Ringo Starr Found the 1 Place Nobody Knew Him
Ringo Starr was the final piece of the puzzle for The Beatles. Though he was once brutally honest about his place in the band creatively, his immense drumming talent helped propel the Fab Four to worldwide fame. The Beatles were internationally known by the late 1960s, but Ringo found the one place nobody knew him on his way back from India.
Ringo Starr’s drumming on Beatles songs helped the band achieve worldwide fame
Even when The Beatles were at the peak of their fame, Ringo never got the credit he deserved. But his drumming was perfect for the band.
Though a talented timekeeper, Ringo’s greatest skill was playing within the song. He never did too much, and he never really had to. Overplaying would have risked stepping all over John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s carefully constructed melodies.
Ringo said The Beatles were lucky to land on The Ed Sullivan Show, appearances that helped them conquer North America. Lucky or not, they were internationally famous when they attended a transcendental meditation retreat in India in 1968. Still, Ringo discovered one place where no one knew him on his way back from that trip to India.
Ringo found one place where he was anonymous on his way back from India
Not long after their longtime manager, Brian Epstein, died (and Ringo joined a bizarre ritual before his funeral), the Beatles committed to attending a weeks-long retreat at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s compound in Rishikesh, India, starting in February 1968.
Well, it wasn’t a lengthy stay for Ringo.
He was tired of eating the food he packed (his sensitive stomach limited his diet). His wife, Maureen, detested being constantly swarmed by insects. Both of them were homesick and missing their young children.
Ringo and his wife arrived in India on Feb. 19, 1968. They left March 1, and on the way home, Ringo found the one place nobody knew him. Ringo Starr: Straight Man or Joker? author Alan Clayson writes that someone in the Tehran, Iran, airport asked if he was one of The Beatles:
“I said, ‘No,’ and he just walked away. I guess we’re not too big in Tehran.”
Ringo Starr
That might have been one of the only places where nobody knew Ringo. The Beatles had toured internationally and were fixtures in newspapers and magazines by 1968. North central Iran might have been one of the only places on earth where Ringo could flat-out deny being a Beatle and get away with it.
The drummer has hardly been anonymous since then
He continued churning out hit solo songs and records, including 1973’s platinum-selling self-titled album, but Ringo spiraled into addiction after The Beatles broke up. The drummer more or less retreated from making music in the 1980s. His Beatles fame and solo career waned as the years wore on, but much of the world still knew Ringo and saw plenty of him.
Ringo continued acting in non-Beatles productions throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He doomed his career by making several bad movies, but he narrated the early Thomas & Friends episodes and later starred in the spinoff Shining Time Station.
He and the Fab Four joined the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988; he earned his solo entry in 2015. Ringo was already in another musical hall of fame (one of the few rock drummers inducted) and had picked up a rare French artistic honor by the time of his personal RNR HOF ceremony.
Ringo Starr found the one place nobody knew him in 1968 — the Tehran airport. Even after The Beatles broke up, the drummer was hardly anonymous as he continued making music, acting in movies and shows, and racking up accolades.
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