Ringo Turns Small Club Into "Octopus's Garden"

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Ringo Starr performed in a rare club date Tuesday night at the Bottom Line in New York.

Starr, busy promoting his new Vertical Mam album, which arrives in the U.S. June 16 on Mercury, interspersed four new songs with a hefty dose of Beatles/Ringo classics, including "With A Little Help From My Friends," "It Don't Come Easy," "Don't Pass Me By," "Back Off Boogaloo," "Octopus's Garden," and "Photograph."

For closers, Starr romped through "Love Me Do," an early hit for the Beatles -- originally recorded with John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison sharing vocals and, Starr admitted to the crowd, a stand-in on drums.

The lean and exuberant Starr performed as front man for much of the show, shuttling back to play drums for only a handful of numbers. His guitar-heavy band, the Roundheads, included such stalwarts as Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, drummer Simon Kirk (Bad Company) and Mark Hudson, who produced Starr's new album.

Starr shot footage for a video of first single "La De Da" over the weekend in New York; he was to tape an installment of VH1's "Storytellers" series Wednesday night. The living legend and his All-Starr Band will also tour this summer, playing sheds in Europe and Russia.

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

More Song Stories entries »

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