Ringo Starr – The Little Drummer – First Band – Skiffle Group

Ritchie took a messenger job with the British Railroad, but had to quit when he failed the medical exam. He next worked as a barman on a boat that traveled between Liverpool and Wales, but he was fired when he turned up for work in an inebriated state and lipped off to his boss. Finally, when he was seventeen, he took a job at Henry Hunt and Son’s engineering firm as an apprentice joiner. It was about this time that the skiffle craze hit. Ritchie and Eddie Miles, another apprentice at H. Hunt and Son, started the Eddie Clayton skiffle group. With Ritchie handling the percussive duties, they and other similarly minded employees would entertain the workers at lunch time. After hours the strictly amateur group played at parties and local competitions. In December of 1957, Harry Graves bought his stepson his first real set of drums. It was second-hand set costing all of ten pounds which Harry hand carried from London to Liverpool by train. This rather ramshackle set was eventually replaced with a new black Premier kit for which Ritchie borrowed half the cost from his grandfather. Eventually Ritchie joined the Darktown Skiffle group, but it was not uncommon for him to sit in with other bands. A skiffle group who formed in 1957 when Ritchie Starkey was working as an apprentice at H.Hunt & Sons. At the time he had no thoughts of taking up the drums as a career. He recalled, “I remember my mum saying a neighbour was in a band and why didn’t I have a go. I thought it was a jazz group – I was mad on jazz. When it turned out to be a silver band, playing in the park and sticking to the marches and all that, I chucked it in. I lasted just one night.” His stepfather bought him a drum kit for £10 in London and brought it back by train.

Ritchie got together with his friend Eddie Miles, who also worked for the firm. With three other band members from Hunts, the line-up was Eddie Miles (using the name Eddie Clayton because he felt it sounded better than his own name), guitar/vocals, Ritchie Starkey, drums; Roy Trafford, tea-chest bass; John Dougherty, washboard and Frank Walsh, guitar. They originally began playing during lunch breaks in the works canteen. Ritchie’s grandfather then lent him £50 to put down as a deposit for a brand new kit. The group made their debut at the Peel Street Labour Club and became resident there, also initially appearing at Wilson Hall, Garston. They also appeared at the Cavern on Tuesday July 31 and Wednesday December 4, 1957. Their 1958 Cavern appearances were on Wednesday January 29; Friday 7, Monday 10, Sunday 16 and Sunday 23 February and Saturday 8 and Friday 28 March. They also appeared at various skiffle contests taking place at such venues as St. Luke’s Hall. Their nearest approach to a group uniform consisted of shirts in the same colour as their bootlace ties. The group was also to enjoy a residency at the Boys’ Club meetings at the Florence Institute in Dingle. Ritchie’s mother, Elsie, was to recall in Mersey Beat: “Ritchie joined the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group with Ed Miles, the boy who lived next door. Roy Trafford and Johnny Dougherty – they all worked together in the same place. Eddie used to take his guitar to work every day. He was a smashing fellow – if ever a lad should have got somewhere he should have. I believe he’s with Hank Walters & His Dusty Road Ramblers.”

Soon after Trafford piqued Starkey’s interest in skiffle, the two began rehearsing songs in the manufacturing plant’s cellar during their lunch breaks. Trafford recalled: “I played a guitar, and [Ritchie] just made a noise on a box … Sometimes, he just slapped a biscuit tin with some keys, or banged on the backs of chairs.”[33] The pair were joined by Starkey’s neighbour and co-worker, the guitarist Eddie Miles, forming the Eddie Miles Band, later renamed Eddie Clayton and the Clayton Squares after a Liverpool landmark.[34] The band performed popular skiffle songs such as “Rock Island Line” and “Walking Cane”, with Starkey raking a thimble across a washboard, creating primitive, driving rhythms.[35] Starkey enjoyed dancing as his parents had years earlier, and he and Trafford briefly took dance lessons at two schools. Though the lessons were short-lived, they provided Starkey and Trafford with an introduction that allowed them to dance competently while enjoying nights out on the town.[35]

On Christmas Day 1957, Graves gave Starkey a second-hand drum kit consisting of a snare drum, bass drum and a makeshift cymbal fashioned from an old rubbish bin lid. Although basic and crude, the kit facilitated his progression as a musician while increasing the commercial potential of the Eddie Clayton band, who went on to book several prestigious local gigs before the skiffle craze faded in early 1958 as American rock and roll became popular in the UK

on November 1959, Starkey joined Al Caldwell’s Texans, a skiffle group who were looking for someone with a proper drum kit so that the group could transition from one of Liverpool’s best-known skiffle acts to a full-fledged rock and roll band.[37][nb 1] They had begun playing local clubs as the Raging Texans, then Jet Storm and the Raging Texans before settling on Rory Storm and the Hurricanes soon before recruiting Starkey.[39] About this time he adopted the stage name Ringo Starr; derived from the rings he wore and also because it implied a country and western influence. His drum solos were billed as Starr Time.

sources :

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