Richard Starkey, better famed as Ringo Starr, was appointed as the Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in a ceremony held at Buckingham Palace on Monday.
You’ll have to call him Sir Ringo now, or maybe Sir Richard to show more respect. Regardless, it’s a fitting recognition to the services of the former Beatles drummer, who had to wait nearly half a century for this recognition.
In a ceremony held at the Buckingham Palace in London on March the 20th, Prince William anointed the 77-year-old Ringo Starr with knighthood. For the big event, he decided to use his real name, Richard Starkey.
Ringo Starr is only one of the two surviving members of Beatles, a youthful English band which mesmerized the world with its music back in the 20th century. The other surviving member of Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney, was knighted in 1997.
In addition to Starr, a string of TV personalities, musicians, and political figures, including presenter Eamon Holmes, singer Barry Gibb, and author Jilly Cooper also received the title on Monday.
When Starr accepted the knighthood on Monday, it was 53-years to the day since the Beatles were enshrined with the MBE on the same location.
However, that award was later renounced by John Lennon, in protest against America’s involvement in Vietnam, the Nigerian Civil War, and the failure of his 1969 solo Cold Turkey.
History of Ringo Starr
Born in Liverpool on July 7, 1940, the first band that Starr joined as a professional drummer was not Beatles. Instead, it was in Al Caldwell’s Texan’s Hurricanes that he earlier made his name.
It was only in 1962 that John Lennon approached him that Starr quit the Hurricanes that he joined the Beatles.
At that time, the Beatles were on the cusp of worldwide fame, as they had just signed their first record deal with Parlophone. Starr only joined the Beatles after the band had sacked its original drummer, Pete Best, in a move that didn’t go down well with the local fans.
However, nearly 56-years after making the move – and with the title of a ‘’Sir’’ preceding his name, Ringo Starr has enough to prove that the move was right, both for him as well as the band.
