Let’s do Ringo first, then George. Ringo’s always the last of the four Beatles
to be introduced; he deserves to be moved up a notch.
Ringo’s drumming has undergone a critical reevaluation in
the last 20 years or so. For a long time
during the Beatles heyday and after, he was considered the guy just lucky to be
there. But, if you read enough about the
band, he was really the last piece of the puzzle – it’s been pretty well
established that Pete Best was nowhere near the talent the other three were,
and it took Ringo’s presence, ability, and difference from the others to make
it work.
Also, Ringo brought something else to the band – a sense of
humility. The Beatles have always been
my favorite band, but John, Paul, and George weren’t really known for their
modesty. Ringo, deservedly, is. And he’s a hell of a drummer. My son’s a drummer, and his teacher has told
him repeatedly that there are two drummers he should emulate with the sticks –
John Bonham and Ringo Starr. I have no
reason to argue.
As for his solo career, Ringo had a few great years, a bunch
of years lost in an alcoholic haze, and about two decades doing pretty much
what he wants to do – he tours with his friends (he seems to get along with
just about everybody), and he releases the occasional album under his own
name. He also is now the owner of the
longest Beatle marriage (he’s been married to Barbara Bach for over 35 years).
In any case, there aren’t a ton of best-ofs from Ringo, and
a few are out of print. There’s really
only one obvious choice:
This has every song from his first hits set, 1975’s Blast From Your Past (these include “It
Don’t Come Easy,” “Photograph,” “You’re Sixteen,” and “Oh My My”), and includes
his next two (and final two) top 40 hits, “A Dose of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “Wrack
My Brain.” It also has a few more recent
songs (although, unfortunately, nothing from the All-Starr Band
groupings). Not overpriced ($7.39 for
the disc and $7.99 for the download at Amazon), but do note a variation – the
disc has “Hey! Baby!” “A Dose of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “King of Broken Hearts,”
while the download contains “Oo-Wee,” “Have You Seen My Baby,” and an extended
version of “Six O’Clock” instead. I’d
buy the disc, download the other three separately, and burn a new disc with all
23 songs; it’ll still come in just under 80 minutes.
Here are the other options:
Blast From Your Past (1975) – as
noted above, every song here is included in the Photograph compilation, and this is out of print, so there’s no
real reason to search this out. (I have
it, but I bought it years before Photograph,
thinking it was going to be the only option.)
I mean, if you see it used for a buck or two, sure, but that’s really
the only reason to get it. This appears
to be out of print, which is fine; it’s superfluous at this point.
Starr Struck: Best of Ringo Starr, Vol. 2
(1989) – this is a weird one, and it’s got a long story. After 1975, Ringo bolted from Capitol/Apple
and was with a ton of labels (Atlantic, Portrait, Boardwalk, RCA in Canada),
with sales dropping consistently.
Partially this was because he wasn’t getting the material (John, Paul,
and George had all contributed to Ringo’s solo albums before, along with other
friends), and partially because – well, Ringo had become an alcoholic. (In fairness, it appears all of the Fab Four
except Paul dealt with addiction issues at one time or another.) I have a vinyl copy of 1976’s Ringo’s Rotogravure, and the inside
sleeve has Polaroids of Ringo and all the players on the album – every picture
Ringo’s in has him holding a drink. And
that was the best seller of the bunch – by the time 1983’s Old Wave was ready, no UK or US label would release it. Anyway, by 1989 Ringo had sobered up, and
Rhino Records (which was and is a terrific label for reissues and compilations)
rounded up what was worth hearing off those albums and put them on a CD. Again, it had the two top 40 hits from that
era, as listed above (George wrote and played on “Wrack My Brain,” recorded for
Boardwalk Records in 1981), but there’s a lot of other stuff you probably won’t
miss. It’s out of print, but it’s
probably worth picking up if you find it in the used record bins as a
curio. (It’s not particularly cheap
through Amazon because it’s scarce, however.)
The Anthology...
So Far (2001) – this draws entirely from the All-Starr Band discs. It’s all live, it’s three discs long, and
there are only one or two “Ringo” songs on each disc – the rest of it is songs
by other artists. It’s a heck of a
compilation – Dr. John, Levon Helm, Clarence Clemons, Billy Preston, Joe Walsh,
Nils Lofgren, and John Entwistle, and that’s just on the first disc – but it’s
not a true best-of. $19.99 on Amazon as
an import; not available for download.
Icon: Ringo Starr
(2014) – once UMG got ahold of the Capitol backlist, you knew this was going to
happen: a slipshod “budget”
release. 11 songs, eight of which are on
either Ringo or Goodnight Vienna (Ringo’s two big albums from the 1970s, both of
which are still in print). And the “budget”
compilation is $6.87 (not available for download), which makes it 52 cents
cheaper than Photograph, which
contains nine more songs. I mean, if you’re
desperate for something to listen to on a car trip and find it at a truck stop,
I guess that’s okay – but there’s no other reason to order this over other
options.
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