Month: July 2025

There he was smiling up at me from the Sunday New York Times sitting outside my neighbor’s door, flashing his ubiquitous peace sign. Was it possible that the Times was revisiting, for the umpteenth time, Richard Starkey? He was not celebrating a notable birthday, though at his age they’re all somewhat noteworthy. Nor was it a significant Beatles anniversary. Yet, it was definitely the one, the only, Ringo Starr.     

Ringo holds a unique place in modern culture. As a member of the biggest act of the 20^th Century he is one of the most photographed, written about, dissected, parodied people in the history of the world. For many years that scrutiny has been done with a cheekiness that not too subtly asks whether he deserves all the adulation. No one questions the prominence of John, Paul and George. But Ringo? Wasn’t he just along for the ride and to provide comic relief?

In many ways, Ringo has never lived down the discredited quote attributed to John Lennon that he wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles. Actual or not, many jumped on the bandwagon to suggest that he was just a lucky guy who got to sit behind the big three and keep time. He was fine doing that but musically provided little else.

In recent years, the tide has shifted. Drummer after drummer has stepped forward to testify to his influence. Dave Grohl, Stewart Copeland, Max Weinberg and Questlove, among others, have heaped praise on his ability to “play for the song” and thereby take them to new levels. Increasingly it is acknowledged that Ringo was an integral part of the Beatles sound.

I cannot solve the debate, and my guess is that many who weigh in are in no better position to do so either. However, I do take in the testimony of my friend Phil Moore. He is a lifelong drummer who still plays for fun. He told me, somewhat abashedly, that he found the Beatles the most satisfying to practice with because Ringo’s drumming was inventive and challenging. If Uncle Phil says so, that’s good enough for me.

Drumming aside, Ringo has a special place in our family. Like many, my kids were raised on Beatles music. I considered it part of their necessary education. Not surprisingly, they took to the music, but even more so they took to Ringo. He was their favorite, hands down.

I remember once we were on a driving vacation and stopped into a convenience store where they discovered fake IDs of celebrities, including Ringo. A battle ensued as to who would get that prized souvenir. If we were playing any kind of game where they could name a character after Ringo or use him as a punch line, it was done.

One Christmas our eldest, Aster, proudly entered while we were decorating the tree with a cutout of Ringo’s face. He proclaimed that it was time to put the Starr on top of the tree. It has been a family tradition ever since.

It’s not hard to define Ringo’s attraction. He has always come across as somewhat naïve and innocent. John and George were engaged in a never-ending analysis of the Beatles’ place in the universe. Paul has carefully guarded his and the group’s musical legacy. Ringo seems to just take it all in and enjoy the ride. His approach reminds me of the life philosophy of Spinal Tap keyboardist, Viv Savage, “Have a good time all the time.”

Ringo’s public persona was established in the 1964 movie “A Hard Day’s Night”. It is a unique film. I cannot think of another that cemented the perception of its stars the way that did, especially for Ringo. Since then, he has unalterably been the somewhat befuddled, easy-going bloke with the goofy grin. It has served him well.

John Lennon anointed him as the Yogi Berra of Rock and Roll. He’s been credited him with inadvertently crafting the title of “Hard Day’s Night”, as well as the song “Eight Days a Week”. Whether that’s true is beside the point. It fits too well with his image to be denied.

Not that Ringo hasn’t had his share of troubles over the years. He was, after all, the first to leave the band, though he famously came back to a drum kit adorned with roses. The breakup of his first marriage was not pretty. He had a well-documented substance abuse problem, which lasted many years longer than John’s lost weekend. Yet, he never misplaced his charm.

I think that the most surprising thing about Ringo is how much the music really matters to him. For someone who was supposedly just along for the ride, he has been devoted to asserting his own musical voice post-Beatles. Immediately after the breakup it seemed that the other ex-Beatles were looking to prop him up, with George co-writing some of his biggest hits, and the others guest starring on his albums.

After the early supportive spurt largely petered out, Ringo continued to put out albums. Between 1976’s “Ringo Rotogravure”, which peaked at number 28 on the US charts and “Look Up”, his most recent country-tinged effort Ringo put out 15 albums, many of which hardly cracked the charts at all. He hasn’t had a single in the top 50 since “Oh My My” in 1974. Clearly, making music is more important to him than many of us imagined.

In fact, it was “Look Up” that sparked the Times article. Ringo’s interest in country music is nothing new or invented. As usual he was able to surround himself with top notch talent, including T-Bone Burnett, who wrote most of the songs and co-produced the album, Alison Krauss and Joe Walsh, his brother-in-law.

I wish I could unequivocally urge you to listen to the album, but I can’t take it that far. Like almost all his efforts, it is pleasant enough, has some catchy hooks and is instantly forgettable. I do enjoy Ringo’s voice. It is solely his own and can add sincerity to mediocre lyrics. However, it’s nothing that is going to make you sit up and take notice. Neither is the album.

That being said, I hope Ringo keeps rocking as long as he can. As Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone observed in reviewing “Look Up”, Ringo is “the least jaded rock star in the universe”. In a world of braggarts, blowhards and bombastic baboons, that is something to cheer. Keep on shining Ringo Starr!!!!  

I am so White. Not in a supremist way, mind you. I know my Whiteness doesn’t make me anything special. But in my White view of the world, I am as White as the driven snow, and my Whiteness often gives me snow-blindness. It makes me miss things that should be clear.

Take my recent blog post about Stefan Zweig and Fredrico Fellini. In that post I cited two strong statements in support of artistic activism and the power of art to influence the world we live in. I also lamented that artists today do not seem to be standing up to call out the injustices and insanity engulfing us.

I was thinking of the White artists that populated my youth in the 60’s and 70’s as exemplars of the activist artist. In my narrow mind they set standards in public commitment. I did not see a new generation following their example.

What I ignored was the fact that Black artists have never stopped agitating. This struck me when I saw the movie, “Sinners”. (The following will contain spoilers, so if you care about such things, you should stop here). Even though the film was set in the 1930’s, it clearly was speaking to today and the legacies of the past that continue to intrude.

The scene in which the young guitar prodigy is joined by echoes of the past and future not only highlighted the continuity of that music, but how it is an integral part of American heritage. The vampires want to take that away and meld it into a polyglot. I loved how seductive the head vampire is. Assimilation sounds great, though it is also a route to losing cultural identity. These lures and threats still exist.

Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime was an even more explicit statement. Not surprisingly the import of what he was saying went right by me. I could plead my normal indifference to what I consider the most bloated, overhyped musical performance of the year, but I know that even if I had paid close attention I would not have picked up on what he was throwing down.

As with Sinners, Lamar’s performance linked historic allusions with current problems. Having his red, white and blue clad dancers form a torn American flag delineated the way the American dream has been and still is withheld from people of color. Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam was on hand to warn Lamar not to take it too far, the way Blacks have been told constantly to be patient and not make trouble. It was a bold statement on a huge stage.

The novels of Percival Everett, especially “The Trees” and the much lauded “James” are incredibly subversive. Everett faces pivotal historical moments (the killing of Emmitt Till) and iconic Americana (Huckleberry Finn) and reinterprets them through Black eyes. In Trees, Everett voices the continuing rage at the senseless murder of Till and other victims like him. In James he vehemently rejects the demeaning depictions of the slave Jim, and the promulgation of stereotypes that continue to this day.

Everett knows that Twain’s depiction of Jim remains a vibrant source of American society’s view of Blacks, whether people have read the novel or not. He is not going to let stand an image that ignores the reality of the complex strategies that Blacks had to employ in slave times and still must employ today to survive. Much like Ta-Nahisi Coates in “Between the World and Me”, Everett depicts the intelligence, emotional and otherwise, needed to navigate a world that is skewed against Black Americans.

These contemporary artists are continuing a journey that has continued unaltered throughout the 20^th Century. In the 1960’s James Baldwin was the epitome of the forceful cultural critic. Through his writings and public appearances, he delineated the untenable nature of the inequality deeply embedded in American society.

Throughout the 1970’s the comedy of Richard Prior and the music of Marvin Gaye resonated with anger and protest. The 1980’s brought hip-hop and rap to the fore spouting lyrics that took no prisoners and haven’t stopped doing so. Toni Morrison’s novels from the late 1970’s through the early 2000’s are clear precursors of Percival Everett.

My failure to even think of these artists when discussing activism and social critiques is inexcusable. Making it even worse, I know most of these figures. I have read their novels, listened to their music (well, not hip-hop and rap. Some cultural divides are too large to cross), enjoyed their comedy.

Not to get too philosophical here, but it confirms the theories of the idealists. The world does not exist except as we perceive it. So much of that is dictated by how and where we were raised. Our biases are so deeply entrenched that we don’t even perceive them. They act as a sieve that allows some realities to filter through, but blocks others.

Thankfully, through education and perseverance we can expand on our otherwise narrow perspectives. We can appreciate views outside our comfort zone. Sometimes it’s through a glass darkly, but we can acknowledge and appreciate that our own judgments are not universal. We may even be able to incorporate some of the other ways of looking at life into our worldview.

However, the biases are deep. I am not referring to biases that denigrate anything different, but to those that color our senses and render them unreliable. We want to believe that the world is as we individually see it, but it is open to so many other interpretations.

I am who I am. There is no getting around that. However, it still pisses me off when I am so dense as to miss things right under my nose. I know that just makes me human, but it strikes me as a poor excuse for thick-headedness.