Post by B on Jul 7, 2019 19:19:26 GMT -5
Picture of Ringo on the cover of the Sunday "Parade" magazine:
Ringo Starr on Peace & Love, Sobriety and His All-Time Favorite Beatles Song, Plus an Exclusive Video Revealing His Secret to Staying Upbeat
parade.com/898450/jimfarber/ringo-starr-on-peace-love-sobriety-and-what-he-really-thought-of-yoko-plus-an-exclusive-video-revealing-his-secret-to-staying-upbeat/
by Jim Farber
JULY 5, 2019
"Ringo Starr sees messages of peace and love everywhere, even in his food. While flipping through a copy of his new book of photos, Another Day in the Life
(September 24, Genesis Publications), he finds a shot he took of two carrots, which he had posed to mimic the familiar two-fingered V sign for nonviolence and goodwill.
“They’re very peaceful carrots,” he says with a smile.
For Ringo, “peace and love” has gone way beyond a personal mantra to become a public mission. Starting 11 years ago July 7, his birthday, the former Beatle began holding the
Peace & Love birthday celebrations, for which he appears somewhere around the world and asks everyone to pause at noon to say, or think, the P and L words. This year, he’ll do so
in front of the classic building that houses the Beatles’ former label, Capitol Records, in Los Angeles, just a few miles from Ringo’s current home in Beverly Hills.
(Follow these festivities on Ringo’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.)
In between those two locations, in a secluded villa in the Sunset Marquis Hotel, Ringo spoke exclusively with Parade about several important new Beatles-related projects and a special
double anniversary he is toasting this year.
This summer marks 30 years since he began his All Starr Band tours, during which he performs with other pop-rock icons. This year’s outing includes members of Santana, Toto and Men at Work
in shows that will run throughout August. This year, as well, the ex-Beatle is celebrating three decades of sobriety. Looking healthy, and remarkably svelte, and dressed in all black,
save for an image of—what else?—a big white star on his T-shirt, Ringo is very much the jaunty and frank figure fans have long loved.
How did you first get the idea for your Peace & Love birthday celebration?
I was being interviewed in New York when the All Starrs were on tour, and someone said, “What would you like for your birthday?“ Out of the blue I said, “Everybody, everywhere,
at noon on the 7th of July, say ‘Peace and love.’’’ So we started it soon after in Chicago at the Hard Rock there. They made these little cakes for everyone. There were like 100 people.
The interesting thing about the little cakes was that they were on eBay that night for $300. “Yeah, we love you, Ringo, but let me sell the cake!“
Why has the message of peace and love become so important to you? You’re rarely photographed without flashing the peace sign.
I loved the mid-’60s, when all this peace and love started. [The Beatles] went right along with it. The press used to give me a hard time: “Oh, he’s doing that peace and love thing again.”
But I’m only peace-and-loving. And they still like to sh-t on me! It’s connected to the Maharishi [the Indian spiritual leader the Beatles famously visited in 1968]. If you think to do good,
then the planet will support you. It’s like a pebble in the ocean; it’s rippling out. And it will get to shore. But you can’t be impatient [laughs].
The mindfulness aspect of your peace-and-love message connects to meditation, which has become a major part of your life. What does it do for you?
It gives me a break from myself. Some days there’s absolute peacefulness and a feeling that I’ve been somewhere away, and I only know that because I come back.
It’s very important for me to “not think.” I do enough thinking. You can just “be.” It’s a transcendent feeling. That’s why they call it Transcendental Meditation!
You just turned 79, which means you’re one year from a very big birthday.
I’ll be 80! I can’t hide my birthday. It’s not like I can say, “Oh, I was born in 1956.” Everybody knows exactly when I was born and exactly how old I am. I’m not ashamed of it anymore.
When I was a teenager, I thought that everybody at 60 should be shot because they’re useless. And when I got to 40, my mother said, “I don’t suppose you feel like that anymore, son.”
I was well pissed off with being 40! But after that, you just go with it. Actually, it’s a miracle I’m still around. I put a lot of medication in my body and I could have left at any time.
Another big number for you is 30, which marks the number of years of the All Starr Band has been touring. Why do you prefer to do multi-artist concerts over ones of your own?
I don’t have the catalog [of hit songs] to do hours, and I love to play drums. This way I get to fulfill two needs: one, to be up there being a performer and an entertainer; the other,
to be the drummer with all these other artists.
You started the All Starr Band the same year that you got sober. Is there a connection?
There is an absolute connection. [When] I got sober, I had all this time and more energy.
How bad did it get before you got sober?
I just couldn’t really move without alcohol. And without drugs. I was not a purist in any way! So in the end, I said to Barbara [Bach, his actress wife of 38 years],
“You’ve got to get us into one of those [rehab] places.” I didn’t know where they were. But she called some friends of ours in L.A. who knew, and I went to Arizona,
where I found myself with 88 mad people in this place.
But it clearly worked!
Well, it’s working today. That’s all I have. But it makes life so much easier.
I have to say, you look great.
Well, “I’m the greatest!” [He quotes the title of his 1973 hit, written for him by John Lennon.]
How do you stay in such great shape?
I get up in the morning and I meditate. I go to the gym and I have a trainer, and I work out myself too, when I’m on the road. I’m a vegetarian. When we’re on tour, to get out of the hotel,
I usually go to the local organic shop just to see what they’ve got. But I’m only a vegetarian, not a vegan. I eat goat cheese. A vegan is very hard, and they eat a lot of sugar.
I’m careful about sugar.
Was your move to vegetarianism an ethical decision?
It’s always ethical. I can’t understand the breeding and killing and eating of all of those animals. In America, there’s got to be a billion chickens being grown. But we know, as a fact,
that you can grow more food on an acre of land than you can with some creature walking on it.
You also have a sustained dedication to photography. Another Day in the Life is your third book of photos. What attracts you to photography?
There are only seven photographs of me taken from birth to 18 or 19. We never had a camera as a family. So when I got a camera, I just loved it! And I got better cameras as the Beatles
went forward—eight-millimeter cameras, a lot of them.
There are many Beatles-related photos in the book. And there are a couple of Beatles-related movies coming up. The first is the comedy from director Danny Boyle, Yesterday,
which features Ed Sheeran and imagines a world where only one person remembers who the Beatles were!
It’s a really cool movie. The premise was great. And I think Ed Sheeran should get the Oscar! [Laughs] Not really. He has a small part.
The other movie is director Peter Jackson’s new film, fashioned from unused footage from the Let It Be film sessions from 1969. He has said that his movie will present a much more
positive image of the end of the band than the original documentary, released in 1970, which showed four guys falling apart. What’s the true story?
I was never happy with the [film] because it picked one second of life—when John and Paul were in a row—and the whole documentary was built around that.
There was also a lot of joy, a lot of laughter and a lot of interaction. Whatever our attitudes were at the time, we gave our all. And that was beautiful.
The image of Yoko in the original movie is very weird, with her just hovering around.
I remember, she was in bed in the studio when we got to work and it was weird. I asked John, “What the hell is going on?” And he said, “You know when you go home to Maureen [Ringo’s first wife],
she’ll say, ‘What did you do today?’ And you‘ll say, ‘Well, I drummed.’” John said, “We want to be there with whatever we’re both doing.” They wanted to be in each other’s company.
And that was fine by me, once you knew what the situation was.
In the same way that the Let It Be film was seen as a sad end to the Beatles, many originally saw 1968’s White Album [officially titled The Beatles] as a chronicle of a band coming apart.
Was that accurate?
We were not falling apart at all until we split. We played together right up until that. I love the White Album. I mean, Pepper [Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band] was great,
but there was a lot of sitting around. We were like studio guys. This time, we were back to being a band. People say, “What’s your favorite song on there?” I love “Yer Blues.”
We’re in a six-foot room—amps, drums, vocal mics. No separation. It was like, “Yeah!”
What’s your favorite Beatles song of all time?
There are too many. I like to say “Rain.”
What’s your favorite Beatles song that was sung by you?
I think “With a Little Help From My Friends.” It’s given me a whole career. I’m thankful many a time for that.
The very first time you sang lead on a Beatles song was in 1962, on a cover of “Boys,” which had been a hit for the Shirelles. It’s a song of lust for boys.
What did you think about singing those lyrics at the time?
It didn’t matter to me that it was about boys. I just loved the song. I’m still doing that song every night. I was doing it with Rory [and the Hurricanes],
the band before the Beatles. I thought it was humorous that I’m singing about boys.
The Beatles had a gay manager, Brian Epstein, at a time when being gay was illegal in England and very much stigmatized. What was the band’s attitude about gay people back then?
I had known a lot of gay men. It didn’t matter to us. We were lads of the time. Or maybe, OK then, lads ahead of our time.
Another question about changing sexual attitudes: In 1973, you had a No. 1 solo hit with a cover of the love song “You’re Sixteen.” At the time, you were 33.
No one thought anything of that back then. Now they might. How does the current trend in reexamining old song lyrics through a current lens strike you?
I don’t give a damn. I’m doing the song. I’m not harming anybody. We’re having fun. When I got to 50, I felt like a lecher. Now I’m in my 70s and I don’t give a damn.
Every night, I ask, “Are there any young girls in the audience?” I say, “This is just for you…and also for all those other girls who are young at heart.” [Laughs]
One big innovation you brought to the Beatles, as well as to rock, was to introduce country music by singing the Buck Owens hit “Act Naturally” in 1965. That was likely
the first country-rock recording, before the Byrds did theirs three years later.
I’ve always loved country music. We come from Liverpool, a port, so we actually were exposed to a lot of music. We were getting input, American record–wise, from the lads in the Navy.
My friend Roy—we worked in the factory together—we both loved country music. It was in the first band I was in, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. We decided, you know what,
we can get drunk every night and play country music [laughs]. That’s the best thought of two 18-year-olds!
You still tour often, and you don’t have to. Why do you stick with it?
People keep saying, “Why are you still playing?” That’s what I do! I’m not an electrician. As a lad, I used to think of other musicians, Boy, he’s still playing at 40!
But they do it because some nights you get uplifted and it’s like getting high, in a clean way. Everyone in the audience knows that I love them and I know they love me.
Which brings us back to the peace and love theme. What is your greatest hope for that event?
I have a fantasy that on the 7th of July, some year from now, the whole world will say, at noon, “Peace and love,” and maybe we’ll have a change."
© 2019 AMG/Parade. All rights reserved.
Ringo Starr Reveals His Favorite Birthday Gift, The Secret to Staying Upbeat & More
www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=fHdNx7XKq2o
--------------
Ringo Starr on Peace & Love, Sobriety and His All-Time Favorite Beatles Song, Plus an Exclusive Video Revealing His Secret to Staying Upbeat
parade.com/898450/jimfarber/ringo-starr-on-peace-love-sobriety-and-what-he-really-thought-of-yoko-plus-an-exclusive-video-revealing-his-secret-to-staying-upbeat/
by Jim Farber
JULY 5, 2019
"Ringo Starr sees messages of peace and love everywhere, even in his food. While flipping through a copy of his new book of photos, Another Day in the Life
(September 24, Genesis Publications), he finds a shot he took of two carrots, which he had posed to mimic the familiar two-fingered V sign for nonviolence and goodwill.
“They’re very peaceful carrots,” he says with a smile.
For Ringo, “peace and love” has gone way beyond a personal mantra to become a public mission. Starting 11 years ago July 7, his birthday, the former Beatle began holding the
Peace & Love birthday celebrations, for which he appears somewhere around the world and asks everyone to pause at noon to say, or think, the P and L words. This year, he’ll do so
in front of the classic building that houses the Beatles’ former label, Capitol Records, in Los Angeles, just a few miles from Ringo’s current home in Beverly Hills.
(Follow these festivities on Ringo’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.)
In between those two locations, in a secluded villa in the Sunset Marquis Hotel, Ringo spoke exclusively with Parade about several important new Beatles-related projects and a special
double anniversary he is toasting this year.
This summer marks 30 years since he began his All Starr Band tours, during which he performs with other pop-rock icons. This year’s outing includes members of Santana, Toto and Men at Work
in shows that will run throughout August. This year, as well, the ex-Beatle is celebrating three decades of sobriety. Looking healthy, and remarkably svelte, and dressed in all black,
save for an image of—what else?—a big white star on his T-shirt, Ringo is very much the jaunty and frank figure fans have long loved.
How did you first get the idea for your Peace & Love birthday celebration?
I was being interviewed in New York when the All Starrs were on tour, and someone said, “What would you like for your birthday?“ Out of the blue I said, “Everybody, everywhere,
at noon on the 7th of July, say ‘Peace and love.’’’ So we started it soon after in Chicago at the Hard Rock there. They made these little cakes for everyone. There were like 100 people.
The interesting thing about the little cakes was that they were on eBay that night for $300. “Yeah, we love you, Ringo, but let me sell the cake!“
Why has the message of peace and love become so important to you? You’re rarely photographed without flashing the peace sign.
I loved the mid-’60s, when all this peace and love started. [The Beatles] went right along with it. The press used to give me a hard time: “Oh, he’s doing that peace and love thing again.”
But I’m only peace-and-loving. And they still like to sh-t on me! It’s connected to the Maharishi [the Indian spiritual leader the Beatles famously visited in 1968]. If you think to do good,
then the planet will support you. It’s like a pebble in the ocean; it’s rippling out. And it will get to shore. But you can’t be impatient [laughs].
The mindfulness aspect of your peace-and-love message connects to meditation, which has become a major part of your life. What does it do for you?
It gives me a break from myself. Some days there’s absolute peacefulness and a feeling that I’ve been somewhere away, and I only know that because I come back.
It’s very important for me to “not think.” I do enough thinking. You can just “be.” It’s a transcendent feeling. That’s why they call it Transcendental Meditation!
You just turned 79, which means you’re one year from a very big birthday.
I’ll be 80! I can’t hide my birthday. It’s not like I can say, “Oh, I was born in 1956.” Everybody knows exactly when I was born and exactly how old I am. I’m not ashamed of it anymore.
When I was a teenager, I thought that everybody at 60 should be shot because they’re useless. And when I got to 40, my mother said, “I don’t suppose you feel like that anymore, son.”
I was well pissed off with being 40! But after that, you just go with it. Actually, it’s a miracle I’m still around. I put a lot of medication in my body and I could have left at any time.
Another big number for you is 30, which marks the number of years of the All Starr Band has been touring. Why do you prefer to do multi-artist concerts over ones of your own?
I don’t have the catalog [of hit songs] to do hours, and I love to play drums. This way I get to fulfill two needs: one, to be up there being a performer and an entertainer; the other,
to be the drummer with all these other artists.
You started the All Starr Band the same year that you got sober. Is there a connection?
There is an absolute connection. [When] I got sober, I had all this time and more energy.
How bad did it get before you got sober?
I just couldn’t really move without alcohol. And without drugs. I was not a purist in any way! So in the end, I said to Barbara [Bach, his actress wife of 38 years],
“You’ve got to get us into one of those [rehab] places.” I didn’t know where they were. But she called some friends of ours in L.A. who knew, and I went to Arizona,
where I found myself with 88 mad people in this place.
But it clearly worked!
Well, it’s working today. That’s all I have. But it makes life so much easier.
I have to say, you look great.
Well, “I’m the greatest!” [He quotes the title of his 1973 hit, written for him by John Lennon.]
How do you stay in such great shape?
I get up in the morning and I meditate. I go to the gym and I have a trainer, and I work out myself too, when I’m on the road. I’m a vegetarian. When we’re on tour, to get out of the hotel,
I usually go to the local organic shop just to see what they’ve got. But I’m only a vegetarian, not a vegan. I eat goat cheese. A vegan is very hard, and they eat a lot of sugar.
I’m careful about sugar.
Was your move to vegetarianism an ethical decision?
It’s always ethical. I can’t understand the breeding and killing and eating of all of those animals. In America, there’s got to be a billion chickens being grown. But we know, as a fact,
that you can grow more food on an acre of land than you can with some creature walking on it.
You also have a sustained dedication to photography. Another Day in the Life is your third book of photos. What attracts you to photography?
There are only seven photographs of me taken from birth to 18 or 19. We never had a camera as a family. So when I got a camera, I just loved it! And I got better cameras as the Beatles
went forward—eight-millimeter cameras, a lot of them.
There are many Beatles-related photos in the book. And there are a couple of Beatles-related movies coming up. The first is the comedy from director Danny Boyle, Yesterday,
which features Ed Sheeran and imagines a world where only one person remembers who the Beatles were!
It’s a really cool movie. The premise was great. And I think Ed Sheeran should get the Oscar! [Laughs] Not really. He has a small part.
The other movie is director Peter Jackson’s new film, fashioned from unused footage from the Let It Be film sessions from 1969. He has said that his movie will present a much more
positive image of the end of the band than the original documentary, released in 1970, which showed four guys falling apart. What’s the true story?
I was never happy with the [film] because it picked one second of life—when John and Paul were in a row—and the whole documentary was built around that.
There was also a lot of joy, a lot of laughter and a lot of interaction. Whatever our attitudes were at the time, we gave our all. And that was beautiful.
The image of Yoko in the original movie is very weird, with her just hovering around.
I remember, she was in bed in the studio when we got to work and it was weird. I asked John, “What the hell is going on?” And he said, “You know when you go home to Maureen [Ringo’s first wife],
she’ll say, ‘What did you do today?’ And you‘ll say, ‘Well, I drummed.’” John said, “We want to be there with whatever we’re both doing.” They wanted to be in each other’s company.
And that was fine by me, once you knew what the situation was.
In the same way that the Let It Be film was seen as a sad end to the Beatles, many originally saw 1968’s White Album [officially titled The Beatles] as a chronicle of a band coming apart.
Was that accurate?
We were not falling apart at all until we split. We played together right up until that. I love the White Album. I mean, Pepper [Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band] was great,
but there was a lot of sitting around. We were like studio guys. This time, we were back to being a band. People say, “What’s your favorite song on there?” I love “Yer Blues.”
We’re in a six-foot room—amps, drums, vocal mics. No separation. It was like, “Yeah!”
What’s your favorite Beatles song of all time?
There are too many. I like to say “Rain.”
What’s your favorite Beatles song that was sung by you?
I think “With a Little Help From My Friends.” It’s given me a whole career. I’m thankful many a time for that.
The very first time you sang lead on a Beatles song was in 1962, on a cover of “Boys,” which had been a hit for the Shirelles. It’s a song of lust for boys.
What did you think about singing those lyrics at the time?
It didn’t matter to me that it was about boys. I just loved the song. I’m still doing that song every night. I was doing it with Rory [and the Hurricanes],
the band before the Beatles. I thought it was humorous that I’m singing about boys.
The Beatles had a gay manager, Brian Epstein, at a time when being gay was illegal in England and very much stigmatized. What was the band’s attitude about gay people back then?
I had known a lot of gay men. It didn’t matter to us. We were lads of the time. Or maybe, OK then, lads ahead of our time.
Another question about changing sexual attitudes: In 1973, you had a No. 1 solo hit with a cover of the love song “You’re Sixteen.” At the time, you were 33.
No one thought anything of that back then. Now they might. How does the current trend in reexamining old song lyrics through a current lens strike you?
I don’t give a damn. I’m doing the song. I’m not harming anybody. We’re having fun. When I got to 50, I felt like a lecher. Now I’m in my 70s and I don’t give a damn.
Every night, I ask, “Are there any young girls in the audience?” I say, “This is just for you…and also for all those other girls who are young at heart.” [Laughs]
One big innovation you brought to the Beatles, as well as to rock, was to introduce country music by singing the Buck Owens hit “Act Naturally” in 1965. That was likely
the first country-rock recording, before the Byrds did theirs three years later.
I’ve always loved country music. We come from Liverpool, a port, so we actually were exposed to a lot of music. We were getting input, American record–wise, from the lads in the Navy.
My friend Roy—we worked in the factory together—we both loved country music. It was in the first band I was in, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. We decided, you know what,
we can get drunk every night and play country music [laughs]. That’s the best thought of two 18-year-olds!
You still tour often, and you don’t have to. Why do you stick with it?
People keep saying, “Why are you still playing?” That’s what I do! I’m not an electrician. As a lad, I used to think of other musicians, Boy, he’s still playing at 40!
But they do it because some nights you get uplifted and it’s like getting high, in a clean way. Everyone in the audience knows that I love them and I know they love me.
Which brings us back to the peace and love theme. What is your greatest hope for that event?
I have a fantasy that on the 7th of July, some year from now, the whole world will say, at noon, “Peace and love,” and maybe we’ll have a change."
© 2019 AMG/Parade. All rights reserved.
Ringo Starr Reveals His Favorite Birthday Gift, The Secret to Staying Upbeat & More
www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=fHdNx7XKq2o
--------------
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