Ringo Starr spent the first week of February, 1971 at Pinewood Studios participating in the filming of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels, in which he portrayed a stylized version of the movie's writer/director/composer:
Ringo's first pop single, "It Don't Come Easy", was released April 9th in the UK and a week later in the US. It rocketed up the charts, peaking in the top 5 on both sides of the pond.
This led to a remarkable situation on April 24th, when all four ex-Beatles had songs in the Melody Maker top 30: "It Don't Come Easy" (#17), Paul's "Another Day" (#14), John's "Power To The People" (#18), and George's My Sweet Lord" hanging on at #28.
The initial promo for "It Don't Come Easy" was a homemade affair, assembled by Ringo from various clips dating back to 1967 and having nothing to do with the song. It was aired on Top Of The Pops April 22nd.
On April 27th, Ringo was in Norway, filming a guest spot on Cilla Black's TV special, Cilla In Scandinavia. Ringo's appearance on a ski slope found him singing the "Snowman Song" alongside Cilla and fox puppet Basil Brush:
While in Norway, Ringo also shot a second promo for "It Don't Come Easy", this time miming the lyrics in between schussing. This version was aired first on Top Of The Pops April 29th, and later as part of Cilla In Scandinavia, broadcast November 27th on BBC-TV.
time to lose the voting booth
ReplyDeleteFrom 1967? I`m trying to spot the bits that are not contamporary (relative to the recording/release of the song) but then decided that Bamiyan probably already figured out and indeed: http://www.beatlesondvd.com/19651969/19671207_rs_02.htm
ReplyDeleteI also figure that the short bit psychedelic projecting of colored film/slide onto someting moving must be from that time, very much reminding me of that MMT bit of film projected onto Mal`s chest. Plus somebody with both Beatles and Feline expertise could probably date the kitten footage more properly (maybe by finding the birth certificates of the cats and calculating their age in this clip) but to me it also has a 67 feel to it. ;-)
Besides this we get to see a Magic Christian Ringo and short-haired with beard one.
And the guitar-strumming-Ringo that reminds me so much of David A. Stewart for some reason.