Ringo Starr Has Named His “Career-Defining” Beatles Song

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On. July 7th Stuart Williams wrote the following article for MusicRadar.com. Below is an excerpt from that article, there is a link below to the full article.

Ringo Starr has named what he believes to be his “career-defining” Beatles song in a new interview with Vulture, settling on the band’s debut single Love Me Do as his pick.

“Because it was the first song, my answer is Love Me Do.” Starr says. “We were on vinyl. We made a record. Even though when I got to the studio, George Martin had a session guy for the drums, Andy White, but I played on it anyway. 

“He played it, I played it — he’s on the album, I think, and I’m on the single, so go figure. We were just blessed that George Martin took a chance on us because many record labels sent us down.”

Ordinarily, a drummer naming his band’s first-ever single as a career-defining moment would be interesting, but not wholly surprising. Love Me Do features a stomping, swampy shuffle, complete with handclaps and percussion.

But in this case, it’s a curious choice, mostly due to the twisting plot build-up that led to the single’s release and the fact that many people will first recognise the version that Ringo didn’t play drums on.

It starts before Ringo was enlisted into the band, with original drummer Pete Best having recorded a version of the song in June, 1962. Despite being the original version, Best’s recording was previously thought to be lost and didn’t see the light of day until 1995’s Anthology 1 collection was released. 

This version of the song features a stripped-back drum part (allegedly due to the fact that producer George Martin took Best’s bass drum away), and while the quality of the songwriting is immediately apparent, Best’s time-keeping is ‘fluid’. 

This session led to George Martin apparently telling Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, “I don’t care what you do with Pete Best, but he’s not playing on any more recording sessions.”  

Read the full article: HERE