Starr in his own right: Ex-Beatle plays on
People might guess Ringo Starr when asked to name the last Beatle to have a No. 1 record. They would be wrong.
One doesn't need a bachelor's degree in Beatlemania to know that Richard Starkey got there (twice in fact) before John Winston Lennon.
Lennon's 1974 recording of "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" came four years after the Fab Four's dissolution. Elton John, then with a global following to match Lennon's, sang backup vocal and both appeared on stage at Madison Square Center that fall -- Lennon paying off a bet that the song would not top out in "Billboard."
The title of Lennon's pole-sitter traces to a comment by Frank Sinatra in a Playboy interview. That while he might disavow belief in God. Sinatra only asked for something to get through the night, though his day might not end until 5 a.m. Options, he said, included "prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel's." An unfiltered pack of Camel cigarettes was slipped inside his coffin upon the singer's 1998 passing.
Ex-Beatle George Harrison penned "Something," the group's first single off the "Abbey Road" (1969) album and which Sinatra, one of its many copiers, called the greatest love singer ever written. Harrison had three solo No. 1 singles before his 2001 death of lung cancer, though his association with "My Sweet Lord" (1970) was clouded when a court ruled it too closely copied The Ronettes' "He's So Fine."
Harrison was considered the quiet Beatle, the most introspective, but one confident enough to write "Here Comes the Sun," which begins Side 2 of "Abbey Road." Soul artist Richie Havens does the tune justice.
Source: Bob Wisener/hotsr.com
