When Ringo Starr described Charlie Watts in 11 words
There’s a horrible rumour out there that Ringo Starr wasn’t a great drummer. He was. In fact, Bill Ryder-Jones recently asserted in a Far Out interview that he was the best drummer ever. After all, if Jools Holland asserts that a band is only as good as its drummer, then how could he not be in contention? He serviced some of the greatest songs known to man and was wise enough to keep them clear of clattering ego.
He might not be flashy, but his simplicity was a strength that let the band gel, as Paul McCartney appraised: “Look, I love Led Zeppelin, but you watch them playing, and you can see them looking back at John Bonham, like, ‘What the hell are you doing? This is the beat. You could turn your back on Ringo and never have to worry. He both gave you security and you knew he was going to nail it.”
Ringo was even wise to the fate that would await him but was happy to embrace it for the sake of the songs, all of which bear his idiosyncratic charm. As he explained during a TV appearance following the band’s split: “At the beginning, because of the songwriters, which is a very powerful force in The Beatles and John and Paul mainly as the singers and I was just playing the drums and nodding my head so I didn’t get noticed.”
At this stage, Ringo also enlisted another of his wrongfully overlooked peers. “You look at Charlie Watts in the Stones, and there is nothing really said, and he’s an amazing drummer, but the drummers tended not to get the writing,“ Ringo opined. “The drummer is the driving force, but when you have songwriters of that calibre and singers they much prefer to talk about the songs and the writers.”
With that in mind, Ringo delivered his 11-word verdict on his kin: “[He’s] the only drummer who leaves out more than I do.”
The pair fittingly became good mates, with Ringo recalling at a recent press conference for his EP, Change The World, a cracking tale from yesterday that once again serves as testimony to Watts’ humility. “I had a drum kit up in the attic – it was like a cinema attic, music, whatever you want to do up there,” the Beatle began. “Charlie came, and so did John Bonham. We’ve got three drummers, just hanging out.”
“Bonham got on the kit. But because it was just like … you know, it’s not like onstage, where you nail them down, so they’re steady. It was just, like, there. So as he was playing, the bass drum was hopping away from him,” he continued. This left the pair laughing like rakes as their thunderous mate chased the kit across the floor. “Yeah, we will miss Charlie. He was a beautiful human being. He was like The Quiet Man,” he said.
