Ringo Starr

Sir Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who became internationally famous as the drummer for the Beatles. As well as drumming for the Beatles he occassionally sang lead vocals on certain songs, usually one song an album, which included 'Yellow Submarine' and 'With a Little Help from My Friends'. Ringo wrote and sang the Beatles songs 'Don't Pass Me By' and 'Octopus's Garden' and is credited as co-writer to other songs too.

Ringo was had life-threatening illnesses during his childhood which caused him to spend prolonger periods of time hospitalised. Before the Beatles Ringo held a brief position with British Rail before he secured an apprenticeship as a machinist at a school equipment manufacturer in Liverpool.

Soon after this he became interested in the UK skiffle craze and developed a fervent admiration for the genre, so much so that in 1957 he co-founded his first band, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group.

The band managed to earn several prestigious local bookings before the skiffle fad succumbed to American rock and roll around early 1958. The Beatles formed in 1960 but Ringo was a member of another Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. In August 1962, after achieving moderate success in the UK and Hamburg with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo quit the Hurricanes when he was asked to join the Beatles, replacing Pete Best.

After the Beatles broke up in 1970 Ringo released several successful singles. These included the US top-ten hit 'It Don't Come Easy' and the number one hits 'Photograph' and 'You're Sixteen'. His most successful single in the UK was 'Back Off Boogaloo' which peaked at number two. Starr also achieved commercial and critical success with his album, Ringo, in 1973. It was a top-ten release in the UK and the US.

In addition to his musical success Ringo has acted in numerous films, including the Beatles' films. He's featured in documentaries, hosted TV shows and he narrated the first two series of the children's television program Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. He also portrayed 'Mr. Conductor' during the first season of the PBS children's TV series Shining Time Station.

Ringo has toured with thirteen variations of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band since 1989.

(Excerpts taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringo_Starr )

Starr's playing style, which emphasised feel over technical virtuosity, influenced many drummers to reconsider their playing from a compositional perspective. He also influenced various modern drumming techniques, such as the matched grip, tuning the drums lower, and using muffling devices on tonal rings.[4] In his opinion, his finest recorded performance was on the Beatles' "Rain".[5] In 1999, he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame.[6] In 2011, Rolling Stone readers named him the fifth-greatest drummer of all time. He was inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a Beatle in 1988 and as a solo artist in 2015,[7] and appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to music.[8] In 2020, he was cited as the wealthiest drummer in the world, with a net worth of $350 million.[9