Brown printed lots of random gossip as fact, and says that he personally witnessed events when he wasn’t even in the country at the time. Peter Brown claimed in his book that Paul was coming in afterwards and replacing Ringo’s drumming with his own, but Beatles historians have combed over the recording logs, etc., as well as comparing styles, and have judged the claim impossible. True, Paul filled in on the drums on three Beatles songs when Ringo was unavailable, but further “replacements” have been debunked. The bit about Ringo’s drumming being replaced by others is a myth. “A good drummer is a drummer who knows how to play, number one, for the music.” Conversely-in an exaggerated counterexample-Koo shows what a technically-skilled, but unmusical, drummer might do, namely trample over the delicate guitars and vocals with an aggressive attack and distracting, unnecessary fills and cymbal crashes. He, too, chooses “In My Life” to show how “Ringo lays it down” with maximum feel and efficiency, deftly but subtly changing things up in nearly every phrase of the song. ![]() Virtuoso drummer Brandon Khoo makes the case for Ringo as a good drummer, above, after a brief defense of much-maligned White Stripes drummer Meg White. It’s truly original and the song won’t work with any other drum part.” If you were to write a new song around the drums alone, it would probably come out sounding just like “In My Life.” As Harrison remarks at the top, “he’s very good because he’ll listen to the song once, and he knows exactly what to play.” Ringo’s drum pattern for “ In My Life,” for example, she says “is absolutely unique, nobody ever played this before. (To skirt copyright issues, Sina plays along to convincing covers by her dad’s band.) Above, she demonstrates how his uncomplicated grooves complement the songs, so much so they have become iconic in their own right. Also, she’s a very good musician who has memorized Ringo’s repertoire and can explain it well. What are Sina’s credentials for making a pro-Ringo case? Well, for one thing, her father played in Germany’s biggest Beatles tribute band, the Silver Beatles. He used what Buddy Rich called his “adequate” abilities (a compliment, I’d say, coming from Buddy Rich) to serve the songs best, finding ways to enhance the structures and arrangements with drum parts that are as uniquely memorable as the melodies and harmonies. What does that mean? It means he intuited exactly what a song needed, and what it didn’t. ![]() He remains one of the most distinctively musical drummers on record. He was something rarer and more valuable than any studio musician. But Ringo could do more than hold his own. In a handful of recordings-though I won’t argue over which ones-it seems he might have been replaced, for whatever reason. How is it possible that some of the greatest recorded music of the 20th century, with some of the most distinctive rhythms, fills, and drum breaks in pop music, could have come from a mediocre musician? The standard response has been to allege that Starr’s best parts were played by someone else. As far as I’m concerned, debate over whether or not Ringo Starr is a good drummer is over, done with, settled.
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