The musician Ringo Starr called his musical father
When your favourite artist passes away, an immense feeling of grief can overcome you as though you’ve lost a friend or relative, and there will be millions around the world who are dreading the day when this fate comes for both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
Having not been alive at the time of John Lennon’s assassination, and being too young to have any vivid memories of George Harrison’s passing, the deaths of the two remaining members of The Beatles are likely to come with an even greater potency for me, especially for whoever it is that becomes the last one standing out of a group that has meant so much to me throughout my life.
On a personal level, only the likes of David Bowie and Brian Wilson have shaken me in this manner before, where a musical icon has died within living memory having had a profound effect on my artistic outlook. The Beatles, however, are arguably a rung above both of these examples, and a vast emptiness is likely to engulf my being for a considerable amount of time.
While the rest of the civilian world will undoubtedly have their own equivalent artists whose deaths they’ll mourn like a loved one, that doesn’t mean that the artists themselves are exempt from grief, and both McCartney and Starr will have gone through this arduous scenario following the passing of those who they idolised in their youth, and also those who they enjoyed close professional relationships with.
While the death of Lennon was still hitting close to home for both members at the start of 1981, with his death having arrived unexpectedly in December 1980, Starr would then lose the man he had looked up to most in his adolescent years, creating a gigantic hole in his own identity in the process.
In an interview with Rolling Stone in April 1981, Starr was dealing with the emotional impact of having lost his own bandmate months before, which was closely followed by the passing of American rock and roll icon Bill Haley, someone who was a major influence on the early sound of The Beatles.
“Bill Haley was like my dad,” Starr declared to the magazine. “When he came out, I was 14 or 15, and he was probably about 28. But when you’re 14 or 15, anyone at 28 is like your dad.”
Even though Starr is clearly not stating that Haley was a literal father figure to him, he felt as though he was raised by him in a different way, with the rock and roller having guided him towards his calling in the same way that a parental figure might guide their child.
Of course, the death of Haley would also have meant a significant amount to others of Starr’s generation, with him having completely opened the world’s eyes to a brand new style of music. However, for Starr in particular, as someone who not only looked up to him, but managed to reach a point where he was able to live the same life that he did as a professional musician, it would have left a hole in him that could not possibly be filled.
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