Ringo At Eighty

And now, to a real musician . . .

Ringo Starr, the older of the two surviving Beatles, is eighty years old today, and he's still active.  One would have thought he would be retired by now, since he hasn't had a hit single since the early eighties and because he's never been as consistent in his songwriting as the other Beatles.  But he sings better than most people give him credit for, and more importantly, he's the consummate entertainer, always delivering songs with a smile in his voice and a twinkle in his eye.  His own acknowledgment of his ordinariness - "What's a skinny little scruff like me doing in a band like this?", he famously asked when in the Beatles - is what made him a legend.  It's his ability to not take himself to seriously that gave him his longevity.

In previous years, Ringo has celebrated his birthday the same way.  Wherever happens to be, he counts down to twelve o'clock noon and, with those in his company, calls out "Peace and Love," a mantra mantle he inherited from John Lennon.  This time, though, ihanks to COVID-19, he will be having a virtual concert at 8 PM Eastern Tie and be joined by Paul McCartney, along with a little help form his other friends - Joe Walsh, Ben Harper, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr and Sheila E - t oraise money for four causes (Black Lives Matter, The David Lynch Foundation, MusiCares and WaterAid). While Ringo probably won't record another album again (thigh he has hinted at an extended player), he may yet still perform with his All-Starr Band (whose lineup consists of whoever happens to be in the room, or these days, on Zoom at the time) when the pandemic is over, which means we could still see him on stage in 2021.  Or 2022.  Let's hope so.  We need him to stick around and stay healthy for as long as he can and keep making us smile.

Rock on, Ringo  Rock on.