Yesterday I said that there’d be another entry, and it would be BIG. Don't anyone say "Ringo who?" Ringo Starr is 69 today.
I will state for the record right now, that I am one of those people who have never been particularly fond of Ringo’s playing. I think every drummer who started playing after the Beatles became famous has to come to terms with Ringo, because he’s just . . . there. You cannot ignore him even if you try, if for no other reason that other musicians won’t let you.
Most of the drummers I’ve profiled in this series can probably be called "monster" players. For example, yesterday you can watch that clip of Louie Bellson and see him play a single-stroke roll with his left hand faster than a lot of drummers can play with both. He also plays double-stroke rolls that are so smooth they sound like one long note. The same goes for John Bonham, Ian Paice, Chick Webb, and all the others.
Ringo would be the first person to tell you he can’t play a drum roll; in fact he has admitted it countless times. He said so in the introduction to the Ringo Starr Drum Method book that I saw in my local music store in the 1960s. It was pretty obvious to me that he didn’t really write that book; it was his "co-author." I wasn’t impressed at all, and I couldn’t much see him as an influence even then.
Consequently, I was rather oblivious to the impact Ringo was having on drumming at the time, but now let me count some of the ways.
First, he used the "matched grip," that is holding the drumsticks the same way in both hands, sort of like hammers. To me, who’d been taught the traditional grip, it was heresy. The traditional grip is difficult for many people to master – I’ve often tried to show it to people who ask, and some of them never get it. Everyone with two hands can play the matched grip – that means anyone could be playing drums. The horror!
Second, everyone DID start playing drums because of Ringo. From about 1935 until 1963, the Slingerland Drum Company was the biggest in the world. Bud Slingerland and William F. Ludwig had a long-running friendly competition going, but the Gene Krupa influence kept Slingerland on top. That ended when Ringo showed up on the Ed Sullivan Show with that prominent "Ludwig" logo painted on the bass drum head above "The Beatles." In 1964, Ludwig produced four times as many drums as it did in 1963, to become the undisputed number one company. Ludwig had to go to 3 shifts, producing drums 24 hours a day just to satisfy the overwhelming demand for its products, and kept up that pace for about six years.
By the way, although Ludwig drums from the 1964-69 period are prized collectors’ items today, they were not necessarily very well made, because the factory was shoving them out the door as quickly as possible. Quality control was at times, virtually nonexistent. Some of the more common quality issues are as follows:
Drum shells not "in round." It’s been said that Ludwig was using wood that may not have been properly cured, so that it was still wet inside. The shells were molded into a cylinder, but would not stay round. The factory would force the drumheads on them anyway. The shells may have significant flat spots where the seams in the wood plies are located. I have had and seen many Ludwig shells that will not roll; they just stop at the flat spot.
Holes improperly drilled. The metal parts attached to the shells may be noticeably crooked. On the inside of the shell, you will often see big spots where the drill chipped out the hole when the bit went through.
The infamous white paint covered a multitude of sins. In the 1960s, Ludwig went to coating the inside of the drum shells with a white paint. Supposedly it was a sound enhancing feature (and there is some truth in that – a harder coated surface does improve a drum’s attack). However, the more important reason may be that it covered up some less than good looking wood and wood finishing. There may not have been anything special about the paint. The legend goes that sometimes when the factory ran out of the paint, they’d send someone down to the local hardware store to pick up the cheapest white wall paint so as to keep the line moving.
In spite of all those problems, the orders just kept coming in, and it was because of Ringo. The Ludwig Drum company was well aware of the influence he had, and presented Ringo with a gold-plated snare drum.
Third, Ringo admitted he couldn’t play a roll. A drum roll involves being able to use the rebound of the stick of the head to play more notes, called the "bounce" stroke. It is also how drummers can play "ghost notes," the softer notes that lead up to or fit in between the loud accented notes.
Just listen to a clip of Joe Morello, Ludwig’s top name endorser in the 60s playing all the things I’m describing.
You don’t hear any of that in a Beatles record. Even Charlie Watts plays ghost notes. Not Ringo.
I was pretty sure that I wanted to play more like Joe than Ringo, and I worked at it. Then I went out and looked for work playing drums. That was somewhat of a big letdown. Back then, and where I lived, there weren’t a lot of gigs to be had, and the good paying ones were playing Country music. I’d go out and play with a Country band, and I’d do a fill, maybe a set of sixteenth notes. That’s a bad idea. Just as the Country guitarists would say "there’s no money past the fifth fret" the drummers could have said "nobody needs to play more than a quarter note" (that is, of course, if they knew what a quarter note was).
Somehow I managed to get past my incessant need to play all that fancy stuff and I worked steady. One time, I was playing on the road in a hotel band in South Dakota. A semi-big-time Country (name withheld) artist came into town for a concert at a place called the Corn Palace (what a strange place that is) on my off nights. The drummer was unable to play, and the band’s manager asked me to fill in. The money wasn’t bad, so I said o.k.; I could play a country shuffle (it’s actually a special skill), and it was only one night (at least I figured it would be). Things were going all right, but then I somehow lost control and played a triplet fill on a turnaround. I got "the look"; that means the leader turns his head back and glares at the drummer. I knew immediately that I’d stepped over the line, and I kept it cool after that.
After the first show, the leader came up to me and told me that he liked my playing, but that I had to not play all that "fancy stuff." I told him I understood, but he wanted to make sure. He said, "you know, maybe you could play like that fella, Ringo. He’s just right." As I was screaming on the inside, I agreed with him, and never played nothing more than a couple of dotted eighths for the rest of the night and the night after. I figured I'd be gone, but they asked me back for the next night.
After the second night, I was packing up my stuff and trying to get out. The manager came up to me and told me that the boss liked my playing and if I cut my hair I could have the job. Besides the fact that I already knew that I made more money and that I almost always got my own room in the band I was in, the thought of having to sit back and play "like Ringo" forever was more than I could bear. I politely declined.
A few years later, I was in L.A. I had a pretty decent gig playing demos in a crappy, smelly studio on the Westside during the day, and I was working pretty steadily in bands at night. No matter where I played, it was always the same; the keyboardist would invariably say, "play that fill like Ringo; you know: Dum, ba-Dum Dum." Eventually, I just gave up and went with the flow. I played it like Ringo.
And you know what? I got more callbacks than I ever did. I’d go to the auditions and play "Dum ba-Dum Dum" while some other drummer would come in and go "booda-la booda-la booda-la whacka-whacka booda-la" and come out of the fill a half beat ahead of the band. I’d be working, and he wouldn’t. Why? Because I played like Ringo.
That’s the influence Ringo has had on me and on every drummer who wants to eventually have made more money playing drums than he or she spent on them.
That’s not easy, even if you are working. Musicians are particularly susceptible to a condition known as G.A.S., or "gear acquisition syndrome." Even though we can play only one kit at a time; even though we may have found the "perfect" kit, we always want more. That leads me to the end of the story I began yesterday in the Louie Bellson diary.
Back in 1981 I had a kit that I really liked. It may have been perfect, but it wasn’t "hip," "trendy" or new. It consisted of a 14"x26" Slingerland Radio King bass drum from the 1930s, an 8"x12" Gretsch tom, and a 1970s Slingerland 16"x16" floor tom. I had changed the hardware on the Radio King to modern Slingerland by drilling new holes and filling in the old ones. I had refinished all the drums in an oak veneer, including the Gretsch which had the "Midnight Sparkle" finish on it (I simply put the veneer right over the plastic covering). Today, that would be considered murder of vintage drums, but back then nobody cared. That kit sounded great, but it didn’t look "new." I decided I had to find something else.
As I said yesterday, I could have bought one of Louie Bellson’s beautiful Slingerland kits from the Professional Drum shop, but they were white marine pearl, a finish that was not trendy. I really wanted plain white. I saw an ad in the Recycler (the L.A. predecessor to craigslist) for a Ludwig kit with a 16"x26" bass, 12"x13" tom, and 16"x16" floor tom for $550. I called and asked the guy what color they were. He said white. I said "I’ll be right over."
The drums were brand new; they didn’t have even a mark on the heads. I was concerned they might be hot, because a new 16"x26" Ludwig bass drum listed at $516 at the time, and I would get all 3 drums for $34 more. He assured me that they weren’t hot; he’d received them as part of his job as drum tech for Pat Benatar’s drummer, Myron Grombacher. He had the pictures to prove it. The drums were the same as Myron’s new kit, minus the custom Japanese motif paint job (Rising Suns and Japanese characters). He was just about to go on the road with Bruce Springsteen (Max Weinberg was a Ludwig player then) and his girlfriend wanted the drums out of their apartment. We made the deal. The guy’s name was Jeff Chonis.
Those drums were great, and I kept them several years. I wish I still had them, but you know, G.A.S. strikes every so often.
At this point, I'd like to get back to including some cooking tips I've learned mostly by the way I do everything, failing until I succeed. This is a cool hors d'oeuvres recipe anyone can make.
Take a boneless, skinless chicken breast or thigh (you can also use a salmon fillet, but I wouldn't). Lay it out on a piece of plastic wrap big enough to go around the whole piece of meat.
Flatten the meat by pounding on it with the bottom of a saucepan or skillet.
Take some long thin veggie pieces of your choice, such as asparagus, or stirps of onion, broccoli, or scallions, and place them on the meat to make a filling. Season to taste.
Take the plastic wrap, and roll the meat into a wrap-like shape with the plastic forming an outer covering.
Grasp the ends of the plastic wrap along the length of the meat roll and then rotate the whole thing in a spinning motion until the ends of the plastic wrap form the meat roll into a sausage shape.
Tie the ends of the plastic with twist ties. Repeat until you have several stuffed sausages.
Put the sausages into a steamer and steam for about 10 minutes. The chicken will turn white.
Remove from the steamer and chill for a few hours.
Take the sausages out of the plastic and slice into pieces about 1/2"-3/4" thick. Add your favorite dressing and enjoy.
Anyway, a few years ago I checked out Ringo’s website. He was about to go off on one of his "All Starrs" tours, and he’d had a custom Ludwig kit built for it. The guy who put the whole thing together was his drum tech, Jeff Chonis.
So now I understand. All these years I was running away from playing like Ringo, and yet, doing so always benefitted me. Ringo was a guy of great humility and loyalty (he’s stuck with Ludwig drums for the last 45 years even though any drum company would let him have anything he wanted).
I don’t fight it anymore. I’ll play like Ringo.
Happy Birthday big guy.