Wearing the famed Shea jackets

 ...only no one was calling them the "Shea jackets" when they appeared at the NME Awards concert in 1965.  

An Interview With Ringo (1975)

 

Ringo at the Tommy premiere

An Interview With Ringo

New Musical Express

April 12, 1975

    Ringo was wearing a full-length fur coat. His hair distinguished by greying at the temples. He sits down with brandy and bitter lemon. The matter in hand is the new David Hentschel album from Ring O Records. Startling music turns out to be a freeish representation of Ringo's own Ringo album, from individual tracks to cover.

     "I was thinking of starting a label, and we thought it would be good if he did something for the label, and we thought it would be good if he copied the Ringo album. I mean, he really wanted to do a symphony, but I forced him into it. 

    "Oh yeah, it's gonna be a good company. We're talking to several people at the moment. I mean, lots of people have sent in tapes. Now, George has these really crazy freaks coming in for his label. 'Hey, man, I've just written this new mantra,' but we just get the rock-and-roll people.

     "I don't know whether I'll put myself on the label right now. I can't cause I'm with EMI, but that finishes next year. After that, we'll see if it's a good idea."

 But what of Apple?

     "Well, we still have a couple of buildings. We don't have any artists or anything, cause we are trying to split ourselves up. Apple can't end as such because it will have all the Beatle product. 

    "It's very hard. You sign a piece of paper in two minutes, and it takes you seven years to get out of it. We've got 27 lawyers in L.A. at the moment trying to dissolve our partnership. I'd like the world to be on a shake of the hand.

     "Certainly, if any artists get pissed off, they'll be able to leave my company. With Brian, it was fine. I'd have signed a toilet roll for him."

     Ringo's career is remarkably buoyant at the moment. He admits that after the initial dissolution of the Beatles, he spent a year sitting in his garden wondering what to do.

    But now he has a number one in the U.S. with the "No No Song", which may not be released over here. "We don't think they'll play it over here. I asked at Capital, and they said 'no', and I don't think the BBC would play it. I've never heard it on the radio, and it's on the album, so they could have played it if they wanted to. It's interesting because last year in America we checked out all the stations, and they said they wouldn't play it there either. So we put out "Snookeroo" as the A side, but everyone played the "No No song", which freaked us all out. I mean, there's been no problem at all. Anyway, it's an anti-drug song. You know me. I'm so nice."

     Which is absolutely correct. Meanwhile, his next project is putting together his next album, which he'll regard as his third. (on the basis that Ringo was his first, and both Sentimental Journey and Beaucoups of  Blues were special assignments, effectively prenatal as far as his solo career is concerned.)

     "I don't know whether the third album will be with Richard Perry. Maybe he's busy. Maybe I'm busy. We haven't talked about it. I'm just going back to L.A. next week to try to get some things together for it. Also, Bobby Keyes-he's an old friend of everybody's-and I are going into the studio when I get back to see if we can get anything from it. If it comes off, he'll be on my label. I keep promising myself to do another country album, but I don't seem to have the time.  By the time I've done a pop album, it's the end of the year and time to start again. I'm supposed to be doing a TV show. Graham Chapman has just written me a script. Originally, it was intended to push the Goodnight Vienna album, but it's a bit late for that, so it will now be a different show based on the cover of the album and featuring tracks from it. It's a Python-ish type thing, and go and see Holy Grail. It's really great."

     Ringo also confirms that there are plans for him to make a film with Burt Reynolds, although a shooting schedule has not yet been arranged. He will play the part of Reynolds' dumb servant, and he's still designing furniture with Robin Cruikshank. "We do mirrors as well, and we have the franchise on the Disney characters. That all goes tumbling along. It goes on without me. We design things together, and then Robin runs all the business side."

     "Then Keith Moon and I are trying to get a movie together. Have you heard Moon's album? Some of it's very good, especially the bits I'm on. That never looks very good in print. Anyway, it was a disaster at first, and he knows it, and I know it. But then he got it together. There's a couple of really good tracks. "Solid Gold" should be the single, and he does that old one of ours. "There are places I remember.." 'In My Life." That's it. He's like the new Rex Harrison on that because he semi-talks it."

     Mention of Moon leads to inevitable discussion about Ringo's most recent public appearance, which was at the premiere of Tommy. Me, I'm just waiting for a member of the public to summon Ken Russell for audio/visual assault and battery. But what did our Ringo think of it? "I thought it was amazing. I was stunned, shattered. It was so good. It just blew my brains out. What little I have left. The only thing is, it's ironic because you see it and then you go to a party and get pissed. My reading of the film is that it's about getting yourself together, and lying on the floor in some hotel isn't getting yourself together. The point is that cinema's only just catching up on sound, and it's through rock movies. They had quadraphonic, and now we've got fumfaphonic or whatever. I keep trying to find the fifth speaker. Is it in the ceiling? (In fact, it's placed behind the screen.) It really heightens the movie if you have great sound. But of course, when it gets to Bradford, they're still going to show it just the same. But they'll put it through a teeny speaker."

     Ringo explains that he lives seven months in England, during which time he can see his kids, and five months in L.A. where most of the friends are, as well as the people he likes working and recording with. Yes, he says he is getting divorced, "Just like everyone else, but because it's me, it's some big scene."

     What sort of music is Ringo himself listening to? "Well, there's Harry Nilsson's new album, of course, and Eric's new album has a few fine tracks on it. I listen to a lot of country music and a lot of rock/ pop music. I like Mud. I think they're really a tight little band. Rock and Roll, I think, is a great album, but I'm prejudiced with John anyway, 'cause I like most things he does. The only one I didn't like was Sometime in New York City. I really do think that Walls and Bridges is the finest album in the last five years by anyone.

     Ask what he feels about the contemporary pop scene, Ringo replies that "It's waffling, with no sense of direction. Who knows what could be next? It might be an Italian tenor or something."

Interview with Ringo

Sounds Magazine

April 12, 1975

     "It's not called Ringo Records. It's called Ring O'Records. I thought we'd get a bit Irish, you see, but we had the Dubliners do an ad, and none of them sounded Irish. Five drunken Irishmen, and none of them sounded Irish. I was going to say "It's Ringo Records, and they were going to say, 'Oh no, sorry, 'tis Ring O'Records', and they just sound like they're from Cornwall, so we couldn't use it. It's so silly.

     Someone tells him that the "O" part means "son of", a fact of which he is apparently unaware. "Oh well, I didn't know that. Well, this is son of Ringo. You learn something every day. Did you know that it takes a man two and a half minutes to jump off the Eiffel Tower?" This last is a very accurate Michael Caine impersonation, which is entirely missed by the fact-finding reporter, who knows what "O" means. 'Have you tried it?' She asked. Ah well, try again, Ringo.

     A determined lady from a German pop magazine who wants to know where the record was made. "In my studio." "Yes, but where?" "It's in Ascot." "I know, but whereabouts?" She seemed to be expecting a route map of the district. "It's next to the kitchen," Ringo offers. Eventually, she gives up.

     "And Apple lives?"  "Oh yeah, the four of us. It's still ours. We're all directors of certain companies: I'm Apple Films, George's Apple Records, John is publishing. Paul resigned because he didn't agree at that time with what we were doing."

     You might also be wondering how Ringo, who's played everything from a Mexican gardener to a vicious rapist, everyone from Frank Zappa to Ringo Starr, came to be the Pope. "I finished that last week. It was only a week's work, but it was worth it to work with Ken Russell. I was dressed up, but I had no makeup, and he says, 'Well, you may be playing the Pope, but you look more like Rasputin.' I had this big mitre hat and this cloak and things, and I waxed me mustache. The Loony Pope. Pope Looney."

     Ringo clearly has eyes for Russell's job. "I produced a couple of films, and I don't want to do that again, but in the end, I'd like to direct, which everybody says, but it is the greatest gig. I was mainly in charge of the film about Mark Bolan, and that's why I loved it. But I was in it as well, and at the same time, I was doing Son of Dracula with Harry, which I was producing and was in. That was one of the heaviest years of my life. I'm very lucky because I'm allowed to do a lot of things. I've tried producing movies. I don't want to do that again."

     His recent lack of success seems to surprise Ringo less than it does me. Maybe he could have been a smash if he's done. 'I Can Help,' but I don't know how 'Only You' could miss with nostalgia, a lovely arrangement and a good choice of song, all going for it. I was surprised. "I thought it was such a good track. With the other one, it didn't sell because they wouldn't play it on the radio because it mentions naughty substances. But here, I couldn't sell newspapers. "Back off", and "It Don't Come Easy" did better, but I mean, America is my market. Really, it seems more open in America. It's anybody's game there. Here, they're stuck in their way with five or six groups that can do anything. Right now, it's young Scottish groups or soud music. That's the market. British loyalty lasts for as long as it lasts, there's no discrimination between a good track and a bad track, really."

     Despite its comparative failure here and success in the U.S. of late, Ringo seems determined to keep living here in the house at Ascot, where he was a Lennon's house guest for 18 months before buying it, even though he says he has to keep working to live in this country.

The NME Award winning Beatles

 

May 1, 1966

Beatles Music Straightforward on Next Album (1969)

 Beatles Music Straightforward on Next Album

By Alan Smith

New Musical Express

May 3, 1969

    "If I could only get the time to myself right now, instead of all this Monopoly and financial business with Northern Songs, I think I could probably write about 30 songs a day.  As it is, I probably average about 12 a night. Paul, too, he's mad on it. It's something that gets in your blood. I've got things going round in my head right now, and as soon as I leave here, I'm going around to Paul's place and start work.

     "The way we're writing at the moment, it's straightforward, and there's nothing weird. Songs like 'Get Back'- things like that. We recorded that one on the Apple roof. And I'm not sure if that's the version that went out. We always record about 10 versions. 

    "You get lost in the end. I'm not really interested in the production of our records. In fact, I wish I didn't have to go through the whole thing -- going through the production and balancing the bass and all that. For me, the satisfaction of writing a song is in the performing of it. The production bit is a bore. If some guy would invent a robot to do it, great, but all that, 'get the bass right, get the drums right.' That's a drag to me. All I want to do is get my guitar out and sing songs.

     "I quite fancy giving some live shows, but Ringo doesn't, because he says, you know, it'll just be the same when we get on, nothing different. I can't give you any definite plans for a live show when we're not even agreed on it. We've got to come to an agreement for a start. There's too much going on now for us to even talk realistically about going on tour.

     "In a way, that's why it's unfortunate that all the publicity came out about doing live shows when it did; we were only thinking about it vaguely, but it kind of got out of hand. I suppose the next Great Beatle Event will be the next LP in about eight weeks. A lot of the tracks will be like, 'Get back.' A lot that we did in one take, kind of thing. We've done about 12 tracks, some of them still to be remixed.

     "Paul and I are now working on a kind of song montage that we might do as one piece on one side. We've got two weeks to finish the whole thing. So we're really working at it. All the songs we're doing sound normal to me, but probably they might sound unusual to you. There's no 'Revolution #9' there, but there's a few heavy sounds. I couldn't pin us down to being on a heavy scene or a commercial pop scene or a straight, tuneful scene. We're just on whatever's going--- just rocking along.

     "The follow-up to 'Get Back' is 'The Ballad of John and Yoko'. It's something I wrote, and it's like an old-time ballad. It's the story of us going along, getting married, going to Paris, going to Amsterdam, all that. It's 'Johnny B Paperback Writer', as I say. We don't want to release it straight away, because it might kill the sales, and I suppose we're cowards that way.

     "I don't regard it as a separate record scene. It's the Beatles' next single, simple as that. The story came out that only Paul and I were on the record, but I wouldn't have bothered publicizing that. It doesn't mean anything. It just so happened that there were only two of us there. George was abroad, and Ringo was on the film, and he couldn't come that night. Because of that, it was a choice of either remixing or doing a new song, and you'll always go for doing a new one instead of fiddling around with an old one. So we did, and it turned out well.

     "As for this financial business that's going on, it does get in the way of the writing, but I don't find it that much of a drag. It is. It is that much of a drag. It's like Monopoly, what with all these bankers and played around a big table with all these heavies, you know, the bit, 'then I'll give you the Strand or Old Kent Road', and you say, 'No, you give me two houses.' It's just like that. Really, the outcome of this whole financial business doesn't matter. We'll still be making records, and somebody will be copping some money, and we'll be copping some money, and that'll be that. 

    "I don't have any involvement in Mary Hopkin's records. It's pure Paul. But there is one discovery I'd like to promote. I think I'm going to make a pop record with Yoko. I've got this other song we've been singing last night, and I think it would be quite a laugh for her to do a pop record. It's one I've written myself, and it's about Yoko, but I'll just change the word Yoko to John, and she can sing it about me.

     "This TV film, Rape, we did for Austrian TV--- so it didn't get fantastic reviews, but then neither does every record the Beatles make. Hell, do you remember the reviews of "Hey Jude?" I remember Stuart Henry saying, 'Och weel, y' either like it orr y' don't.' The critics are the same with Rape. It's a good film, and we stand by it. There's a few people  who understand it, and the rest have no idea. They don't know the difference between Jean-Luc Godard and Walt Disney.

    It's funny. The critics can accept it from Luc Godard, but they can't accept it from us, too, because they're so hung up on who Yoko and I are and what we do that they can't see the product. But that'll die, and Yoko and I will just have to overcome our image, and people will have to judge us on our art, not the way we look. 

    "You can say Paul and I are writing separately these days. We do both. When it comes to needing 500 songs by Friday, you've got to get together. I definitely find I work better when I got a deadline to meet. It really frightens you. You've got to chum them out all the time. I'm sort of arranging things in my mind. The film that The Beatles recently made of us recording and working. Somebody is editing that at the moment, it's 68 hours, and they're trying to get it down to five for several TV specials, or then it might be a movie. I don't know. 

    "This image thing that people are always on about with the Beatles' image is something in Joe Public's eye. That's why it's a drag when people talk about fresh-faced Beatles like it was five years ago. I mean, we're always changing, like the TV clip of 'Get Back.' Now I've got the beard, Paul is clean-shaven, and George is the one with the mustache. Even I can't keep up with our own image, I come into Apple one day, and there's George with a new head on him. So if that's the way it is with us, I tell you, the public doesn't stand a chance of keeping up with how we look. Anyway, who we are, is up to ourselves. Personally, music is what's important. As far as that's concerned. 

    "In my case, Yoko and I stimulate each other like crazy. For instance, did you know she's trained as a classical musician? I didn't know that until this morning. In college, she majored in classical composition. I've just written a song called  'Because.'  Yoko was playing some classical bit, and I said, 'Play that backward', and we had a tune. We'll probably write a lot more in the future.

     I've written with other people as well. For instance, there's this mad thing I wrote half with our electronic genius Alex. It was called, 'What a Shame Mary Jane had a Pain at the Party,' and it was meant for the last Beatles album. It was real madness, but we never released it, and I'd like to do it again. There was another song I wrote around Pepper time that's still in the can called, 'You Know My Name, Look Up the Number.' That's the only words to it. It just goes on all the way like that. And we did these mad backings, but I never finished it, and I must.

     Why did we spring 'Get Back' on the public so suddenly? Well, we'd been talking about it since we recorded it, and we kept saying, 'That's a single.' Eventually, we got so fed up talking about it. We suddenly said, 'Okay, that's it. Get it out tomorrow.'

Paul is Still Seeking (1968)

 Paul is Still Seeking, but George Has Found Great Faith

By Norrie Drummond

New Musical Express

1968

    As most people must have noticed, the Beatles have undergone a major change in the past year. The mop tops have gone and been replaced by four highly individual, creative personalities, the "yeah yeahs" and the "oohs" have given way to sitars and melotrons.

     The Beatle boots and round-collared jackets have been discarded and replaced by kaftans and beads. No longer is it news when they are seen at clubs or theaters. At last, the screams are fading away.

     To find out more about the great Beatles transformation, I visited Paul McCartney at his St John's Wood home recently. I told my taxi driver the address. "Oh, you mean where that Beatle lives?" he said. No more than half a dozen fans were waiting patiently at the massive iron gates of his house. 

    The gates were opened by his housekeeper, Mrs. Mills. ("She still hasn't given me a tune yet", says Paul), who led me into the lounge. 

    Paul's huge Old English sheepdog, Martha, bounded forward, leaped up, put both paws on my shoulder, and started chewing my tie. His three cats, Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, were crawling over each other underneath the television set.

     Paul, dressed in a green floral-pattern shirt and green slacks, sat cross-legged in a large, green velvet armchair. Mike McGear, Paul's brother, was just leaving with several kaftans over his arm. A large Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band poster was pinned to one wall. His book collection includes many works on yoga and meditation.

     At the moment, all four Beatles are on holiday, although they have been recording. "When I used to tell you we didn't know what our plans were, it was simply that we hadn't been told what we were going to be doing. Now we simply just don't know. "

    Mrs. Mills reappeared bearing cups of tea and a large cream sponge. "The only thing lined up for us is the TV show," said Paul, stirring his tea. "But we're still trying to work out the format. We've also been recording the past few nights, and our next album will probably come from the TV show."

     Anything that The Beatles now indulge in, they obviously do for love, not for money. "We can now sit back and pick and choose what we want to do. We're not going to turn out records or films just for the sake of it. We don't want to talk unless we've got something to say.

     "When you don't have to make a living, a job has a different meaning. Most people have to earn a wage to live. If you don't, you take a job to relieve the boredom, but you do something which gives you pleasure. We enjoy recording, but we want to go even farther. I would like to come up with a completely new form of music. Invent new sounds. I want to do something, but I don't really know what.

     "At the moment, I'm thinking things out. There seems to be a pause in my life right now, a time for reassessment."

    I ask Paul if he ever regarded himself as being rather like a retired man of 65, who was now only pottering around, dabbling in his favorite hobby. To a certain extent, he was inclined to agree. "I don't regard myself as having retired, but what do most people do when they retire? As you say, they become wrapped up in a hobby, either that or they find another job. I would like to do something else, but what that will be, I don't know."

     Despite the fact that three of the Beatles are married, and they are, all four of them, very different individuals, they still have that same bond of loyalty to each other that they have always had. They're still each other's best friends.

     If they are asked to do something as a group and any one of them doesn't want to take part, then the scheme is dropped. "If three of us wanted to make a film, for instance, and the fourth didn't think it was a good idea,  we'd forget about it, because the fourth person would have a very good reason for not wanting to do it."

     In the past year, Paul has become a much more introspective person. He is constantly striving to discover more about himself and about other people. What is Depression? Why do people become bored? What is the ultimate goal? These are questions to which Paul has tried to find the answers in books on meditation and lectures by men who know more about it than he does. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is playing a big part in developing the Beatles' minds. He is the man who gave them strength when they heard of Brian Epstein's tragic death.

     "I'm more tolerant now than I was, and I feel more at ease myself, but I am now less certain about many things," said Paul. "In some ways, I envy George, because he now has great faith. He seems to have found what he's been searching for. 

    "When we went to India, we were amazed. So many people living in terrible poverty-but everyone was so happy. They were always laughing and smiling, even though most of them were starving. For people in the Western world to understand why these people can be so happy is a very difficult thing.

     With John. George,and Ringo, Paul will be flying to India again shortly to study transcendental meditation with Maharishi. 

    To a certain extent, Paul's music is his greatest emotional outlet. "Ravi Shankar discovered himself through his music, and I suppose in many ways we are too."

     This is apparent in their latest albums, which feature many tracks based on personal experiences. But how far can one go with any new art form, be it music, film, or theater? Will the great general public accept it? 

    "We've never set out with the sole intention of trying to please people. It's been wonderful that so many have appreciated what we've done. We don't want to come to a point where we wave cheerio to anyone. We want to take them along with us. "

    Paul McCartney certainly is more at ease now and much more tolerant and understanding, but he's still searching for something. Whether or not he'll ever find it, I just don't know, but he is determined to somehow.

When a Beatle Had to be Carried From His Bed (1967)

 

When a Beatle Had to be Carried From His Bed

No author listed

New Musical Express

1967

    Dawn had not broken. A sleek but mud-splattered Rolls-Royce trundled from a deserted courtyard of a shuttered Spanish villa. Two figures stared silently through dark, smoked windows as the Rolls gathered speed along narrow, empty roads. They wore an odd assortment of Second World War army uniforms and listened to the unbroken Arabic wailing from radio Tangier on the car radio.

     A bizarre happening?  Not at all!

    It was just the beginning of another hectic day, shooting of the film How I Won the War for sleepy-eyed John Lennon and actor Michael Crawford. "I don't think John had ever been up that early before," joked Michael, recalling the three months they spent together in Spain filming the scenes for the film in which John goes solo.

     Grinning, Michael said, "We had to carry him from his bed to his Rolls. We had to be on the set by eight. It meant that we had to be up before six some days to be on location for eight. John didn't want any special treatment. He was just one of the boys, and he mucked in with any arrangements. But I think it was a bit of a strain for him getting up that early."

     John played Michael's army batman in Beatles filmmaker dick Lester's anti-war film. Michael believes John mentioned the film and the lyrics of  "A Day in the Life." Michael and John became good friends after meeting at the premiere of Dick Lester's award winning film, The Knack which starred Michael and Rita Tushingham. 

    Said Michael, "John and I never bothered to change out of the army uniforms at the end of the day's shooting. John's hair was very short for the part of Private Gripweed. He wore rimless glasses and a long army greatcoat. I wore knee-length khaki shorts and shirt. For my part."

     John's offbeat appearance shielded the famous Beatle from too much local publicity. "He had a fairly peaceful time," reported Michael, "but it's easy to understand how little privacy The Beatles have. When we were filming in Germany, we were mobbed all the time. I say 'we' because we were with John. We suffered the same as John. It's terrifying. John had to literally crouch down in the Rolls to avoid being seen. We never had a moment's peace when we were out. I remember we were alone by the side of a lake, like the ad for 'Players.'" laughed Michael. "We were sitting there silently when we saw some photographers skulking about in the bushes. When we were filming in Spain, the locals knew something was happening when they saw the Rolls, but we didn't have much trouble. At weekends when we were at the villa, locals sometimes sauntered through the main gates looking for John."

     John and Cynthia and Michael and his wife, Gabrielle, and young daughter Emma, shared a luxury villa owned by film tycoon Sam Spiegel on the outskirts of Almeria. Ringo, and Maureen stayed with them for six weeks. "It was a dreadful place," groaned Michael. "There was nothing to do in the evenings. John and I had a running joke about who would be the first to catch the night train to Madrid. We didn't do much in the evenings except play Monopoly and Risk. We were very tired after a day of filming, and we didn't go out much. Sometimes, Dick Lester and John had a jam session on the piano. John was always good company. He was never dull."

     Surprisingly, cricket became a favorite outdoor pastime for John and Michael, and the film team. Explains, Michael, "When there were breaks in the film, we found a hard stretch of sand and set up a wicket. John enjoyed the game and became a good bowler at the end of the filming." 

     John wrote "Strawberry Fields" and worked on another song. 

    Recalled Michael, "John shut himself in his bedroom and worked out melodies on a guitar. I heard him playing the same bar over and over again until he got the right sequence. It was marvelous listening to how a song was created. I think he was writing 'Strawberry Fields' while we were on the Spanish location. It was a very pretty tune without the technicalities of the actual record. I like the recording, but I must say I like the original treatment best."

     Michael is sure  that John used the sound of the night train to Madrid or something similar on "Strawberry Fields." Crawford smiled. "John was the first to catch the night train to Madrid. He was away two days before us."

     He paused: "But the end of the recording certainly reminded me of the last train to Madrid. John always said he was going to write a song about THAT train!"  

Winners again

April 11, 1965
 

He can do it while standing on one leg!

 

Another NME Award for his shelf

February 17, 2005
 

Naughty Paul

February 1, 2000 -  Paul at the NME awards 

NME Award Winners

 April 26, 1964 

Poll Winners

 

April 21, 1963 -- NME Poll Winners -  That last photo looks like the most stero-typically Beatles performing in 1963 photo.   

Award winning performance

 

Watching his boys NME

 

Play that bass, Paul

 

May 1, 1966

Suits

 April 21, 1963

A view from behind.

 

Anyone else think Ringo really should be on the drum riser with the stars on it instead of the one with the stripes?   The Who ended up using the star one.  

*Thanks to the Deep Beatles page on Facebook for posting this photo

First "Shea Stadium" Suit sighting?

N.M.E. Awards April 11, 1965