The following article appeared in New Musical Express on August 23, 1963, page 9
Ringo is the quiet Beatle: silent, even mournful, until he takes his place at the back of the stage. Then he starts to play and the silence is shattered as his drums shake and quiver with a thunder of blows.
He admits he rarely looks happy. "I've got one of those faces," he told me. "It's a miserable face, and it just falls like that.
"I feel O.K. inside. Sometimes I'm feeling grand, but people come up and say: 'Aaaah, poor Ringo. Doesn't he look sad?' It's a laugh really I think I'm a bit on the sentimental side now and again, but that's all."
Ringo is a comparatively new addition to the ranks of the Beatles. Whereas John, Paul and George have been together from the start, he joined only last August after an urgent phone call from manager Brian Epstein.
Says Ringo: "I was playing with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes at Butlin's in Skegness, doing a season. Brian said could I join the Beatles the next day? That was out of the question, but I gave in my notice and was with them by the end of the week.
"I'd often sat in with the Beatles when their previous drummer, Pete Best, was sick.
"So I was no stranger. And it was no risk, because the group had been big around Merseyside for a long time, getting good fees and drawing huge crowds.
"One night I drummed with them and got 9 pounds. I thought it was fantastic! I went out and put the money towards my first car, a Zodiac I bought for 50 pounds."
Ringo's first serious drumming job was with Liverpool's Eddie Clayton skiffle group, but this broke up and he played for a while with another group called the Cadillacs. He went on to join Rory Storm and stayed for several years, playing in Hamburg, France and at Butlin's camps.
"It's funny the way I started!" he laughs. "I'd always liked the idea of drumming, and when I heard any music I used to tap on tins and tin lids and all kinds of things.
"When I was 18 my mum and dad got me my first drum kit as a Christmas present. It was a sort of mixture of different parts, about 25 years old. I was really proud.
"Every time I got behind it it used to hide me, what with me being little and the drum being a fantastic size. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me it was 10ft. across.
"I couldn't play a note at the time. I just used to bash around in the house until I got some idea. One night my mum came in and said a neighbor's husband was in a band, and why didn't I go along and join. I think she thought they played jazz.
"Anyway, I went along to rehearsals and there was this crowd of blokes playing in a silver band! They were all working out the numbers they were going to do in the park that Sunday. It wasn't for me...I left the same night!
"After about two months I got in with the skiffle groups, but I still didn't have a clue. And I used to have to borrow different drum kits wherever we went, because I didn't have any transport at the time. That was how I taught myself, but it was good experience.
"In the end I decided to give up my job and go fully professional. I was an apprentice engineer with a firm that was right next door to our house, making children's playground equipment.
"By a bad bit of luck, really-after I joined, the firm moved to somewhere else in the city and I had to get up half-an-hour earlier to get to work!"
Ringo was in his Llandudno hotel room, packing for the move to Torquay the next day.
"Sometimes I feel really tired after a show, completely drained of energy. Other times it's not so bad. Soon the tiredness goes and I feel like going out and ripping it up.
"I used to do a lot of night driving once. I'd get the car and just drive around by myself, anywhere really. I used to get a lot of kicks out of it, although I don't have a car any more. We didn't have a garage, and people started pulling pieces off when they saw it outside the house."
Ringo is the only member of the Beatles to change his name. He was born Richard Starkey in the tough Dingle area of Liverpool, the son of a painter.
He began to call himself Ringo Starr when people noticed his habit of wearing rings on his fingers. "I always wear four," he says. "Two on each hand. The big one on my right hand was a present from my mother, and the wedding ring was my grandfather's until he died. The other two were presents from girls.
"I've got quite a few things like that; necklets and so on. You probably think it sounds strange, but I assure you I'm no cissy! I just happen to like trinkets"
What does he intend to do with his earnings? With sound business sense, he says he wants to open a chain of women's hairdressing salons.
"I figure it would be a good business move," he says. "Girls will always want their hair doing, and if the Beatles ever fell through I'd have a good side-line. I could go round from time to time saying: 'Is everything all right, madam? Or would you like a tot of whisky?'" He laughed heartily at the idea.
"No, I haven't really got round to the idea of composing. I did think up one tune, called 'Don't Pass Me By,' There, it even sounds miserable. And every time I play it to the lads, they just laugh!"
The likeable Ringo is a neverending source of surprise. Soon-I heard this week, he may begin to front the Beatles as a dancer-while another member of the group takes over on drums!
"It would only be for certain numbers," says Paul McCartney, "but it's an idea we're working on. We all mess around on drums a bit and we could take his place now and again.
"Mind you, we could never be as good as Ringo. He's the best drummer we've ever had. The rest of us have always got on well, but he's fitted into the group like a glove. We've had other drummers we've got on well with, but no one could beat Ringo."
He laughed. "We hear rumours that he's leaving, but there's abolutely no truth in them.
"Besides, if he went we'd miss his morning dance session! When he gets up in the morning he's full of jokes, like doing the fox-trot with a lamp-shade or something.
"There's no doubt about it: he's certainly got a flair for dancing. One night we all went to the Saddle Room in London, and Helen Cordet was showing us how to do the Hully Gully. We didn't know what it was all about, but Ringo picked it up in a couple of minutes. In the end, we had to learn it from him!
"Yes, Ringo is a great lad. John and I are writing a number for him to sing on our next LP, after the success of 'Boys' on the last. If it all comes off, it's going to be quite a novelty to announce him as 'the Singing-Dancing-Drummer'!"