Ringo Starr

Liverpool and the Beatles

Richard Starkey was born on July 7, 1940 in the Dingle district of Liverpool and took the name Ringo Starr around late 1959, from the rings he wore and a country-and-western ring to it. He co-founded the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group in 1957, joined Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in November 1959, and met the Beatles in Hamburg in October 1960. He accepted the invitation to join the Beatles on August 14, 1962 and played his first show as a Beatle at Port Sunlight on August 18. He is left-handed and plays a right-handed kit, which he said limited his rolls. He sang "Yellow Submarine" (1966) and "With a Little Help from My Friends" (1967), recorded Buck Owens's "Act Naturally" in 1968, wrote "Don't Pass Me By" for the White Album and "Octopus's Garden" after a 1969 trip to Sardinia.

After the Beatles he made Sentimental Journey (1970, a standards album produced by George Martin, 7 in the UK) and Beaucoups of Blues (1970, recorded June 25 to 27 in Nashville with Pete Drake producing). Ringo (1973, produced by Richard Perry, with all three of Lennon, Harrison and McCartney contributing) reached 2 in the US with "Photograph" and "You're Sixteen" at number one; Goodnight Vienna followed in 1974, and he founded Ring O' Records in 1975. He began Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band on July 23, 1989 in Dallas, an idea of the producer David Fishof, and has toured it in sixteen line-ups. He joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2015, inducted by Paul McCartney, and was knighted in 2018. Late albums include Look Up (January 10, 2025, a country record produced by T Bone Burnett, Daniel Tashian and Bruce Sugar, the first to reach number one on the UK country and Americana chart) and Long Long Road (April 24, 2026).