Departing the plane

 

Ringo Starr Rock "Eldest Stateman" (1991)

 

Ringo Starr Rock "Eldest Stateman"

Associated Press

February 3, 1991

    Tell Ringo Starr, he's one of the elder statesmen of rock and roll. And he interrupts, "I'm probably the eldest statesman," he corrects, but he says it in that Ringo voice, instantly familiar and unchanged, although its owner is 50 years old and light years past his Beatle days.

     "Rock and roll keeps you young, if it doesn't kill you, of course," he explains. 

    Starr has just released Ringo Starr and his All-Star band, a compact disc recorded in concert during his 1989 tour with eight veteran rockers, and he's already thinking about the lineup for another all-star troop.

     It's a different Ringo than the one who was better known over much of the past decade for drinking than drumming. And the enthusiasm has as much to do with last year's tour as his 1988 stint in an alcoholic recovery program.

     "It was great proof to me that I could actually get up there and play," he said. "And it was great proof that all these musicians that I've known all over the years, you know, still thought they'd like to play with me."

     The All Starrs of 1989 were guitarists Nils Lofgren and Joe Walsh, keyboard players Dr. John and Billy Preston, sax man Clarence Clemens, drummers Jim Keltner and Levon Helm, and bass player Rick Danko. Starr admits to wondering whether he could get on stage with musicians of that caliber again, and whether they would want to get up there with him. 

    "Most of the 80s, I was incommunicado with the planet. And, you know, I wouldn't blame them, you know, because why would they want to get up with this crazy, drunken fool? And I didn't want to get up anyway. I was too busy getting stupid."

     Starr and his wife, actress Barbara Bach, spent five weeks in an alcohol treatment program in 1988, and after that, he had to ask himself what he was going to do with his life. The All-Starr band was the answer. "I'm a musician. And we went out there, and we put it together, and it was just a great mind blower that it certainly worked, and we all had fun," he said.

     The Rykodisc CD has a dozen songs, but only five featuring Starr: "It Don't Come Easy," "The No, , "No Song," "Honey Don't," "You're 16", and "Photograph." The others were "Iko Iko" by Dr John, "The Wait" with Helm on vocals, "Shine Silently," sung by Lofgren, " Quarter to Three", featuring Clemens, " Reigning in My Heart" with Danko at the microphone, "Will It Go Round in Circles " by Preston, and " Life in the Fast Lane", featuring Walsh. 

    Starr is intent on getting beyond his Beatles past. "Someone already said, Well, you don't have 'With a Little Help from My Friends,' or 'Yellow Submarine'. Well, you know, that's not the point here. The point is the band that was on tour; this is what we felt would make the best CD."

     Starr doesn't know yet who will be in the next All Starr band, because some of last year's members will most certainly have another commitment, but Starr is certain to have an audience, regardless of the compliment. The 1989 tour drew fans ranging from children on up to adults as old as 70. 

    "Children under seven were let in free with their parents to make the problem of finding babysitters no impediment," he said.

     A lot of the kids were more familiar with Starr as the tiny Mr. Conductor on the PBS television show Shining Time Station. The children's show includes a storybook segment from Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, an English show Starr, narrated.

Stevie and Paul -Friends for 60 years

 February 3, 1966

Sort of wild that we have photographs of when Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder first met.  They have been friends for a very long time.  

Myrna with the Fabs

 

The Beatles with Myrna Malinsky 

Harry Nilsson's Rememberance (1981)

 

Photo taken by Bob Gruen 

Harry Nilsson's Rememberance 

By Harry Nilsson

Songwriter magazine

January/February 1981

    Singer/ Songwriter Harry Nilsson was closely associated with John Lennon during the past decade. The two of them shared a deep friendship, particularly while John was separated from Yoko Ono in the mid-70s; their late-night carousels in Los Angeles made for gossip column copy at the time. But beyond the excess, there was a professional relationship that led to Lennon's producing Nilsson's Pussycats in 1974, one of John's few outside musical projects. Nilsson shared his memories and outrage with contributing editor Barry Alfonso.

     I met John after the Beatles' publicist Derek Taylor played my first album for him. This was about 1968. Derek called me and asked if I wanted to come over to England and go to a session. I was met at the airport by Ringo's car, and went to Apple, said hello to Derek, and was chauffeured to where John lived, which is now, I think, Ringo's house. 

    I spent the weekend with John at his house. It was the weekend that Cynthia moved out and Yoko moved in. We spent the night talking about divorce and all that stuff -- 12 hours nonstop. He was like that, always hyper. John wasn't a very relaxed guy. He was always manic. "Let's go. Let's do it." An all-or-nothing person, as far as I knew him.

     We were roommates later for a time, sort of like the Odd Couple. This was in 7'5 or so. For a month and a half, a whole bunch of us lived in this beach house in Malibu. John, Ringo, Keith Moon, Mal Evans, and I were there. 

    After that, John and I went to New York, and he lived in a hotel --at the Pierre for another month and a half. I considered myself his closest friend during that period when he was away from Yoko; when he needed a friend, I was there. I took a lot of the blame for him getting drunk and all that, but I didn't force foul-tasting liquids down his throat. That was his own doing.

     I can tell you this: when we were doing the Pussycats album, we were all getting nutso. It was the height of something, the peak of rock and roll madness. We could do anything we wanted to do, but people didn't exactly know what to do with that kind of freedom. 

    During that period, Keith and John and Ringo and myself were all out there getting crazy. It was a destructive period that everyone went through. And because everyone was doing it, everyone thought it was a thing to do.

     When John and I decided to do that album, we started off on the same foot,"Let's make an album and get loaded along the way." At one session, I remember counting just the drums. And between Ringo and Jim Keltner and Keith Moon playing on, I think "Rock Around the Clock", there were 24 drums. We would finish the session, go back to Malibu, and get out of our minds on Amarillo, nitrate, acid, coke, grass, liquor --the works.

     And then at one point, when it got too crazy, I lost my chops, and people were sleeping on pool tables. John went, "click."  Like that --turned off and became the leader of the band. The producer. He straightened up, and he was great. He did his job. We were working very well. Then it became a race to get the album finished in a month or two. But we did it, and he did a good job. He became the responsible person and was a tremendously creative producer. In fact, he was the only other guy other than myself who tried to get things out of the engineer. He worked with the engineer rather than telling him what to do or letting him do it by himself. He encouraged the guy. I loved that. So in other words, he was a creative producer. Was productive and got a lot of work done in a short time. 

    He'd wake up in the morning five minutes before you would, and he'd be shining your shoes. I'm serious, literally shining your shoes. Real manic. If he was getting drunk, he was really getting drunk, and if he was getting sober, he was really getting sober. 

    I know we learned things from each other. We did agree on songs. We shared the opinion that it took a little bit of this and that, a little salt and pepper, a word here and there to make you laugh, to make a song. That's the attitude I still take when writing, and that was the attitude he showed me by his own songwriting.

     I remember working on a song we did together, "Old Dirt Road". He had this bit of a song and an idea. We were in the studio, and I went to the piano and finished it. I came over to him with a page of lyrics, and asked him what he thought of them, and he said, "You're flying. Go with it."

     That was his attitude. The most important thing I learned from him was to follow through. To finish what you start. You say you're going to send someone a postcard --send a postcard. He always followed through.

     I was talking to my wife the other day about his work. She asked me, "What was it that he did?" I said that I really didn't know. If you look at the words of his songs, occasionally, there's a clever line, but they don't look very good on paper. His melodies were probably more important than his words. Yet he was known for his words. A lot of his melodies were like child melodies. I do think he was a great singer, though I don't know that he had a great range. When you put the words and the melodies together, there was the thing that happened-- that synergy. I really couldn't explain it to my wife any more than I can explain it to you, but there it was. 

    Basically, I'd say what made him great was brains and a sense of humor with heart thrown in. Everyone's going to miss John. You keep saying,"No more wit from John, no more anticipation of what he's going to do next." Christ, he's gone. That makes me angry more than sad.

     I only hope that out of this, maybe some good can happen, and that has to do with gun control. We all know what John did, and we all know about his killer, unfortunately. Now, do we all know what we're going to do about it? I want to know what we're going to do about handguns. The answer isn't registration. The answer is to stop the manufacture and distribution of them. The only way to do it is through power, which comes out of signatures and money. I want to take out an ad in the TV Guide about it, put John Lennon's name on it, and say, "If you care, send in this coupon." I've had offers of help. Publisher Lester Sills of Screen Gems has offered to let me use his office. There are people in record companies who have offered to put up money-- artists who are willing to do concerts to help pay for ads. Reminiscing isn't important, but this is.

Cute blurry photo

 I am sorry that this photo is in poor quality, but it was too cute not to share. 

Here we have 3 Beatles

 

Paul could use some help

 

On the Bus

 

POP AKTION – STAR MEETING (1976)

Photos by Bob Ellis

 POP AKTION – STAR MEETING

POP Magazine

1976

I used ChatGPT to translate this article from German into English.   I apologize for the translation if it  doesn't make sense.  It is my first time using ChatGPT for translation.  It sure made things easier than the way I have done it in the past.   

POP AKTION – STAR MEETING

**That was really close!

Super star meeting with Paul & Linda McCartney**
Eight POP readers met the ex-Beatle in Berlin

Deutschlandhalle, Berlin, March 23, 1976.
After the Wings concert, Paul and Linda McCartney finished an interview with German television. Now they were in a hurry. After all, eight POP readers were waiting for them. And so they went ahead.

But he didn’t have much time anymore. Because outside the door, eight POP readers were waiting for him. And so they went on.

Ten thousand Berliners were inside the Deutschlandhalle after the stunning Wings concert. But for eight boys and girls, this concert meant even more. Because POP fulfilled their biggest dream: meeting Paul McCartney.

Nervous and jittery, they stood in the anteroom, taking turns hopping from one foot to the other. The excitement was enormous. The photographers, cameramen, and reporters pushed themselves around in the tight space. Everyone tried to get as close as possible to the big dark-haired man in the sheepskin coat. A second passed for each fan before he reached out his hand:

“Hello, I’m Paul — what’s your name?”

“That’s my Hello,” Paul says, and laughs, Linda beside him, and asks, "How old are you?"

The fans are stunned. So uncomplicated was the encounter with the star that they forgot how famous he is. But Paul knows exactly how to put people at ease. Every source later confirms: Paul is a first-class charmer. (Did you get that too? How old are you? “Sixteen,” said the shy Denise.)

Paul usually doesn’t like signing autographs, but on this evening, he made a big exception.

Everyone is happy that there are girls among the eight POP readers, and flirtation breaks out cheerfully. Somebody asks Paul if he was happy that girls were there because it was just like that 10 years ago with the Beatles. And nothing has changed about that until today.

Quietly, Paul answers all the autograph requests and thoughtful questions. One of them: whether his daughter Mary and Stella are sometimes on tour with Wings, and whether he is allowed to see a concert again?

Paul laughs and refers to Linda: “She’s responsible for that.” And Linda explains: “Yes, the children come along on tour. But sometimes it’s too loud for them, so they stay at the hotel. Or the rehearsal runs long — and then it’s too late for them in the evening.”

The two of them are accompanied by Denny Laine and David Cassidy (????) from Wings. David and the two children are totally enchanted.

Then comes the question everyone has been waiting for: “Will the Beatles perform together again on July 5?”  Paul smiles and squints his left eye. “Maybe, perhaps — we’ll see.”

At the moment, he can’t and doesn’t want to say anything definite. He would very much like to work with John, George, and Ringo again. But this summer, with certainty, it won’t be for financial reasons. And money will not be the reason for a Beatles comeback. "We simply have to feel like it." Instead of a temporary reunion of the Beatles, nothing stands in the way of Wings.  That is clear.

Other voices have heard from the best possible source that millions are being offered for a Beatles comeback. But it will not happen — at least not for money. For Paul, it is only possible if it feels right.