Ringo The 4th

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They said he was quiet, didn’t seem to fit in and looked unhappy behind his drums. He also had a different haircutthan the other three Beatles. Pete Best, you say? No, Ringo Starr. Ringo The 4th saw Starr adopting R&B and disco styles, although his attempts to move with the times did not translate into record sales. Ringo Starr’s fifth solo album, Ringo’s Rotogravure, was recorded and released in 1976, and featured involvement from all four former Beatles. When the Gene Vincent show came to the Liverpool Stadium in May 1960, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were on the stage, while John, Paul,George and Stuart could only look on from the audience with envy. When the Cavern Club held its first Beat Night in May 1960, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes was the first beat band to play there. With Rory celebrated as one of the top showmen in the city, the group’s reputation was second to none. The Silver Beatles at that time didn’t even have a regular drummer. With so many skiffle groups in Liverpool, the competition was fierce. Each one had to stand out from the rest, and that usually achieved by selecting songs no one else was performing. “We were doing old folk songs and railroad songs from America,” Roy said. “We listened to blues records, and went to watch people like the blues duo Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. We sang ‘Frankie and Johnny’ and one of our favourites was ‘The Titanic (It Was Sad When The Ship Went Down)’. It was one of our ‘biggies’ and not many others did it.” The group played at as many venues as it could, with the hope of a small fee or winning a competition; they certainly weren’t in it for more than justthe fun. “We played at various clubs, especially Wilson Hall in Garston a number of times, as well playing the Cavern ten times. We would play in the interval between the jazz groups. We also played at the ‘21 Club’ in Croxteth Road,” which was run by Cavern owner Alan Sytner,“and the Railway Club on Ullet Road.” (DB interview 2015)

Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.The second single, Starr’s cover of Bruce Channel’s ‘Hey! Baby’, had ‘Lady Gaye’ on the b-side. It was released on 22 November in the US, where it reached number 74 on the chart, and on 26 November in the UK. A variety of guest musicians appeared on the album, including Harry Nilsson, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Klaus Voormann, and Dr John. By now, Richy had the drumming bug, and just as George Harrison was obsessed with guitars, Richy Starkey was obsessed with his drums. “He was always musically inclined you know, especially with drums,” Elsie later said. “I think he’s been drumming since he was about 17. He started in a skiffle group with two friends. There was Eddie Myles and Roy Trafford and Richard. Those were in the tea-chest days, of course. Then Eddie got married and they broke up. Richard then joined the Dark Town Skiffle Group. He finished with them and joined Rory Storm and was with him for three or four years until he joined The Beatles.” ( Liverpool Weekly News1964)

John Lennon wrote ‘Cookin’ (In The Kitchen Of Love)’, and performed piano on the recording. The recording took place at Cherokee on 12 June 1976, Lennon’s final studio session until August 1980. I Am Missing You” is a song by Indian musician Ravi Shankar, sung by his sister-in-law Lakshmi Shankar and released as the lead single from his 1974 album “Shankar Family & Friends”. The song is a rare Shankar composition in the Western pop genre, with English lyrics, and was written as a love song to the Hindu god Krishna. Roy Trafford lived at 7, Paulton Street, also in the Dingle, and his family had a small shop. Though the area has often been described as a poor, run-down neighbourhood, Roy disagrees. “It was a great place to live,” he says. “It was such a great community. You could play out in the streets, and then go into your mate’s house and his mother would look after you and then you’d go home. The houses were immaculate. Even though we had no toilets or bathrooms in our houses, the women had pride in their homes. The curtains were perfect, they would polish the window ledges and scrub the front step. Don’t let anyone say it was a bad place to live because it wasn’t.” ( DB Interview 2015)After the commercial disappointment of Ringo's Rotogravure (1976), Starr abandoned his usual formula of using his well-known musician friends (notably his fellow ex-Beatles) to write songs and provide instrumentation on his albums. Instead, he intensified his partnership with songwriter and close friend Vini Poncia; for his next album, Starr and Poncia decided to write most of the songs themselves while using the input of different musicians. Starr also wanted to keep his sound up-to-date and attempted to partially reinvent himself as a disco singer to capitalize on the genre's growing popularity. Sessions began on 5 February 1977, at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, with production overseen by Arif Mardin. [1]

Starr had originally wanted Richard Perry to once again produce him, but decided instead to ring the changes and enlisted Arif Mardin. In the UK the initial single was ‘Drowning In The Sea Of Love’, again coupled with ‘Just A Dream’. The single was released on 16 September but again did not chart. His childhood friend Marie Maguire helped him cement this love for the drums. As she recalled, “Richy contracted tuberculosis (TB) which of course was serious. At the time, there was a terrible stigma attached to having TB, and so the family said it was pleurisy. He was at the convalescent home in Heswall on the Wirral. That is when I took him Eric Delaney’s record, ‘Bedtime for Drums’, which he loved.” (DB interview Liddypool 2009) Harry, Bill (2004). The Ringo Starr Encyclopedia. London: Virgin Books. pp.144–145. ISBN 978-0-7535-0843-5.a b c d Harry, Bill (2004). The Ringo Starr Encyclopedia. London: Virgin Books. p.190. ISBN 978-0-7535-0843-5. The title may have referred to Starr’s role in the Beatles, and the fact that it was his fourth mainstream album release. His first two, Sentimental Journey and Beaucoups Of Blues, had contained pre-war and country songs respectively. Unreleased songs from the sessions included ‘Love Please’, ‘Wild Shining Stars’, ‘By Your Side’, ‘Birmingham’, and ‘This Party’, as well as private recordings with the working titles ‘Nancy, Ringo, Vini and Friends’ and ‘Duet – Nancy and Ringo’. Cover artwork Music webzine Drowned in Sound contributor Hayden Woolley commented in 2015 that the disco-flavored album "sees Ringo climb aboard the booty-shaking bandwagon with all the grace of a rhinoceros mounting a swan." Wooley adds that Starr is no " Donna Summer" and that even though the album was a "critical and commercial disaster," it provides "an absolute treasure trove of unintentional comedy." Wooley draws particular attention to "Drowning in the Sea of Love," saying it "bubbles into life with synthesised stabs and a slinky funk bassline, before Ringo falls repeatedly on his face like a drunken man trying to climb down from a trampoline." [18]

The Ringo The 4th album cover was designed by John Kosh, with cover photography by Starr’s then-girlfriend Nancy Lee Andrews and Lew Hahn. Overall, I really can’t find anything negative to say about this album. The closest I can think of is that “Gypsies In Flight” sounds kind of out of place since it’s a country song, but it doesn’t sound any more out of place on here than the country songs on Ringo’s previous albums. It’s also a great song, so I really don’t mind its inclusion either way. So, I can’t help but wonder if the only reason this album is hated is due to it being the album where Ringo changed his musical direction. That, coupled with the terrible album cover of and the fact that the album was a major commercial failure may have to do with why it’s looked upon with so much negativity today. At the end of the day, I think it’s a great album. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s still an incredibly underrated collection of songs that most people unfortunately don’t give a chance. If it had been released by someone other than Ringo, then I’m sure praising it wouldn’t even be controversial. Unlike his earlier albums, Starr opted not to enlist an array of famous musician friends to guest on Ringo The 4th. Instead his collaborators included Vini Poncia, with whom Starr wrote the majority of the album’s songs. Harry, Bill (2004). The Ringo Starr Encyclopedia. London: Virgin Books. p.184. ISBN 978-0-7535-0843-5. Friday Music is no stranger to releasing the works of Ringo Starr here, therefore we are very pleased to announce the first time a 180 Gram audiophile vinyl release of the Ringo Starr classic “Ringo The 4th.”

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Starr once again teamed up with producer Arif Mardin, with whom he had worked on the album’s predecessor, Ringo’s Rotogravure. Ringo the 4th is the sixth studio album by English musician Ringo Starr, released on 20 September 1977. Its title is sometimes ascribed to him being the fourth member of the Beatles. Others have suggested that it is his fourth mainstream album, which excludes his Great American Songbook homage, Sentimental Journey, and his country-western foray, Beaucoups of Blues. However, Ringo the 4th is a dance-oriented record, crafted for him by his Atlantic Records producer, Arif Mardin.