Yesterday, I was able to go into the city and see one of my favorite rock musicians up close and personal when Ringo Starr, the former drummer of the Beatles, made an appearance at Strands book store to promote his new book, Photograph.
Conducting the interview was yet another musical legend, Steve Van Zandt, who himself has enjoyed an illustrious musical career as a prominent member of Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band.
I knew that Ringo was on tour right around now, although the tickets were a bit too pricey for me to go to a show at this time. However, this was a much cheaper alternative, and the book would be a part of it, which would serve as a nice souvenir of the day.
It had been three years since the last Ringo concert that I attended, back in 2012, when my girlfriend and I were still quite early into the relationship. Seeing him in an entirely different capacity, and much closer up then would have realistically been possible even with great tickets at one of his concerts, proved to be a truly unique experience indeed.
Van Zandt and Ringo had chosen some of the photographs that they discussed. All members of the Beatles were, of course, among those ones discussed, although there were also some others included, as well. One was a photo of John Lennon's son, Julian, and Ringo Starr's son, Zak Starkey, taken on a boat back in the late sixties or early seventies, when they were still children.
Other musicians of the period, as well as a few actors, were also among those photographs discussed.
In one photograph, three of the four Beatles (and possibly the fourth, although the head of the figure who may or may not be John Lennon was cut off in the shot) are pictured. Everyone seems to be having fun, although Paul McCartney is seen making a very strange face, with an almost overjoyed expression evidenced. One girl is looking at him in a way that provoked Ringo to say of his former bandmate, "Someone is getting lucky tonight!"
Ringo also mentioned the idea that all four Beatles surely had taken their fair share of photographs from the days of the Beatles, and that he had mentioned in the past that it would be a good idea for them to have joined forces and released a similar book documenting a photograph history of the legendary band. he laughed, and said that the best part about such a book would be that he would be in a lot more of the photographs, since most of the photographs in this book were taken by him, which prevented him from being in many of these photos.
It appeared that Ringo was in a jovial mood overall, as he joked numerous times about those days, the various fashions worn at the time, and several times even joking about the often drugged out state of mind of the members of the band. There is a photograph of Paul McCartney wearing a bandanna, and next to a movie star. Ringo mused that fashion was a fickle thing when you experimented with it, and sometimes it worked, and sometimes you look like this, pointing to the photo of Paul.
All in all, it was a pleasant afternoon, and what an unbelievable privilege it was to see such a legend in much closer proximity than would normally be the case. The event was held in the rare books section of Strand bookstore, so that it felt like the speakers and the audience gathered around were in a small, confined space not that different than a spacey living room. Plus, the book is a cool souvenir, with a specialized book plate with his signature in gold foil affixed to it. On the bottom of the book plate, there was a somewhat personalized printed message about this particular event, reading:
Strands Books, New York City, USA
October 26, 2015
Everyone at the event seemed in a pleasant frame of mind. While waiting outside on the sidewalk for the event, I began to have a discussion with one guy from Scotland, who was in the country to participate in a huge cooking event in Michigan that had chefs from all over the world, lending it an international feel. He had just happened to walk down this particular street (14th Street) and learned about this. Being a Beatles fan, he decided to go ahead and attend. All that you needed to do to attend was purchase a copy of the book (by Genesis Publications), and then show up. What a cool event to attend while in New York City, and what a cool souvenir to take back home to Scotland with him!
He mentioned that he had been to the United States before, although it had been freezing cold last time. This day, by contrast, had been beautiful, as we were blessed with a perfect autumn afternoon. i asked him if he would get a chance to see the colorful fall foliage, and he said that he intended to take a tour bus that would take him to Brooklyn tomorrow. Hopefully, he will get to see it. He seemed like a very cool guy!
In any case, what a cool event, and I, for one, felt very privileged to have been there!
Sorry for the shortness of the video but, due to very limited storage in my cell phone at the time, this is all that I managed to get:
However, The Strand Book Store itself had a much fuller video available:
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