1- “Ringo is right down the center, never overplays.” Paul McCartney
2- “It is fascinating to trace the drummer’s stylistic development from rock-steady club veteran to studio innovator … Ringo’s command of an exhaustive list of arrangements and new originals is matched only by his versitility. (review for Modern Drummer magazine, June 1995)” Hal Howland
3- ” I think I understand why he (Paul) loves Ringo, now after working with him. Paul loves 50s Rock ‘n’ Roll and Ringo is a great 50s Rock ‘n’ Roll drummer.” (Rhythm magazine, 1990) Chris Whitten
4- “Ringo’s just a lad. Everybody always loved him. And now that he’s all dried out, he’s just a lovable, interesting, intelligent bloke.” – Paul McCartney
5- “Technically brilliant drummers do not necessary make good rock drummers. …You don’t have to be a technical Buddy Rich type drummer, you just need to be inventive. He (Ringo) did things I would never have thought of doing.” (interview for Speaking Words of Wisdom) Dave Ballinger
6- “Ringo’s drums are one of the greatest things you can have on a record.” Don Was
7- “Ringo is Ringo, that’s all there is to it. And he’s every bloody bit as warm, unassuming, funny, and kind as he seems. He was quite simply the heart of the Beatles.” – John Lennon
8- “As a drummer, he was a natural, purely intuitive, remarkably tasteful, spirited, but always basic, a proponent of less is more school of minimal drumming. …He had an uncanny understanding of John’s rhythm and Paul’s base line. Time and again, the Beatles rode his backbeat to glory. Precisely because he never overstated a beat, or over accented a phrase (unless it was appropriate) he managed to get more mileage out of his licks than most drummers could ever dream of. The results were extraordinary.” (The Compleat Beatles, 1985) Martin Torgoff
9- “Ringo’s got the best back beat I’ve ever heard and he can play great 24-hours a day.” George Harrison
10- “He was always meant to be utilitarian, a drummer to provide feisty beat. He did this directly with wit imagination and the famous Ringo personality. And his Spartan Ludwig kit showed his ability to cut economically to the heart of the rhythm.” (interview for The Compleat Beatles, 1985) Lenny Kaye
11- “Sgt. Pepper was the album that changed drumming more than anything else. Before that album, drum fills in rock and roll were pretty rudimentary, all much the same, and this record had what I call space fills where they would leave a tremendous amount of air. It was most appealing to me musically and the sound of the drums got much better. What I had to figure out now was what am I going to do to get drums to sound like that.” (Summer of Love by George Martin, 1994) Al Kooper
12- “There were quite a few drummers around Liverpool and I used to go home and tell Paul about Ringo. I often saw him play with Rory Storm. …With Rory he was a very inventive drummer. He goes around the drums like crazy. He doesn’t just hit them — he invents sounds.” (1983 interview for The Beatles: A Celebration by Geoffrey Guilliano, 1992) Mike McCartney
13- “I liked him. He had great style. I never saw anyone play the way he did. I liked his simplicity. (1984 interview for The Big Beat by Max Weinberg) Dino Danelli
14- “Ringo wanted to serve the songs rather than show off. As a song writer’s drummer, Ringo was the type of musician who could follow instructions as he completed the overall sound. His commitment to the music was bigger than his ego.” ( Tell Me Why, 1988) Tim Riley
15- “He must have done something right. People today still look for people who play like Ringo. If you don’t believe me, just check the musical ads. On top of all this, he certainly inspired countless millions of teenagers worldwide to learn drums. There’s no doubt it, Ringo’s a very important rock drummer. … What Ringo does on the most basic of terms is make the music feel good. He refers to his playing as being fraught with silly fills due to his self-admitted lack of technique, but he says it proudly. … Sometimes chops do not a real drummer make.” (Great Rock Drummers of the 60s, 1989) Bob Cianci
16- “As a drummer, he influenced three generations of rock drummers. It’s not very flashy playing, but it’s very musical. Instead of just counting the bars, he’s playing the song, and he puts fills in unusual places that are directed by the vocal.” (The St. Louis Post Dispatch, 1992) Don Was
17- “He’s got tremendous feel. He always helped us to hit the right tempo for a song, and gave it that support-that rock-solid back-beat-that made the recording of all The Beatles’ songs that much easier.” – George Martin
18- “Starr is vastly underrated. The drum fills on the song “A Day in the Life” are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, ‘I want it like that.’ He wouldn’t know what to do.” – Drummer Phil Collins
19- “We loved him. And we just thought he was the very best drummer we’d ever seen. And we wanted him in the group. We were big fans of his.” Paul McCartney
