All-Starr Band 2001

Нашел в закромах Родины несколько отзывов на концерты Ринго Старра в Шатах почти пятилетней давности. Быть может, кому-то будет интересно ознакомиться.

Ringo Still Amazed By Appetite For Beatles Music

(8/4/01, 10 a.m. ET)

As he crisscrosses North America with the latest version of his All-Starr Band, former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr tells LAUNCH he's still taken with the audience appetite that exists for Beatles music. The passion is not necessarily a surprise for him, particularly in the wake of the 1 collection's staggering sales success, but Starr says witnessing that interest in person always impresses him.

"You can't imagine that. You know, we're not sitting around in 1964 saying, 'Wow, in 2001, Todd Rundgren's gonna be singing these songs.' It's not something you do. It just rolls on. I mean, it's incredible."

Rundgren toured earlier this summer as part of A Walk Down Abbey Road, a Beatles-tribute package that also featured Heart's Ann Wilson, the Who's John Entwistle, Alan Parsons, and Ambrosia's David Pack.

The latest All-Starr Band, featuring Greg Lake (King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer), Ian Hunter (Mott The Hoople), Roger Hodgson (Supertramp), '80s pop star Howard Jones, and Sheila E., former drummer in Prince's band, plays the FleetBoston Pavilion on Saturday (August 4).

-- Gary Graff, Detroit

Starr Power: the Beatle with The Beat Is Back


For 13 years, he's opened each of his shows the same way.

``What's my name?'' he bellows from the stage, confident that the crowd will deliver the answer: ``Ringo!''

To the surprise of some, perhaps even himself, Ringo Starr - the most unsung and underrated of the Fab Four - has become a busy Beatle. Since 1989 he's hit the road regularly with his All-Starr Band, featuring a who's-who of veteran rock stars. He's also released four albums in the past few years, including ``Vertical Man'' (1998), a recording of his 1998 ``VH1 Storytellers'' episode, the Christmas album ``I Wanna Be Santa Claus'' (1999) and his brand-new boxed set of All-Starr Band performances, ``Anthology So Far.''

His next new album may be a ways off - ``I'm writing some ... bits,'' Starr says, ``but that's all'' - but he's hardly absent from the charts: After all, last year's ''1,'' collecting the Beatles' No. 1 hits, already has sold more than 22 million copies.

``You can't imagine that,'' he says, noting that he, Paul McCartney and George Harrison are discussing other, undetermined Beatles archival releases. ``We (weren't) sitting around in 1964 saying, `Wow, in 2001 people are still going to be buying these songs.'

``It just rolls on,'' he says. ``It's incredible. You know it's going to be received really well, but you don't know it's going to be received like that.''

However, it's his own work that most interests Starr nowadays.

``It's like everything else, I guess - if you do it, you start doing it more and more,'' the 61-year-old drummer says. ``That's what this seems to be. More and more, I just love playing, and I'm playing better than ever. So I'm out there doing it - that's what we do, you know: We play. I'm loving it again.''

There was a time when he didn't. Born Richard Starkey in Liverpool, England, Starr played with Rory Storm & the Hurricanes before he was tapped to replace Pete Best in the then-rising Beatles in 1962. It was a fortuitous move, as the group went on to become the most legendary band in rock-'n'-roll history.

But on the Fab Four's journey to the musical mountaintop, Starr was the Sherpa, overshadowed by the wry social critic John Lennon, the ``cute'' McCartney and the spiritual Harrison. Starr was floppy and cuddly, but he lacked the songwriting credits and other attributes that earned his bandmates respect as so-called ``serious artists.''

``Even in the early days, around '63, that was the word that got around, that I wasn't very good,'' says Starr, who these days resides in Monaco with his second wife, actress Barbara Bach. ``I think some people have kept along with that. It doesn't bother me anymore, though - what's important is that I know I'm a good player and that other musicians think I'm a good player.''

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Just ask Peter Frampton, the guitarist in the fourth edition of the All-Starr Band.

``Listen,'' he says, ``when I was growing up, I didn't know anybody who didn't want to be the Beatles, and I didn't know any drummers who didn't want to be Ringo. There was just so much talent in that band that it's inevitable that someone would be overshadowed, and it turned out to be Ringo, who was really just solid and steady and really kept the whole thing in groove.''

Starr sang some of the Beatles' best-loved songs, including ``Yellow Submarine'' (1966), ``Octopus's Garden'' (1969) and ``With a Little Help From My Friends'' (1967), which has become the All-Starr Band's anthem. And between 1971 and 1975 he strung together seven Top 10 solo singles, including ``It Don't Come Easy'' (1971), ``Back Off Boogaloo'' (1972), ``Photograph'' (1973) and ``You're Sixteen'' (1973).

But after the mania of the Beatles' 1960s tours, Starr largely avoided the road. It was only in 1988, after he and Bach sobered up via a five-week stay in a treatment center in Tucson, Ariz., that the ex-Beatle found a new desire to return to live performance. He got together with producer David Fishof, who had coordinated the first Monkees reunion tour, and hatched the All-Starr Band concept.

``For me, it works as a great formula,'' Starr says. ``The deal is that you come, and we play the hits. I keep saying this is the best 1-800-number band on the road - dial up your favorite song, and we'll play it.

``I've had the opportunity to play with the most incredible musicians in America and Britain,'' adds Starr, whose 2001 All-Starrs include Greg Lake of King Crimson and of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople, Roger Hodgson of Supertramp, 1980s pop star Howard Jones and Sheila E., former drummer in Prince's band. ``It's really a great way for me to have fun, do my stuff, like `Hi, peace and love,' and play with all these guys.

''(Twelve) years ago, it was pretty thrilling and nerve-wracking in many ways,'' he admits. ``But it worked, so I just started putting the bands together and now it's like almost every year we go, `OK, well, let's do it again!'''

The individual All-Starrs feel much the same way.

``What can you say? You get that much talent and diversity,'' says former Grand Funk Railroad guitarist Mark Farner, who played in the third All-Starrs. ``And there's such great camaraderie out there - everybody really gets along as family, with Ringo as the dad.''

Despite the many big names who have played in past years, however, Fishof underlines that Starr is the key drawing-card.

``Ringo's the magnet, definitely,'' the producer says. ``I see the fan reaction and the Beatles-esque response. You have a new generation of fans who have seen `The Beatles Anthology' (1996) and heard the `1' album, and they're starting to come and scream at the shows like their mothers did.''

This year's All-Starr Band reaches into the 1980s with hitmakers such as Jones and drummer Sheila E., who is the ex-Beatle's first female All-Starr.

``The first time I met Sheila was in California, in March this year,'' says Starr, whose son Zak has been an All-Starr drummer and currently works with The Who. ``As a musician, it's no different than working with anyone else. She is a brilliant drummer, and her edge is that she brings this sort of a Latin quality that we haven't worked with before.''

As for the future, Starr says he isn't looking too far beyond the current tour - ``I handle one thing at a time,'' he says with a laugh. But he's confident that more albums and more All-Starr Bands lie ahead. At bottom he's a musician, he says, and he can't see himself ever giving that up.

``I just happened to end up in this monster band,'' he concludes, ``but I totally feel that I would still be playing in the clubs of Liverpool if that's where it all ended for me.''

-- Gary Graff

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