Ringo Starr can be considered one of the luckiest man on earth. He joined the most important rock band in history just months before they recorded their first album “Please Please Me” But now, he is a real legend. His current Net Worth is $ 320 million, and he is still on tour worldwide.
Richard Starkey was born on July 7th, 1940 in Liverpool, England. His parents Richard Starkey Sr. and Elise Gleave were bakers. He lived in Dingle, a suburb from the port of Liverpool. His father left the family when he was 3 years old, and his mother in order to raise him, had to work as a waitress. He is an only child.
Early years.
He entered the Saint Silas school, and just a year after his registering, he started to suffer from constant stomach ache, which turned into peritonitis after his appendix burst. He was in coma for ten weeks, and suffered different severe complications in many degrees, until he was released from the hospital after a year.
When he came back to school, he was way behind his classmates. He could not even know how to read and write. Only a girl from his neighborhood took the bother to teach him something.
Drums classes.
He entered and left the hospital several times. During those years at the hospital, he learned how to play the drums. Richard made a small band along with Eddie Clayton who was a friend of his. During that time, a sound called skiffle was obsolete, but Ringo improved a lot the way he played the drums, and he could join one of the most important band in Liverpool, “The Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.” It was during that period when he changed his name to “Ringo Starr” (Ringo for the rings he wore on his fingers, and Starr for his drums solo could be announced as “Starr Time”)
Hamburg and The Beatles
The Rory Storm and the Hurricanes was the most important band in Liverpool in the early 60s. they were invited to play in different pubs in Hamburg, Germany, but they could not go at the moment, so another band called The Beatles went instead. They finally could go to Germany and they alternated with The Beatles on the stage who had another drummer (Pete Best), and he occasionally shared with The Beatles within break time.
The Hurricanes eventually went back to England, but Ringo came back to Hamburg to play with Tony Sheridan, and finally he decided to return with Rory Storm and his Hurricane in 1962. That year he received a phone call from John Lennon who invited him to join The Beatles, and he said he only accepted because they told him he would earned £25. £5 more than another offering he had from another band, “Size Taylor and the Dominoes”
He became an official member of the band on September 11th, 1962 for the recording session of the first Beatles’ album, and the rest is simply history.
