(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Wed 5 November 2025 17:30, UK
Ever since The Beatles broke up, Ringo Starr has been perfectly fine with doing whatever the hell he wanted.
It was never going to be easy for any of the Fab Four to move on without their mates, but judging by the breakout success that Starr had with tunes like ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ and ‘Back Off Boogaloo’, it’s not like he was hurting for hits right after the band split up or anything. If he was going to stick around for as long as his former bandmates, though, he was going to need a little bit more help.
You have to understand that Starr never seemed to want the same kind of career as John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He was not an artist in that way, and as much as people liked the idea of having him around, every fan, critic, and general music fan knew that they would be grading his albums on a curve whenever comparing them to tunes like ‘Imagine’ or ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’.
But it’s not like Starr didn’t have a few friends willing to step in and help him out. One of the few traits that he mastered during his time in the spotlight is absolute charm, and even if he the one guiding the All-Starr Band throughout their touring days, it would have been impossible to say no to the famous drummer given how much fun it was getting up onstage and playing a bunch of Beatles and Starr classics
While musicians like Joe Walsh and Steve Lukather could step in to perfect the live show, one of the biggest thrills Starr had was playing with two drummers. He knew the people wanted him at the lip of the stage playing the frontman role, but aside from working with countless musicians, he always had a special place in his heart for when he first jammed with Levon Helm and the rest of The Band.
Robbie Robertson would remain a regular in the All-Starr Band, but Starr remembered feeling blessed to know Helm, saying, “I had three drummers—I was one of them, Jim Keltner sat on my left and Levon Helm was on my right because I was so nervous about putting this thing together. Levon was a find from God. He was a beautiful human being.” And given Keltner’s pedigree, that’s not something that Starr took lightly.
Aside from being a fantastic drummer, though, the fact that Helm also helped him a great deal. He knew that the integrity of the song needed to come before anything else, and while that did mean a few tunes that required him to play pretty sparsely, that meant that he was listening out for the song in the same way that Starr did when listening to all of those early Beatles records and the odd Beatles solo record.
But the true superpower every member of the Band had was the ability to switch on a dime if they needed to. Working with Bob Dylan is no easy feat, and while they had their own legacy to carve out, they had already become legends before Music From Big Pink purely on the fact that they could follow Dylan if he decided to change up the setlist midway through or play a tune in a different key at the last minute.
Any other session musician would freeze up in that kind of situation, but Helm’s ability to always keep things in place is why he worked so well with everyone’s favourite drummer. Starr was never going to throw him anything he couldn’t handle, and even if things went haywire, he was more than willing to give it a shot.
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