The Beatles (63 page)

Alone in the Dingle, Ritchie had been a distant, almost maddeningly backward introvert. As part of the Hurricanes, he developed “
a bubble of personality
.” Playing with the band seemed to invest him with confidence, the attention and exposure acting like a spark plug, stimulating an ego and identity that, up to then, had gone largely uncultivated. Onstage, he located a hidden charm—grinning earnestly at girls; casting enigmatic, brooding stares into the dark distance, playing with his eyes closed and head tilted to one side, trancelike, as though listening to the drum’s inner beat; making lunges and parries at the cymbals. Ritchie savored the glow, and Rory, “
who liked to take care of the other guys
in the band,” made sure he shared the spotlight. Now, under Rory’s tutelage, he began creating a role for himself that reached beyond the act. Ritchie had experimented with images that he used to offset his inadequacies; now he streaked his hair silver and dressed up in a long duster and cowboy hat. The teddy boy outfit he had shared with Roy Trafford disappeared for good late that year, but he began wearing rings, not just one but many, simultaneously, an affectation that
arose from his mother’s passion for flashy jewelry. Elsie bought him several tawdry costume pieces studded with cut-glass “gems,” which he wore along with a man’s signet ring that had belonged to Grandpa Starkey. “
He always loved his rings
,” recalls Marie Maguire Crawford. “It was a kind of attention-getter—something flashy to offset the idea that he was sickly and not well educated, perhaps distancing him from the Dingle.”

Inspired by his popularity with the Hurricanes, Ritchie immersed himself in the company of adoring young women who began following bands from gig to gig. Illness had wreaked havoc on Ritchie’s shaky self-confidence, but the band offset all that and, before long, he had two serious girlfriends, Pat Davies, a schoolmate of Cilla Black’s, and later a Jacaranda waitress named Geraldine McGovern, to whom he eventually became engaged. But a band was no place to nurture a relationship. Besides, Gerri was Catholic—a fact that never sat well with Elsie, who “
was nominally of the Orange lodge
” and, with a few drinks under her belt, would break into “The Sash My Father Wore” as a swipe at her “sworn enemy.”

Ultimately, Ritchie carved out a niche as a free agent. Like many teenagers who grow up in a ghetto, he was in a terrible rush to move onward—and upward. Dingle boys were drilled to place security above all else. The Ritchie Starkey who had never amounted to much at school and seemed doomed to the family fate of being yet another in a long line of menial laborers and soldiers was determined “
to say [he] was actually
something
,” a professional, as opposed to a working stiff. Working at Hunt’s, with its boisterous crew, rustling of machinery, and long silences interrupted occasionally by the camaraderie of Roy Trafford and Eddie Miles, was deathly dull, but it provided both security and self-esteem.

Still, Ritchie wanted more—he wanted fulfillment—and the only way to get it was through music. And a choice would have to be made.

Sometime that spring of 1962, Rory and the Hurricanes learned they’d been hired for the summer residency at Butlins in Wales. Throughout April and May, Ritchie remained undecided whether to accept, furiously turning over in his mind the impact of such a move. “
It was a difficult decision
for him,” recalls Johnny Byrne, who himself reluctantly ditched a good job as an invoice clerk at the Cotton Exchange to go. “Ringo never counted on music interrupting his apprenticeship, but Rory painted a picture of it that was impossible to ignore.”

One can only imagine how tempting he made it sound. Ritchie accepted
the offer and announced his decision shortly thereafter at a family gathering. To his aunts and uncles, he was foolishly risking a solid future on such an ill-considered scheme. But playing with the Hurricanes had shown him that nothing—and no one—could compete with the thrill of the stage. Even his mother’s objections fell on deaf ears.

Somehow, decisions like this one always proved clear-cut for Ringo. He never doubted that leaving Hunt’s and joining Rory Storm and the Hurricanes was a worthwhile opportunity, just as he later left Rory in 1962 to play in Hamburg with Tony Sheridan, and just as, later that year, he rejected Kingsize Taylor’s offer to become a member of an outstanding outfit like the Dominoes. When the Beatles made their play, Ringo hesitated only long enough to discuss it with Roy Trafford, who encouraged him to move on—and up—with a better band. “
Why not
?” Roy recalls telling his mate. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”

For the Beatles, the significance of a first-class drummer was essential to their survival. “Our career was on the line,” Paul recalled, and the band knew that the only surefire way of taking it to the next level was by adding a world-beater to the mix. It was evident they’d found their man from the moment that Ringo took over the beat. Immediately they recaptured a spark that had eluded them for so long. The energy, the cleverness, the right groove—the
magic
—breezed back into their overall sound. At last, after six years, stardom seemed possible to the Beatles.

Chapter 19
A Touch of the Barnum & Bailey

R
ingo’s Liverpool debut on August 19, 1962, did nothing to tickle the ears of the pop music world or rocket the Beatles to stardom. Only later, in retrospect, would it achieve mythic status. No one was affected by the situation more than Ringo. He’d heard the fan outcry in the days leading up to the Cavern gig. The dance halls and cafés had been full of it—and the schools, too, where there was a wave of adulation for Pete. Even in the record shops there was constant debate and grumbling. An hour before going on, Ringo ducked into the White Star for a remedial pint and collapsed at a table with the Blue Jeans.
They
knew he was “petrified.” Even his appearance—a little goatee and straight, slicked-back hair—bespoke an uneasiness, like someone who was one step ahead of the law. “
We felt sorry for him
because he was so nervous,” Ray Ennis recalls.

Most of those who attended the show shared Colin Manley’s reaction: “
I felt sorry for the lads
. The crowd was so worked up over Pete’s sacking that no one would let them play.” “
From the time the doors opened
,” Wooler recalled, “the crowd was chanting, ‘Pete forever. Ringo—
never!
’ We were prepared for a disturbance.” And from the moment the Beatles took the stage, angry shouts punctuated the music:
“Where’s Pete?” “Traitors!” “We want Pete!”
Others supported the change. Eventually, both factions began jawing at each other, glaring, pointing fingers.
“Up with Ringo!” “Pete is Best!”
Ringo, half-obscured behind the drums, grew “extremely more nervous” with each outburst.

Be that as it may, none of the other Beatles seemed to notice. And considering the circumstances, Ringo held his own. He adapted perfectly to the Beatles’ raw, assertive style, powering up the tempo without letting it drown out the key ensemble energy. Probably nobody appreciated that more than Paul, whose lovely bass runs had been strangled by Pete’s heavy
hand, whereas Ringo complemented them, giving Paul a “
very solid beat
” to work with. “
Ringo didn’t try and direct the beat
,” says Adrian Barber, “but you could always rely on it.” He brought order to an otherwise fitful rhythm section; there was an economy to his playing that kept the drums from running away with the beat. During one particularly tense moment onstage George warned some hecklers to “shut yer yaps.” Later, when he stepped out of the bandroom into a crowded dark passage, someone lurched forward and head-butted him under the eye, giving him a tremendous shiner. George took it in stride, but Brian Epstein, worked up to a near-hysterical pitch, ordered the Cavern’s heavyweight doorman, Paddy Delaney, to escort the band upstairs to safety.

That week in 1962 also marked upheaval in the Beatles’ personal lives. Without much warning, Paul ended his two-and-a-half-year relationship with Dot Rhone. It came as a shock, inasmuch as “
it had all been settled
,” according to Dot, that they “were going to get married and [she] was going to move in with [the McCartneys].” She already had the ring, the gold band from Hamburg; he’d taken out a marriage license. Paul’s aunt Jin had even given Dot a crash course in “domestic lessons,” explaining how to make the bed, do the laundry, shop for groceries, prepare dinner. But in July, with her pregnancy only three months along, Dot miscarried. The tragedy brought to the surface problems that had been brewing for half a year. Now there was no baby—and considerably less of Paul. All through the spring she’d felt “his feelings cool off.” With him suddenly free of obligation, it was only a matter of time before they turned bitterly frigid, and a few weeks later he announced that it was over between them.

The split came at an awkward time. Four days after Ringo’s Cavern debut, John and Cynthia got married in a civil ceremony at the stern worn-brick registry office on Mount Pleasant. It was, in the words of Cynthia, “
a bizarre affair
,” not only because of its dreary ambience but also for the fact that it was carried out on a shoestring and without any foreseeable plan. No photographer took pictures; no flowers arrived for the bride.
Fortunately, Brian sent a car
for Cynthia, who’d spent the morning smartening herself in a purple-and-white-check suit over the white blouse Astrid Kirchherr had given her. It had rained steadily since dawn, and the weather wreaked havoc on the bride, especially her hair, which she had done up in intricate French plaits. Aside from Brian, Cynthia’s brother Tony and his wife, Marjorie, only the Beatles, in matching black suits, attended (but not Ringo, who “
was never even told
” about it). Predictably, John’s aunt Mimi refused to attend.
John had waited until the last minute
to spring the news
on her, seeking to obtain at least the appearance of understanding, then suffered her outrage.

John was sober—he was not about to risk the wrath of his fetching wife-to-be—but he might as well have drank, considering the attack of giggles that ruffled through the ceremony. No one, aside from the Puritan Brian, could keep a straight face. The registrar, a twitchy, provincial man with florid cheeks and bloodshot eyes, fought a conspiracy of jackhammers from a construction site just outside the building. Every time he posed a question to either John or Cynthia, the drills rattled back, drowning them out, until the preposterous circumstances proved too hilarious to contain.

After Brian treated everyone to a celebratory lunch—at Reece’s, coincidentally, the same place John’s parents, as well as Ringo’s, celebrated after their respective weddings—he presented the bride and groom with an extraordinary gift: the keys to his secret furnished flat on Falkner Street, a few bocks from the art college. It was a modest little place, with one bedroom and a small walled-in garden, that he used occasionally as “
a fucking pad
” but primarily as a place to crash after late-night gigs so that he could sleep until noon and avoid his parents. In any event, it was a godsend to John and Cynthia, who wanted desperately—who needed desperately—to live on their own. After lunch, they moved their things into the flat, which was already decorated by Brian’s graceful hand. Cynthia’s mother, who had visited but returned to Canada a few days before the wedding, bought them a secondhand red rug, matching lamps, and a miscellany of cookware. And even Mimi, who everyone predicted would come around in time, provided a coffee table with a hammered-copper top.

To John and Cynthia it was a vaunted refuge, a jewel box of their own, where they could settle down to married life. But as friends came and went unannounced and the tidings gradually wore down on their first day together, that life slipped back into familiar routine. “
We actually did a gig that night
,” George recalled, noting how it put the final twist on an otherwise surreal day. The Beatles sped off to Chester, where not a word of John’s marriage was mentioned, while Cynthia stayed home, alone, to unpack. Amid crates of clothes and pooled belongings, thinking about life with a musician, Cynthia formulated a theory she kept to herself. “I was
the only one thinking about the future
,” she remembered musing, “… because I knew what I was in for.”