, and
31:43
Speaker 1: the drinking led to verbal and physical fights, many of
31:46
Speaker 1: them in public, that often involved her old bottles and
31:48
Speaker 1: slapped faces. He hit rock bottom in October of nineteen
31:53
Speaker 1: eighty eight. Ringo star woke up after another bingch. He
31:57
Speaker 1: had no idea how long he'd been under. House was
32:00
Speaker 1: torn apart, bombed out. It looked like Liverpool's circa nineteen
32:04
Speaker 1: forty five. I came to one Friday afternoon. Ringo later
32:08
Speaker 1: said it was told by the staff that I had
32:11
Speaker 1: trashed the house so badly that they thought there had
32:13
Speaker 1: been burglars, and I had trashed Barbara so badly they
32:16
Speaker 1: thought she was dead. This wasn't Ringo star. Deep down,
32:23
Speaker 1: he knew it. He wasn't abusive. He did care about
32:27
Speaker 1: his wife, his life, his place in the legacy of
32:29
Speaker 1: the Beatles. Ringo and Barbara made the decision to get
32:33
Speaker 1: clean together, and they flew out to the Arizona Desert,
32:37
Speaker 1: specifically the Sierra Tucson Rehab Center, and dried up for
32:41
Speaker 1: good wine tequila kangnac No, no, no no, he didn't
32:46
Speaker 1: drink it no more for real. This time, Ringo and
32:50
Speaker 1: Barbara's relationship became stronger than ever, and they moved forward.
32:54
Speaker 1: They didn't look back, and that's to say they didn't
32:57
Speaker 1: look back on the bad things. A sober Ringo discovered
33:00
Speaker 1: that there were some things worth looking back on. First,
33:03
Speaker 1: he formed a revolving supergroup of musicians and dubbed them
33:06
Speaker 1: his All Star Band. The group's first iteration in nineteen
33:10
Speaker 1: eighty nine included rock and roll royalty like Joe Walsh,
33:14
Speaker 1: Nile's Loughbrin, Doctor John Billy Preston, and Rick Danko, and
33:17
Speaker 1: Levon Helm from the band The All Star Band Mind
33:20
Speaker 1: the Past for musical treasure, performing many of its members'
33:23
Speaker 1: older hits for new audiences. Ringo then embraced the legacy
33:27
Speaker 1: of his old band, The Beatles, beginning with the massive
33:30
Speaker 1: anthology mini series and book undertaking in the nineteen nineties
33:34
Speaker 1: and continuing with the seemingly perennial stream of reissues and
33:37
Speaker 1: reappraisals of the band's back catalog that continues today. In turn,
33:42
Speaker 1: the fans embraced Ringo and offered their own reappraisal of
33:45
Speaker 1: his part in music history. Ringo stocks Guy rocketed. The
33:50
Speaker 1: appreciation for his unorthodox playing hid an all time high.
33:54
Speaker 1: Fans were suddenly rushing to his defense. Rather than making
33:57
Speaker 1: him the butt of the joke, they protected him. They
34:00
Speaker 1: praised Ringo's heavy drone beat and Tomorrow never knows his
34:04
Speaker 1: rhythmic accents had come together the way he played his
34:07
Speaker 1: part and ticket to ride, dragging the beat by thundering
34:10
Speaker 1: of the toms. No one played like Ringo. Fellow drum
34:15
Speaker 1: and admitted beatlemaniac Dave Grohl put it best, Ringo is
34:20
Speaker 1: the king of feel, But Ringo Starr spent so much
34:24
Speaker 1: of his life after the Beatles not feeling like the
34:26
Speaker 1: king of anything. And that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan,
34:34
Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly
34:52
Speaker 1: and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for
34:55
Speaker 1: this episode can be found on the show notes page
34:58
Speaker 1: at disgracelamdpod dot com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland
35:02
Speaker 1: All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We
35:04
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a
35:07
Speaker 1: member right now by going to disgracelampod dot com slash Membership.
35:12
Speaker 1: Members can listen to every episode of disgracelan ad free,
35:16
Speaker 1: Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month,
35:20
Speaker 1: weekly unscripted bonus episode, special audio collections, and early access
35:24
Speaker 1: to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod dot com slash membership
35:29
Speaker 1: for details, Rate and review the show, and follow us
35:32
Speaker 1: on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook at disgracelampod and on
35:36
Speaker 1: YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgracelampod. Rock a Roller,
35:43
Speaker 1: He's a Mann