This Youtube Video informs us about the “genius” of Ringo.
Seriously? Look, I don’t mind Ringo. He’s a decent drummer. He stays in time, can hold a rhythm, and looks good doing it. Furthermore, he seems to be a really decent guy. He is unpretentious. Humble. He is a photographer.
But “great”? Ringo is not and never was a “great” drummer. In fact, there have been occasions on which Paul banged out a few bars in Ringo’s absence, and no hue and cry was raised. Was it even noticed? Some acolytes of the Sacred Heart of the Ringo is Great Divinity School like to try to make a virtue of his deficiencies by praising his simple, straight-forward, unadorned style. The truth is that Ringo was never capable of anything much more complex than that.
Ringo just happened to be the drummer for a band that became very, very famous, and nobody will believe that a band that famous could not have had an elite drummer, and since almost no listener has the slightest clue as to what a really, really good drummer sounds like (try Hal Blaine, or Kenneth A. Buttrey on Dylan’s “John Wesley Harding”, or The Band’s Levon Helm, or Neal Pert of Rush) they just assume he is one of them.
Want to hear the worst drummers of all time? Check out most of Neil Young’s backing bands, but especially Crazy Horse.