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During the early years of Ringo`s life, he missed a lot of school because of illness. When he was six years old, he suffered from a ruptured appendix and spent two months in a coma. He was in the hospital from 1953 - 1955 from chronic pleurisy. As a result, he was was labeled "dumb" because he missed so much school. When he joined his first band at the age of 16, he was assigned to drums because everyone assumed it was the only thing he could do. Later he picked up the nickname, "Ringo".
Ringo was the last to join The Beatles. Pete Best, the original drummer for The Beatles, was fired shortly before their first recording session with EMI. George Martin didn't think Pete was good enough. So Ringo quit his current band with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and became The Beatles drummer. George Martin was still not convinced that Ringo was the right drummer so he hired Andy White, a session drummer, to play drums on their first released song, "Love Me Do."
In February 1965, Ringo married his long time girlfriend, Maureen Cox, who had been a Cavern regular. Ringo did very little song writing during The Beatle years. With the exception of "Let It Be", Ringo was given at least one song to do the lead vocals on each of The Beatles albums.
After The Beatles broke up, Ringo's solo career began very promising. In 1971 he performed live with George Harrison for the Bangladesh Concert. In 1973 he released "Ringo", an album known for the fact that it was the only solo Beatle album where all four Beatles played and made contributions.
Ringo began to get into films and his divorce in April 1981, Ringo married Barbara Bach who he had met on the set of the movie "Caveman". In the mid 1980's Ringo's music career fell apart. He couldn't find a record company who would release his recordings. In October 1988, Ringo entered a recovery clinic for alcoholics. Ringo's music career was rejuvenated in the 1990's when he joined with other well known musicians and formed his "All-Starr Band".
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