1973 -- Another Chapter in the Adventures of....

Ringo at his office at the St. James Apple office in 1973

The Apple Offices where the story takes place

1973---Another Chapter in the Adventures of...

By Kris Spackman

With a Little Help From My Friends 

October 1975

    For the benefit of new members, in 1973 some friends and I were lucky enough to spend five wonderful months in Merry Ould in London, in which many lovely adventures passed our way.

     And so continuing in the backward tradition of the eastside: the story of George and the office party.

     T'was the day before the official Apple Christmas party, and we arrived as usual at the offices to find the place buzzing with activity. There was to be an informal office Christmas party/luncheon, carefully planned by our pals and Apple kitchen Cooks: Angela and Margo (Tony King's secretary and ex-Apple Scruff.) So while things began to move inside, Marie, Kathy, Pattie, and I took our positions on the steps outside to wait for Ringo, who Ang assured us was to arrive "shortly."

     Every few minutes or so, either she or Margo would pop out to chat, and then Margo totally surprised us by bringing out four glasses of white wine in elegant, curving wine glasses!  Toasting each other, her and the New Year, we giggled over the prospect of being picked up for public intoxication as a couple of cops who directed traffic out front on busy St James Street. The fact that the wine was our breakfast didn't help, but we certainly enjoyed it.  Next, Ang bombarded us with plates of turkey, vegetables, and sweets. I'm sure the gang inside couldn't have been enjoying themselves half as much as we were in our rather chilly December picnic. 

    But as if that weren't enough, moments later, Tony King opened the door and invited us in (maybe he  was afraid Marla'd add some additional stains to her mayonnaise stain left from one of our waiting lunches.)

     Yes again! Never one to refuse a promising invitation, we trooped inside, buoyed by the wine and Ang's happy smile. It was such a great feeling to be welcomed by most of the Apple people, and further delighted when Robin (Ringo's furniture partner) Cruikshank's secretary, gave us a lovely Christmas card from Robin and his assistant, Craig.

     The St James Street office consists of a main reception room stretching almost the length of the building and decorated with Apple albums. Off to its side are Tony King's office and numerous accountants' offices, which face Benet Street to the side. The kitchens were in the basement, Ringo's, Neil's, Robin's, and Hilary Gerard's offices were all upstairs on that secluded second floor.

    In Tony's office, tables full of food and drink were set up, and most of the employees were crammed in, sitting in circles on chairs, couches, floors, wherever there was room, and we were eating and talking.  Tony steered us to the food line and instructed us to help ourselves. We did mostly to wine, which is a terrific remedy for nerves. We mingled as best we could, thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

     At one point, Kathy and Mar had their heads together with Peter Bendry, plotting on  their getting into the party the next night. Pattie and I were having a really nice chat with Robin, who is one of the nicest people I've ever met. I stood facing the doorway, Pattie with her back to it. I looked up and suddenly went cold all over, literally frozen to that spot for who should be standing in said very doorway?  None other than ol' Harri G. himself! Have you ever tried to remain calm, cool, and collected when you can hear your heart pounding away like a semi barreling down the freeway?! And the fact that your legs continue to support you is not only a total amazement for yourself than an other other scientific phenomena!! Through gritted teeth and a pasty smile, I mumbled subtly, "Pattie!!! George!!!!" And the two frozen zombies carried on a perfectly normal conversation with Robin.

 The object of all these "ice capades", meantime, continued to stand for a minute or two in the doorway scanning the goings on with that "take it all in at a glance" Harrison stare. He was wearing jeans, a red plaid heavy jacket, and a darling denim one. A moment later, he was back in the lobby where he was sacosted by Tony King, who threw his arms around him in greeting. The next instant he was gone (he went upstairs, we guessed.) And who could blame him after all that?

     Somehow, Mar and Kath had totally missed him, and without being terribly obvious, we managed to get the word to them that he was there, and then pass it to Angela, who disappeared to summon Anna Maria.  The party carried on, and somehow, so did we. Shortly after Terry Doran, sporting a 10-gallon hat, popped in and joined one of the groups. And suddenly there was George again, strolling in, smiling and nodding hello to his employees as he moved to join Terry's group. When he when his glance fell on us, we knew he knew we were "unofficial", but he nodded and smiled just the same. Whew!

    Once again, they were only in the room for a short time, and as they left to go upstairs, the party began to slowly break up. By this time Anna Maria had arrived, and we somehow got the word he'd only be a "short time."  As we drifted back into the lobby, who should we find, but Maureen and her mother, which meant obviously that Ringo had arrived and obviously slipped past us!

     Gathering up coats and all our miscellaneous junk, we returned to our steps to wait and see what would happen next. We sure didn't have long to wait. In 15 minutes, he was back down, bopping around the lobby until Terry joined him, and out they came. One of the drivers had taken his car, so we couldn't imagine where they were going to go. He said, "Hello", and suddenly amazed us by standing out into the street and across to the other side. A bit scary too, since you usually took your life in your hands if you cross St James in the crosswalk. Terry followed, and off they went down Jermaine Street towards Piccadilly. 

    Mar and Kath, meanwhile, had been across the street at Mokaris, a restaurant we often went to, and we dashed over to see if they'd seen him pass. They hadn't.  Anna's efforts to get out of work for the remainder of the day had failed; she then caught a cab back to her office, and, as a cab driver headed down Piccadilly Street, nearing the Circus, who should she see? But you guessed it -- George, all smiles, gabbing away with Terry. 

    A long afternoon passed by, the only point of interest occurring when Maureen and the mother-in-law took their leave around four. Neal, son of Sid (our dear friend from Morgan's studio days) turned up looking for us. Good ol' Sid knew just where to send him! He no sooner sat down when he got an additional surprise as Elton John showed up and was unfriendly!  He went into Tony K's office, and moments later, Ringo came down to see him.

    Shortly after, Neal took Mar, Kath, and Pattie round the corner to the pub for a quickie. And of course, it was at that point that George decided to return. Yours truly was comfortably curled up on the steps and engrossed in the Evening Standard crossword puzzle and almost missed him completely. He smiled and said "Hello", and I'm sure he was thinking, "Well, it takes all kinds."

     As he went inside, I watched until he disappeared up the stairs again, then made a mad dash to get the girls. Pattie came back with me. Then Anna Maria and Elena arrived, and suddenly, more people began to arrive. Keith Moon's girlfriend with a bunch of little kids,  Mickey Dolanz's and his wife, Apple employees with their kids. And we came to the conclusion that the party was still going on.

 Ang popped out for a moment to quickly report that Tony King was peeved because he had to Christmas shop for George and Ringo, and also that Harry Nillson was upstairs (it would therefore be a long night we thought ). Maureen and mom-in-law also made a reappearance, and Angela, worn out, caught a cab home.

     It was nearly 8pm when Peter, Ringo's driver, came out to load up the car, telling us that it would only be a few minutes. Was he true to his word! Almost before he'd gotten the words out of his mouth, George was in the lobby. While we scrambled to ditch the Cokes and sandwiches we were dining on, he came strolling out with Terry. He looked first at Anna and Pattie on one side and said, "Hello. How are you?" Then Elena and I with a "Hello". He didn't stop, but added, "Well, I'll see you...." And looked at me. All I could manage was a smile and say "Soon."  We watched him walk around the corner to his car. Of course, being that we expected him to drive off, he pulled a fast one on us and suddenly got back out of the car, but was only to go quickly back inside to give something to Sarge. And with the goodbye, he was on his way. Terry at the wheel.

     Watching him go, I was suddenly numb with exhaustion, but too happy to care. I just couldn't believe we'd seen him five times in one day. Following this, Anna, Kathy, and Pattie decided to call it a night and head for home, while Mar, Elena, and I opted to wait for Ringo. Mother-in-law had come down and got in the car, so we figured he couldn't be too much longer, and poor ol' Peter, he got stuck sitting in the car keeping her company. 

    By 8:20, Ringo Mo and Nilsson were in the lobby, where they lingered chatting for a few minutes. Ringo looked just adorable, all in black, except for a purple shirt. As always, his solemn nod and "good night, girls," first to us, then to Elena, just tickled and delighted us. Harry accompanied them to the car, where they talked for a few minutes more, teasing Mo about something and laughing. Nilsson kissed her goodbye, and they too were finally on their way. 

    The party was still going on upstairs. As he returned to the building, Harry said "hello" to us, and really surprised me by telling me that I was a "smiler."  With one George and one Ringo around, who can help it, I ask you? 

Staring at George

 

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."

Wings are Back

 

April 8, 1981 -- Wings might not be recording or performing together any more but on this night in 1981, Wings were back on the  big screen at the premiere of "Rock Show."  Paul was there to greet fans and to mingle at the after party.  

First time on a rooftop

April 1961 -  George, John and Paul on the rooftop of the Top Ten Club in Hamburg
 

Will the Real Richard Starkey Please Stand Up? (1968)

 Will the Real Richard Starkey Please Stand Up?

By Alan Walsh

Melody Maker

March 16, 1968

    "Just because the others are in India, I get all the interviews,"  grinned Ringo Starr as we settled into armchairs at NEMS new Mayfair headquarters. Ringo is back in Britain. Chirpy, cheerful, he sipped his sixth cup of coffee of the afternoon and answered questions readily and patiently. 

    Ringo has been regarded as the Beatle in the shadows, but he has his own views on things. He agreed that their new single was based loosely on Humphrey Lyttleton's 1956 hit "Bad Penny Blues," talked of India and the Maharishi, and denied he was losing interest in meditation, and spoke of his schizoid life as both Beatle Ringo Starr and plain private Richard Starkey, two people to him, but overlapping into his private and public lives. There was sadness in his final remarks on his dual existence. "I try and keep them separate, but you can't," he said.

 Q: 'Lady Madonna' has been called almost a return to rock and roll. Is this true? 

Ringo: Yes. That's what it is-- almost a return to rock and roll.

 Q: Can you explain what you were trying to do in this record?

 Ringo:  The thing is, we've been trying to make a rock n roll record for five years now. Because rock n roll has suddenly hit the headlines-the great revival. Because this one is a rocker (a slight one). Anyway, people are saying it's a rock n roll record. 

Q:  When did you start thinking about the record? 

Ringo:  Paul thought of it originally. He did it like Fats Waller first.  I heard it in the studio. Paul plays piano on it. What he's doing on piano is sort of 'Bad Penny Blues.'  We said to George Martin, 'How did they do it on 'Bad Penny Blues?'  And he said they used brushes. So I used brushes, and we did a track with just brushes and the piano, and then we decided we needed an offbeat. So we put an offbeat on it, and then Paul decided to sing it in his sort of Elvis voice.

 Q:  Many people thought it was you singing.

 Ringo: Yes, a lot of people did. It didn't sound like me to me.

 Q: Is this as near as you've got to a rock number in five years? 

Ringo: Ever since rock n roll, rock n roll records have been made, but people forgot to say rock n roll. All through the years, there have been people who have come out with rock n roll records, but now suddenly everyone wants rock ' n ' roll to come back. So they're saying, 'this is a rock record', and 'that's a rock record.'

     They picked out records that have an offbeat or a saxy thing or a Duane Eddie thing. They're calling ours rock n roll, and the Moves 'Fire Brigade', and Elvis's record. I don't think anyone will ever go back to rock n roll as it was years ago. The reissues will be the only ones, because there's so much more musical influence now from all the years that have gone by.

     Rock originally was influenced by country and western and blues, mainly, but now we've had 10 or 15 different types. So all the new rock-and-roll records will have a bit of that in them as well. They'll be technically a bit more advanced and have a lot more musicians in them.  I don't think it's really your old rock n roll. It's just a title. 

Q: This single is very different from the sort of Beatles music on Sgt. Pepper, for example.

 Ringo:  We always try to be different. If people hadn't been saying the great rock n roll revival, we most probably still would have done this record, and it would have been just the new Beatles single. It wouldn't have been rock n roll. Beatles. 

Q: How do you feel about the early days of rock and roll? 

Ringo: They were the greatest days for me. I was just at the right age, but I don't even think the re-releases of the old rock n roll records will sell. It's nostalgia for us -- you and me. The people who went through that -- the 25s and over.

 Q: Would you ever get so nostalgic that you'd want to play again?

 Ringo: No, I don't think I ever would. I don't want to play again on stage, not at the moment anyway.

 Q: Is this record a step in any specific direction for the Beatles?

Ringo: It's not a backward step, as some people have said, because it doesn't freak out. People think you're going backward. It's just another step, and that's what they all are, just because we do certain things on some records. It's called progression. This one is just us doing a record. It's just a record. It's not a step back or a step forward or sideways. It's just another step. It's just another type of song from the Beatles. 

Q: You stayed only 10 days in India. When you got back, were you confused about why you came back?

 Ringo:  I wasn't confused. The newspapers were confused. I came back because I felt like coming back. That's the whole simple thing to it. I just thought, 'Well, I'll go home.' We got there, and it was great, and the sun was shining, nice place.

 Q:  Was there an element of disappointment or disenchantment in your decision to come back?

 Ringo:  No, it was just that we felt like coming back; we still meditate. The whole point of going there was because we were away from everything. And Maharishi would like you to graduate to as many hours as you can do. And while you're there, you can, but it's impossible at home to do 10 or 12 hours, really, because you have a lot to do. But you can do it there because everything's provided, and you've got your room, you don't have any worries about all the work you have to do. We weren't disenchanted. It was just a feeling. I think everyone must get it sometimes, wherever you go. 

Q:  Was it homesickness?

 Ringo: Yes, it can be described as a lot of things. I think Maureen was missing the kids. That was only one thing. I mean, we didn't say suddenly, 'oh, we've got to go see the kids.' It was 100 reasons which formed into one thing -- feel like coming home. So we came home. 

Q: It was reported that the Maharishi was disappointed when you left 

Ringo:  We went to see him, and he wanted us to stay because he was helping us. If you're going to learn something, you might as well learn it from the boss man, and he's the gov'ner.

 Q:  Were John, Paul, and George disappointed?

 Ringo:  No. We just said, 'We're going home.'  And they said, 'All right, see you when we get back.' Not one of us holds the other

 Q: What have you been doing since you got back?

 Ringo: This is the first day of work. Apart from that, I've been at home doing whatever you do at home. I've just taken up enlarging and developing films. I've been doing them for the past two days. That's all, really 

Q: You said in Melody Maker in December that the Maharishi looked like answering a lot of questions for you. Is this still true?

 Ringo:  He still does. Somebody said that I looked at him and said, 'there I am', but he's a long way ahead from where I am. He's so great. There's something about him. I can't tell you what it is really, you just know there's a great man. 

Q: Do you think he'll ultimately lead you to what you're striving for?

 Ringo:  He's put me on the road. Now it's up to me whether I follow or get off.

 Q: Do you intend to carry on? 

Ringo: At the moment, yes, I've never said that 'in five years, I'll still be doing what I'm doing now,' because I don't know. 

Q: Has it helped you up to now?

 Ringo: It's calmed me and made me more relaxed, although I still have the same emotions as anyone else, but I feel more relaxed.

 Q: What's the practical application of meditation when you're at home?

Ringo:  Half an hour meditation in the morning and half an hour at night. The rest of the time, you just do what you normally do. It's meditation because we're 'householders'. That's the word for people who have to get up and do jobs and who can't be monks and sit in the cave and not do anything. So we do the householders meditation --half an hour in the morning and half an hour at night. This eases your mind in the morning before you're out, doing your job, then when you're finished, everyone's minds a bit tight, and meditation relaxes it and relaxes you. You're a better person. All the worries, troubles, and tribulations of the day, if there are any, they build up, and that's when you get all the aggression, because everyone is so tied up that they're not thinking straight, and they're out shooting and fighting before they know what happens. So that way you relax yourself and relax your brain, and no problem seems to be as big as you make it out to be.

Q: The devotion of the Beatles to the Maharishi has given him a lot of publicity. Has it been good or bad publicity? 

Ringo: The publicity we've tried to give has been good publicity, but all the people who think it's something else have just been saying a lot of rubbish, really, this has been bad publicity. But you are going to get this. You get good and bad with everything, and it's just a pity that all the people who have never tried it are giving it a lot of bad publicity, like the press and a few pop stars. 

Q: Has it helped you musically?

 Ringo: I don't think it helped me musically. No, our songs will be influenced by it because of John and Paul. It's another influence, so it will influence our songs. But I don't think it'll be a cause. I won't become a cosmic drummer.

 Q: Have you acquired any ambition to go deeper into music yourself?

 Ringo: No. I have the phases where I want to play guitar, or I want to play piano, or anything I can play a tune on, because I get sick of bang, bang all the time. Though some drummers can make them talk and play tunes on drums, but I haven't done any of that, really.

 Q:  What about writing songs? 

Ringo:  No, I have the odd go, but it's a joke. It's tunes I find the hardest thing to do. I don't think words are very hard. Usually, I write a song, then I sing it to someone, and they say, "Oh, hey, 'Blue Moon'." And the first ones I used to write used to be pinches from Jerry Lee Lewis, all his B-sides. 

Q:  Has the fact that you're away from touring and just work in the studio these days given you any appreciation for other types of music? 

Ringo: Not really. I still appreciate the same music that I used to, which is country, rock n roll, pop, and the odd classics.

 Q: What about jazz? 

Ringo: I've been through it all, you know. I've been through trad jazz and that got boring, and modern jazz, which I still like. I like small combos, Chico Hamilton, Yuset Latleef, people like that, small groups more than big bands, but there's no great urge in any of them. I just play an odd LP and I have to be in that mood to play that sort of record. 

Q: What do you listen to most at home?

 Ringo:  I don't think I listen to anything more than anything else. I stick LPs on from Tamla to country. I put them all on.

 Q: Away from work in the studio and elsewhere, what takes up most of your time?

 Ringo:  Photography, playing with my kids, answering the telephone, just being a normal person who lives in a house.

 Q: Do you ever miss touring in the days of chasing round the country? 

Ringo: No, when we toured, it was such a frenzy and so exciting that I'd had enough at the end of it. Five years of it at the pace we did, it was enough for me. I don't feel at this moment that I want to do a tour.

 Q: Has age had its effect too? 

Ringo: Yes, that is. Well, it's like when I first moved down to London, I used to go out to the clubs every night, and I had great times. But if I go now, I expect it to be like it used to be, but it never is. You blame the club and the people, but it's you yourself as well, because you've gotten older and changed yourself. 

Q: Do you ever become nostalgic for the early days of the Beatles and Beatlemania? 

Ringo: Not yet. Maybe I will in a few more years. We haven't been away from it that long, really. Maybe in 10 years, like I'm still nostalgic for rock n roll now.

 Q: Are you ever nostalgic for the North of England and Liverpool? 

Ringo:  No, because now I have my own family and my own life. I still go up there and see them, and I still enjoy going to Liverpool. If this all finished, and I was back to not being Ringo, back to more normal, I suppose I might move up there again, but I don't know, really, 

Q: Back to more normal. That's an intriguing phrase. What do you mean? 

Ringo:  Well, it is, but it's one of the phrases you use. I consider myself as Richard Starkey and Ringo Starr. There are really, like two different people, but they're not. It's just, I think Richie Starkey has got his life to lead, and he doesn't want it in all the papers or the whole world shouting about it. Then there's Ringo, where I'm quite willing to put up with it. This is a Ringo interview. It's no interest if you write Richard Starkey, if I wasn't me. I still make two different scenes altogether. I try and keep them separate, but you can't. 

Selfie with John

 

New Beatles in Japan photos

 

As unbelievable as it seems  every year, "lost" Beatles photographs are found.  Recently, 102 photos of the Beatles in Japan in 1966 have been discovered.   Here is one that the news media has published the story of the photos and it is a great one.  We see John with Alf Bicknell in the background at the Hilton in Tokyo and he is with a figure that seems to be the same one that is on the Sgt. Pepper album cover.  

Look at George's shirt

 

 I love seeing Beatles wearing famous clothing later in their life.  And here we see George wearing this "tie shirt" in 1973.  This shirt  was well known from the "Mad Day Out" photo shoot in 1968 among other photos during that year.  

Looking Back Ticket to No-where Land (1981)

 

Looking Back Ticket to No-Where Land

By Roger Ebert

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis)

April 7, 1981

    "Before the tragedy, there might have been days or weeks when we didn't even mention the name of John Lennon," Barbara Bach said. She had her feet tucked beneath her on the overstuffed sofa and was curled up against Ringo Starr. He lit two cigarettes and handed one to her. She inhaled. "Now we think of him almost every day. Richie will look up and say something to John."

     This was at a point near the end of the interview. Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach had come to Chicago to be interviewed about their new movie, Caveman, and his new record, You Can't Fight Lightning. And of course, there were going to be other questions, the inevitable, obligatory question that the interviewer hates to ask, but must ask. The questions about how Ringo feels after the murder of John Lennon, and about whether the three surviving Beatles will ever hold a reunion. 

    I realized, as I asked him that, I already know how Ringo must feel, and that in simple truth, I would not want the surviving Beatles to appear together again in concert. What would be the point? 

    "We know the questions are going to come up somewhere," Ringo said, "It's all a question of when."

    "Can you talk about Lennon now?"

     "I can talk about him. I miss the man. For 10 years, he walked the streets of New York. He could wander around New York. He was a nice man. Last November 15, Barbara and I went to see John and Yoko. We had a great time. He was up, and we were up. It was really exciting. We planned to work on an album together. Then he was shot. 

    "There was no question, and there was no answer. It was just something that happened when we heard about it. We were in the Bahamas, and we got on a plane and flew up to be with Yoko. The memory was so fresh of being with them, and they were pleased with their new album."

     He was silent. Somehow, I thought it should not have come to this. The thing that began with the Beatles when John Kennedy was still president, should not have come down to Ringo Starr, 40 years old, sitting in a hotel suite in Chicago talking about a death. I wanted to say to Ringo that The Beatles had been important, that the joy and anarchy they let free in A Hard Day's Night and in their music had affected so many people, and that it didn't matter if they never had a reunion because the spirit of the Beatles....

     But oh, hell, talking about the spirit of the Beatles curdled my flesh. I sounded like a fan magazine writer and was nowhere close to saying what I wanted to say. So I told Ringo that just a few days earlier, I'd attended a screening of Rock Show, the new concert documentary starring Paul McCartney and Wings, that there had been half a dozen kids there celebrating a 13th birthday party, and that it had struck me that McCartney was 25 years older than those kids. That to them, he was not a Beatle, but an adult.

     Popular music is so strange. It freezes forever, certain memories of our youth, and yet never says the same things to those who are younger than we are. "When I was a kid," Ringo said. "It was Johnny Ray, he was an adult, and Frank Sinatra, he was an adult too. Our dad used to tell us to listen to Glenn Miller. And dad was right, too. Glenn Miller was good. For me Elvis was the first one who came on as a teenager. He was our age. 'No, I'm not a professional,' he used to say, 'You have to read music and all that to be a real singer like Tony Bennett.' Elvis was the first who was one of us. It doesn't matter that the Beatles won't perform again. We had turned into derelict musicians before we quit giving concerts, performing the same numbers every night. It got boring and we got stale. Now we work on each other's albums, and that's all you hear about. George and Paul and I getting together for a benefit in John's memory. It's over. We did it for a long time. "

    He still looked exactly like Ringo Starr. He was smaller than I had imagined he would be, not tall with the profile carved in granite.  He wore black slacks and a shirt divided into four big black and white squares. Next to him, Barbara Bach looked not at all like the sex symbol from Playboy and the Bond movies, but like a comforting friend. She wore hardly any makeup. She was cheerful. She thought of things to say during those moments where it seemed as if Ringo Starr could not answer one more question. 

    It was not at all that Ringo (Miss Bach always uses 'Richie', since his real name is Richard Starkey) was not civil, was not cordial. It was more than that.  In a press conference during the Beatles' first United States tour, someone had asked Ringo, 'What do you call your haircut?' And he replied, 'Alfred.' Having reached that ultimate insight to reply to an interviewer's question, what was there left that he could add now?

     But he would talk gladly about Barbara Bach.  "We've been together for a year as of February," he said. "During that time, I doubt if there had been 10 or 15 days when we have not been together. Those days were horrendous. I hated them. Today, when people ask me what I'm doing, I say 'I'm building a home for Barbara and her two children.' They are very dear to me. 

    "When we were filming Caveman, we became very good friends. Then, towards the end of the film, we realized that we each had separate lives. Since those lives did not seem to either one of us to be worth not being able to be together, we decided to live together. We've been together so much. It's been like what some couples take 15 years to achieve."

     They seem truly, touchingly in love. 

    "It's difficult sometimes," Barbara said. "I can walk down the street, and most people will not recognize me. Ringo cannot go anywhere. He is instantly recognized. We can't go shopping. We can't move without people being there."

     "I try to be nice to people," Ringo says, "but I never stop in airports. If you stop in a public place to give someone an autograph, you're dead. There's a crowd, and everybody must have one, and if you don't give them one, even if it means missing your flight, then you're an ass."

     What sort of accommodations have you arrived at with the fact that you are always going to be Ringo Starr, and people are always going to know that?  "I have a private life, a private existence, a place with padded walls." He grinned. "I was always able to shut it off. After a lot of musicians perform, they're all wired. They need hours to come down. They go to their hotel and destroy their suite. That's okay. They'll pay for it. So who cares?

     "I was able to leave the stage and say, 'All right, that's over now. It's me again.' I've had self-destructive periods when I was crazy when I was 18 or 19. That was the first rough one, the teenage crazies, and no-where land. There were other crazy times. Now I'm just trying to get through it, and I'm definitely getting happier every day. I hope I learned something every day of my life. My philosophy is, if you can be kind, be kind."

     What about this movie, Caveman?  "We shot it in Mexico. It's set in the year 2,000,008 BC. I play a caveman named Atuk, and Barbara plays a cavewoman named Lana. We shot it two hours outside Durango at Los Organos, which means 'God's organs', steep cliffs, and all."

     "It doesn't mean it. It doesn't at all mean 'God's organs'." Barbara said.

     But about caveman? I said

    "Yes. About caveman? Darling?"

     "Yes, darling," said, Barbara, "Well, it was hard to take yourself seriously walking around in a skunk bikini."

     "They made mine out of little puppies," Ringo said. "We learned how to walk like cavemen. I still do. So this is Chicago?"

     The Beatles. I said, perform concerts here in....

     "Whenever it was, they all blurred together," Ringo said. "We never knew what city we were in. I remember Chicago had a lot of tracks in those days,."

    Horse tracks?

     "No silly, railroad tracks. Weren't you the railroad track Center of America?" Ringo smiled. There was a short silence. "Those kids thought Paul was an old one ? Ah well, that's all right, there's some fine music around for them, nothing great. But for my children and Barbara's children, it's energy that's the best thing. Anyway, the energy they get from music. It's not easy for the kids out there these days. You know, who cares what music they listen to? Who cares if they've ever heard of The Beatles? They're having their little go. It's their turn to shout."