On July 7th, 1940, in a poor and rough working-class section of Liverpool known as "the Dingle," Richard Starkey Jr. (a.k.a. Ringo Starr) was born to his proud parents, Richard Starkey Sr. and Elsie Gleave. Ringo would later go on to become the drummer for world-renowned British rock band, the Beatles, as their drummer, a job that most certainly fit him well. He turned out to be an excellent drummer for the group, never overshadowing the music, working along with the song and the singer, and feeding the others with his steady backbeat. The rest of the group recognized these talents, and depended on him because of them. "Playing without Ringo is like driving a car on th ...view middle of the document...
On his seventh birthday, with discharge in sight, his grandfather dropped by to give him a birthday present"a bright red bus. "I thought it would be nice to give him my red bus to cheer him up," says his grandfather. Richie was so excited that he immediately began driving it around his bed. After his grandfather left, Richie looked over and, "the boy in the next bed looked so sad and lonely, I thought it would be nice to give him my red bus to cheer him up," says Starr. As he leaned over to give it to him, he fell from his bed, and when he awoke he discovered that he had burst stitches and now had to stay in the hospital for six more months. When he was finally released, he was far behind in his schoolwork and couldn't read or write, and despite tutoring, he couldn't pass the tests he needed to move on to the grade he belonged in, so he had to stay back with the younger children (Shultz, p.1. Clayson, Alan. Ringo Starr, Straight Man or Joker? 1991, p.6.).In 1953, with his enthusiastic blessing, Richie's mother, remarried Harry Graves, but later that year Richie developed pleurisy (inflammation of membrane that lines each half of thorax which results in cough, fever, and pain and difficulty in breathing). This time he was hospitalized for two years with virtually no schooling. When he was finally released, at the age of fifteen, still quiet, thoughtful, and as easy-going as he had been throughout his childhood, he realized that returning to school to pursue his education was impossible since he had missed so much work. He then began looking for a job. His first job was as a messenger for the British Railroad, but he had to quit when he failed the medical exam. Next he worked as a barman on a boat traveling between Liverpool and Wales, but was fired for showing up drunk and then lipping off to his boss. Finally, at the age of seventeen, he found a steady job with Henry Hunt and Son's Engineering Firm as an apprentice (Shultz, p.2.).Around this same time, the skiffle music craze hit and Richie entered into the music scene. He started a skiffle band with a fellow apprentice named Eddie Miles, called the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. Richie played percussion, and with the help of some other musically talented employees, they would entertain the workers at lunch time, and would play at parties and local competitions. In 1957, while out at a business outing, Harry Graves bought his stepson his first set of drums, second-hand, for about 10 pounds. He lugged them onto a train and had to sit with them on the ride home. Richie attacked the new kit with gusto, showing no signs of ever stopping. He eventually developed great hand-and-foot coordination, accurate time keeping, and even began developing his own unique style. Because of the noise, his mother eventually limited his playing time to only thirty minutes per evening. "I got really bored, just sitting there banging because you can't play any tunes," Ringo states. After he wo...
