Rock Talk (Ringo Interview 1976)

Ringo at Paul's party, June 24, 1976

 

Rock Talk

By Lisa Robinson

Sun Post News

July 2, 1976

    The speculation ran rampant in Los Angeles last week that Wings' final U.S. concert would feature a Beatles reunion, but there never was a chance. As Paul McCartney got on stage for his last LA Forum show, and the four old Beatles LPs were on the charts, John Lennon summered on Long Island. George Harrison finished recording in London, and Ringo Starr prepared to leave his house in the Hollywood Hills and fly the Concorde to Paris. 

    The day before his departure, Ringo talked about that possible reunion. His casual LA costume, Indian cotton shirt over a bathing suit, was livened up by jewelry, one gold and diamond earring, neck chains, and, of course, his assortment of rings. Ringo's eyes are amazingly blue, and even after all these years, that Liverpool accent is unmistakable. 

    Sipping white wine in his playroom filled with Gene Autry and Beatles Memorabilia, Ringo said, "Despite what anyone said, we have talked about doing a show together, and we've been offered more than $50 million. But then we said, 'What are we bothered for?' People have told me, 'You've got to do it for the money.' Well, if I wanted to do it, I wouldn't do it for the money, I'd do it for a laugh, I'd probably do it for free. 

    "But if we did do something, the audience might still want us to be the mop tops." Ringo smiled. "They'd probably expect me to nod my head.

     "The only way I could see something happening now would be for all of us to go into a studio where we could sit with each other for a while. But to get the four of us in one room is physically very hard. Paul might visit me, or I'll visit John, but we're never all in the same place at the same time.  Even when we were the closest band in the world," Ringo continued, "except for the time when we were on tour, or when we were locked into a recording studio, we weren't together all the time. When we'd go back into the studio, it would take us about a week to be able to relax with each other.

     "I'm not the greatest drummer," Ringo added. "John isn't the greatest guitarist, George isn't the greatest lead guitarist. Paul is a fine bass player, but when we were into each other, we were telepathic because we knew each other so well. That's why the music was so good. 

    "We see each other now, but we have the human right to fight and also to love each other. I can say anything I like about any of them, but don't you put them down. They're family, probably the only family I have ever really had.

     "I'm sure I'll be called ex-Beatle until I die," said Ringo. "The guy who reads my urn when it comes out of the ashes will say 'ex-Beatle Richard Starkey'. Sometimes it's a burden, but I'm proud as well." And Ringo smiles, "It gets me a seat at restaurants."

     Does he think there could ever be anything quite as big as the Beatles again? "An Italian tenor", Ringo replied, straight-faced. "In 1974, I was sure that an Italian tenor would do a nationwide TV broadcast and be bigger than we were."

With Lisa Robinson at the Grammy Awards

 

Rock Stars Roll in Weath but Keep Working Anyway (1976)

 

This is part of a larger article written about wealthy rock stars in the 1970s and how they balance performing and home life and if it is necessary to keep performing.  I just took out the part about John and Paul because it is all that is of interest on this site.   I don't know of many John interviews in 1976, so it caught my eye. 

Rock Stars Roll in Wealth but Keep Working Anyway

By Lisa Robinson

April 9, 1976

    John Lennon has been through the whole thing, up, down, sideways, fame, touring, adulation, girls, money, marriages, lawsuits, immigration problems. Since the Beatles' breakup, he's been through various wild stages and has recently settled down with his wife, Yoko, and newborn son, Sean, in New York City.

     Lennon traded an active rock-and-roll life for a peaceful family existence, with no regrets. But he's still a rock and roller at heart, even though he doesn't miss the road. 

    "When I think of 38 cities and all the sweating around, I don't miss it," John told me over tea in his sprawling New York apartment, which overlooked Central Park." Also, the gigs now are so big," added John. "I might want to do a club, but then people would say, 'Oh, Lennon couldn't make it in the big halls.' I couldn't do that 38 city thing. Even though I know it sells records, I prefer the recording studio where you can control things."

     As his audience has grown up and calmed down a bit, would a Beatles reunion concert ever be possible? "Well," smiled the man who never has to work again. "I can see the headlines now, but I know we'd get an audience. When we see each other these days, there isn't any tension. So you never know. But as Ringo said," Lennon added. "If you say yes, then it's positive, and if you say no, then it's negative. So there's no talk about it. But when we're together, we're happy. 

    "It would be hard to do a Beatles concert, because it could never be good enough for all those people who have this dream of how wonderful we were and how good it was. Our music would sound the same, only better, though, because we're all better now."

     Would you ever do "I want to hold your hand?"

     "Yes," John laughed, "We'd do a good version of that."

     Although former Beatle, Paul McCartney, does tour with his group Wings, and his solo and Wings albums have sold well into the millions, he also spends much of his year in Scotland, with his wife and current musical partner, Linda and their three daughters. 

    "I have to tour in a way that doesn't make me nervous," McCartney told me last year. "Do a gradual build up. Smallish dates before the big ones. Yes, I get nervous about all kinds of things.

     "The real truth about any kind of Beatles stuff is that we're going to have to wait and see," McCartney smiled, talking in his Abbey Road Studio with Linda by his side. "I wouldn't like the group to reform and carry on full time, because it went full circle, but I think it was a great band, even though technically and funk-wise, it could have been better, but we were quite jolly."

George Harrison Back on Upswing

This photo seems to match the description given in the article, so I believe it was taken on the same day.  

 

George Harrison Back on Upswing

By Lisa Robinson

Tuscon Citizen

December 21, 1976

    "I was thinking of how to tour next time," George Harrison told me.  "And a way I could do it with Indian musicians, because that was such a fantastic party, traveling with them last time. Perhaps on a Monday night, I could do the rock and roll concert at Madison Square Garden, while on the same night, the Indian musicians could do the classical concert at Carnegie Hall. Then the next night would have the Loony Jazz Rock and Roll Indian Band playing at Radio City Music Hall, and it would be all of us together.  That way, one bunch gets to hear "Here Comes the Sun", while the other hears "Rawanawa", and the next night, it's "Zum Zum Zum""

    . But George has probably learned his lesson attempting to turn his audience onto Indian musicians. For when he tours the US this summer, it won't be with the above and slightly tongue-in-cheek plan.

     What George does plan is a tour with a package that includes his friend, rock singer Gary Wright, as well as members of the hilarious British Monty Python troupe. The concerts will be multimedia events that will feature the music of Harrison and Wright and the skits, films, and songs of the Pythons.

     George's affection for the Monty Pythons is well known. He is particularly friendly with Python Eric Idle, who did a satirical Beatles film called The Rutles for Saturday Night Live. George also joined the Monty Python cast on stage at New York City Center last year and donned the appropriate Mounted Police costume for a rousing chorus of the "Lumberjack Song".

     "I think it's time I talk to people," said George Harrison. "I haven't really said much for a couple of years.,"

     And George hasn't had an easy time these past few years. He admits to being unhappy about recent "negative" albums, and George's 1974 US tour that included a troupe of classical Indian musicians, was met with a largely negative reaction. In addition, he was recovering from a bout with hepatitis this past summer, and finished his new album in London when he was successfully sued for his song, "My Sweet Lord," And it was claimed a rip-off of the 1963 Chiffons hit "He's So Fine."

     Then, when he returned to Los Angeles with the ready album under his arm, George was informed that A &M Records, which housed both George and Dark Horse Records label, had brought suit against him for ten million for nondelivery of the LP. That legal hassle was eventually settled out of court, and George switched labels for both himself and Dark Hourse to Warner Brothers, where he has been greeted with unlimited enthusiasm.

     Interviewed in his Los Angeles home atop Beverly Glen Canyon, George was in a very good mood indeed, smoking Gitanes, wearing jeans and a Dark Horse t-shirt, George Harrison was very up about his new album, 33 1/3.

 Are you getting used to lawsuits?

 George:  Yeah. The Beatles started out as musicians, you know, and we got sucked into it as if we were lawyers or accountants. It's unbelievable. It's a pain in the neck. Really. The Beatles' depositions were terrible, but the next worst thing was the "My Sweet Lord" lawsuit. 

You see a lot of people sue people like us because it's aggravation for us, and they think we'll settle. The guy who wrote that song they were complaining about, "He's So Fine", actually died in 1967 or 1968, so he never even heard "My Sweet Lord". And I'm sure if he was a musician, he wouldn't have flinched, but the guy who is his accountant took over the company. He was a real sneak. Just saw this as money pouring out of the sky into his lap.

 When you wrote it or first played it back, you never realized it sounded the same?

George: No. I went through all this in court. See, in 1968, the big song was "Oh, Happy Day". And that was the song for me. It was so up and positive. And I thought it was great to be able to do something both spiritual and commercial. What's the point of doing something that no one's going to hear? So I really wanted to come up with something like that. That, incidentally, the chord changes on "My Sweet Lord" are the same as on, "Oh Happy Day"

 Anyway, I was playing "Hallelujah" on the guitar over and over one day, and I put in "Hare Krishna", and it fit both in syllables and in rhythm and in the meaning of the glorification of God, I thought it was a good way of getting Hare Krishna into the song. So then I did some scat singing to tie all the parts together.

And what had been just a big chorus eventually got refined into a sequence for recording. The entire lawsuit was hinging on the first three notes of the song, as well as the four notes of the chorus, but the sheet music for the song was just what happened to come out on that recording date. For all I know, those same notes could have been arranged differently on another date.

 Don't you think the two songs sound the same?

George: Well, I finally realized it by the time the song came out on the radio in 1970, and a few disc jockeys got off on the idea. But you can listen to a number of records and hear other songs in them. In my mind, I don't consider it a lift because I was trying to do "Oh Happy Day" and I was trying, in some subtle way, to unite the eastern and western things of hallelujah and Hare Krishna. 

How has it affected you?

George:  Well, it was a heavy, emotional thing to have to go into court and play the guitar and all these records. All the secretaries from the other courts came. It was like, "Oh, let's go see George give a concert in court."

 My new single, "This Song," is all about it, and I've tried to sneak in some bits like "This tune there's nothing bright about it." That was the name of the company, Bright Tunes vs Harrisongs. 

It has put me through a real bad period of paranoia, though, because every time I pick up a guitar. I think, 'oh, no, this sounds like...' I can't help it. I do it all the time now.

 Is it difficult being an ex Beatle"

 George:  Yes. As Derek Taylor (former Beatles press officer, now head of Warner Brothers Records in England) would say, being born in Liverpool carries with it certain responsibilities.

 How do you react to a $5 million offer to reunite the Beatles, like the one made by the promoter Bill Sargent?

George: Well, since that man also was to have promoted that match with the shark, my suggestion about that was that  Sargent would fight the shark in the tank. The winner could promote the Beatles concert.

 You have said that you would never want to play with Paul McCartney again.

 George:  I couldn't see it. Obviously, if we did, it would be a  compromise. But you know, I went to school with Paul. He was a year older than me. I met him when I was 13, and we were together for 17 years till we split. People in America think we got together around 1964 and split up in 1968, but from 1956, I was hanging out with Paul, and a little bit after that with John. When you're so close, you tend to lock each other up in pigeon holes. And for me, it was difficult, because musically, with Ringo and John, I had no problem, but with Paul, well, it reached a point where he wouldn't allow me to play on the sessions.

 I saw these things because it was part of us splitting up, but at the same time, I have a tendency to defend Paul, John, and Ringo, too. If anyone else said anything without qualification about them. After going through all that together, there must be something good about it. It was all part of a solid experience. It was just around 1968 that everybody's ego started going crazy. 

How could that not have happened?

 George:  I don't know. Maybe it was just a lack of tact or discretion, but a lot of feelings got hurt. And probably the biggest problem of all was there was no way Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney were going to be in the Beatles. They really helped put the nail in the coffin, and that said, without any bitterness against Yoko or Linda, because I can really enjoy them as people. But let's face it, the Beatles were not with Yoko and Linda. The only thing that would get us together again is if we really wanted to be in each other's company so badly and to make music together.