Ringo (ballad)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lorne Greene (1969)

Ringo is the title of a Western - ballad , the Canadian actor and singer Lorne Greene early 1964 in the United States first on the LP Welcome to the Ponderosa , in the autumn of the year on a single release - this with the B-side Bonanza  - each on RCA Victor - label published. Text and music are provided by Don Robertson and Hal Blair. The single reached in the US and Canada each number one on the hit parade .

The content of the song deals with a classic, clichéd theme of the Wild West - genres , the contrasting clash of good and evil, here personified in the form of a nameless sheriff and an infamous gunfighter named Ringo. In the end, however, it turns out that the bad guy is not exclusively bad.

History of origin

At his mother's insistence, Lorne Greene had taken violin lessons for five years, but had to give it up when he was 15 after an accident at a baseball game - to his delight, because from the start he had the feeling that music was not for him. After the Second World War he began his career as a film and stage actor, and from September 1959 he played Ben Cartwright in the NBC television series Bonanza . This only developed into a popular success after several years of starting up, and for the Christmas business of 1963, RCA Victor, whose parent company NBC also belonged, released a record with songs by the members of the Cartwright family (Young At Heart) . Greene stated that it was "not very good, but it sold well". He then received a record deal from RCA, and the LP Welcome to the Ponderosa , again sung by the Bonanza cast , was produced. For this purpose, the producer Greene had submitted a poem written by Don Robertson and Hal Blair only the previous year, about which the latter recalled in retrospect: “After the fourth verse I got goose bumps down my spine. I knew it was going to be a huge hit. ”He recorded the title for the album, and later in 1964 he received a call from his record company asking them to press a single from Ringo after a radio DJ in Lubbock, Texas repeated the ballad and thereby made it known. The first 1,200 copies are said to have been sold out there within 24 hours.

In 1964, the television series Bonanza had for the first time the highest ratings of all comparable productions in the USA; However, this can hardly have been due to the sales success of the single, because it was released very late in the year. As a result, Lorne Greene released seven more LPs with RCA Victor, but he was no longer granted a hit that was even roughly the same.

The ballad

Text and plot

Only the LP version contains a twenty-second pretext, spoken by Greene and not recorded as an instrument, which introduces the general theme of the song (the outlaws , the gunslingers , the Billy the Kids and worse [and worse] ) .

The subsequent 3:10 minute ballad depicts the development of the narrator's relationship with a notorious gunslinger and lawbreaker in the times of the Wild West . Greene later said that he was thinking of Johnny Ringo ; however, his biography does not fit the story told in the song.

This immediately enters medias res . The narrator comes on horseback stumbled upon the lying in the sand Ringo, who has a bullet wound in the back and still in agony his six-shooter desperately clings (He lay face down in the desert sand, clutching his six-gun in his hand) . He cuts out the deeply penetrated ball (under his heart was an ounce of lead) with his knife and thus saves his life. On the following days, too, he takes care of the man, who is visibly recovering, who is constantly doing target practice with his Colt from morning to evening. His rescuer quickly becomes aware - more with astonishment (I watched in awe) than with horror - that no other person is able to draw his weapon as quickly as Ringo (no human being could match the draw of Ringo) .
Then the two separate again; they ride in opposite directions (Ringo to the west, his savior to the east), and the rest of their lives also take a diametrically opposite course. Soon after, Ringo becomes a feared gunslinger who "makes a name for himself with lead and blood" (... he spread terror near and far. With lead and blood he gained such fame, all through the West they feared the name of Ringo) , His opponent, however, is a law-abiding sheriff (I took to law and wore a star) , who already suspects that one day they will meet again, where it will have to be shown which of them is the better.

Many years later, one day he learns that Ringo is staying in a house in the city where he is exercising his office; he leaves his deputies on the street and enters the building alone. When he wants to draw his revolver inside - and he is considered an excellent shooter (They said my speed was next to none… my lightning draw had just begun)  - Ringo shoots it out of his hand before he has completely drawn his weapon . The sheriff looks down the barrel of his "deadly .44 " - but "this was the only time anyone had seen [Ringo] smile" (They say that was the only time that anyone had seen him smile) . Rather, Ringo lowers his revolver, says "We are even, my friend", turns to the door and steps out. A moment later, hit by bullets from a dozen rifles, he is dead. The townspeople cheer and celebrate; in the country the story goes around that it was the sheriff himself who moved faster. The fact that he resigns from office soon afterwards is explained by the public solely with his advanced age. However, no one of them has a rationale for why at Ringo's grave a weathered Sheriff or Marshal star depends (But on his grave They Can not explain the tarnished star above the name of Ringo) .

This ends an initially very clichéd description of the Wild West, which works with black-and-white images of good and evil and ends in a classic duel in high-noon fashion. In the end, however, she gives room to a more differentiated point of view in that the narrator characterizes the behavior of the gunslinger during her showdown as fair (So ​​at last I understood that there was still a spark of good in Ringo) and therefore honors the dead with his star. In Ringo, the “good” outlaw connects with the alter ego of the “bad” western hero, a motif that has also been used in a number of western films .

The text consists of eight stanzas with six lines of verse each, which are kept in pair rhymes throughout - except that the name Ringo is also mentioned at the end of each stanza. Only this conclusion is actually sung by a male choir , while the rest of the text is pure spoken chant , performed by Lorne Greene with his deep, powerful baritone , who was familiar to millions of listeners in the English-speaking world from the television series Bonanza . The ballad does not have a complete refrain .

Music and instrumentation

The text presentation is accompanied by musical accompaniment that gives the impression of a group of galloping horses or a steam locomotive propelling forward. The performance of the name Ringo, sung twice per verse, is described in a record review as "muted and awesome background vocals ". After every second verse , the guitar accompaniment moves up a semitone with the second “ringo”. The instrumentation is very sparse, over three quarters of the song consists exclusively of guitar and bongo in completely constant pitch , supplemented by a single note played on a chime for each bar . The studio musicians were Tommy Tedesco and Hal Blair.

It is only in the last part of the ballad that this monotonous arrangement is deviated from. In the first three lines of verse of the seventh stanza - when Ringo steps outside the door and is shot down there - the choral singing underscores the narrative with wordless sounds, increasing pitch and thereby in a way that underlines the drama of the plot. Then the previously driving rhythm, underlaid by Greene's narration, changes to a calmer and muted instrumental accompaniment, which clearly shows the sadness that the first-person narrator feels. This impression continues in the last stanza, where it is also underlined by the sustained, almost sacred playing of a trombone . Only with the last word Ringo, this time sung four times by the choir, does the instrumental background return to the originally used pattern with guitar and percussion instrument .

Chart successes and popularity

In the United States, Ringo was released on October 31, 1964 as a single from the album Welcome to the Ponderosa . Until the end of November 1964, the song reached the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100, broke it in the first week of December Leader of the Pack from the Shangri-Las to square one and stood until the end of the year among the best-selling five plate titles - against strong Competitors like Come a Little Bit Closer ( Jay & The Americans ), Baby Love and Come See About Me from the Supremes , She's Not There from the Zombies , Bobby Vinton's Mr. Lonely , who replaced Ringo at the top of the charts, and I Feel Fine from the Beatles . The long-playing record Welcome to the Ponderosa , from which the single was decoupled, also sold well and in 1964 reached 35th place in the LP charts in the United States. In the country charts, the single, which was listed there for the first time on December 5, 1964, only reached number 21 and stayed there for 9 weeks. Ringo also shot to the top of the charts in Canada . For the local market with its French-speaking population , Lorne Greene had also recorded a version in French that contained the title Du sable ("sand") on the B-side . In Great Britain , Greene's ballad was also in the charts from December 1964 and then for eight weeks; there its highest position was 22nd. In the Netherlands the single was represented in the top 40 from January 1965, where it reached rank 20 as the best position.

On Spotify , Ringo has by far the highest popularity of all Greene songs with 707,000 views, followed by Bonanza (234,000) and Five Card Stud with less than 76,000 (as of May 2019).

Cover versions

Despite the record's success, the number of cover versions remained manageable. The Sons of the Pioneers are among the better-known performers , who released Ringo in 1965 in a version that was completely sung. In 2003 another remake was released by the band Riders in the Sky , who also interpreted the ballad not as spoken chants but in chant form.
In the Federal Republic and one of the former appeared out of Greene's English-language version of Radio Luxembourg - presenter Waldemar Mueller under the stage name Ferdy intoned, his colleague Elisabeth Bertram ( "Lilibert") translated and Columbia published version in German. In Italian, the song is included on Adriano Celentano's 1966 album Il ragazzo della via Gluck .

The Greenesche original also served as a basis for a number of parodies , whereby the title Ringo was usually corrupted and the content was adapted to the changed context of the action. This parody of Lorne Greene's song began in its year of publication (1964) under the title Gringo by El Clod and as Ingvold by Jimmy Jenson , called "The Swinging Swede". In 1966 Frank Gallop joined The Ballad of Irving , in 1987 André van Duin (bingo) and in 2005 Shlomo from Country Jossi .

Reviews

Despite its great commercial success, this "complete Wild West film in just over three minutes" has rarely received positive reviews from music critics . It would be conceivable that the reason for this lies in the fact that it is more of a minimally set ballad than a song, which Frank Laufenberg expresses with the laconic words “As a record star, Lorne has spoken a hit”.
Brian Boone wondered in 2011 why “a chant recording sung by an aging, uncharismatic character actor could be such a huge hit,” and he gave himself the - possibly not all serious - answer, “Maybe it had something to do with it that during Beatlemania it [was enough] if the name of a Beatle was included in the song title. ”Another record review from the same year expresses sharper criticism, according to which Greene's“ dry newscaster story… in every respect a moneymaker ”was hers “Didn't really deserve a place as a chart topper”. Rather was Ringo in 1961 published, thematically and similar from the plant song Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean "aped" without achieving its quality.

The text of the ballad certainly also meets with praise; David D. Johnson describes him in a book about Johnny Ringo with the words "The verses are haunting and beautiful" .

Web links

Notes and evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. 3. Edition. Billboard Publications, New York 1992, ISBN 0-8230-8298-9 , p. 161.
  2. ↑ to Greene's discography at allmusic.com - see also: Tim Neely: Goldmine. Country and Western. 2nd Edition. Krause Publications, Iola / Wisconsin, 2001, p. 182; there also all other albums by Lorne Greene.
  3. ^ Julia Edenhofer: The great oldie lexicon. 2nd Edition. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1992, ISBN 3-404-60288-9 , p. 265.
  4. ↑ Complete text in English at golyr.de
  5. ^ Julia Edenhofer: The great oldie lexicon. 2nd Edition. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1992, ISBN 3-404-60288-9 , p. 266.
  6. ↑ In the pre-text on the LP mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Lorne Greene announces the title hero with the positive characterization " But every now and then there was a man in the West" (But every once in a while ... there may have lived a man) .
  7. ↑ " Lorne Greene's Ringo " at stereogum.com
  8. ↑ Bruce R. Leiby, Linda F. Leiby: A Reference Guide to Television's Bonanza: Episodes, Personnel and Broadcast History. McFarland, Jefferson 2005, ISBN 0-7864-2268-8 , p. 196. (books.google.de)
  9. ↑ Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. 3. Edition. Billboard Publications, New York 1992, ISBN 0-8230-8298-9 , pp. 160-164; see also: Joel Whitburn: Top Pop Singles 1955–1993 . Record Research Inc., Menomonee Falls / Wisconsin, 1994, p. 254. Entry into the chart on October 31, 1964, one week at number 1, 12 weeks in the charts; The title was number 1 in the Adult Contemporary Charts for six weeks.
  10. ↑ a b Frank and Ingrid Laufenberg: Hit Lexicon of Rock and Pop. Volume 1, Ullstein, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-548-36920-4 , p. 926.
  11. ↑ Chart entry on November 28, 1964, highest position 35, 19 weeks in the charts. See: Joel Whitburn: Pop Pop Albums. 1955-1966. Record Research Inc., Menomonee Falls / Wisconsin, 1996, p. 319.
  12. ↑ Joel Whitburn: Top 40 Country Hits. 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Billboard Books, New York, 2006, p. 143.
  13. ^ Paul Gambaccini, Tim Rice, Jonathan Rice: British Hit Singles. 9th edition. Guinness Publishing, Enfield 1993, ISBN 0-85112-526-3 , p. 126 - The single reached number 30 in the New Musical Express charts and stayed in the charts for 2 weeks, see: Günter Ehnert (Ed.): Hit records. British Chart Singles 1950–1965 . Taurus Press, Hamburg 1988, p. 53; compare also: Dafydd Rees, Barry Lazell, Roger Osborne: 40 Years of NME Charts . Boxtree, London 1992, pp. 149f.
  14. ↑ Chart data for Ringo in the Netherlands at top40.nl
  15. ^ Version of The Sons of the Pioneers at secondhandsongs.com
  16. ↑ Information on Ferdy's version of Ringo at discogs.com
  17. ↑ Celentano's version at secondhandsongs.com
  18. ↑ Gringo at whosampled.com
  19. ↑ Ingvold at secondhandsongs.com
  20. ^ The Ballad of Irving on YouTube
  21. ↑ Bingo at secondhandsongs.com
  22. ↑ Shlomo at mostlymusic.com
  23. ↑ " 14 songs that tell an unforgettable story " at purpleclover.littlethings.com
  24. ↑ "Perhaps it had something to do with the Beatlemania that dominated pop culture in 1964 that even a spoken word record about the Old West sung by an aging, uncharismatic character actor could be a smash hit if it had the name of a Beatle in the title. ”  - Brian Boone: I Love Rock 'n' Roll (Even When I Hate It). TarcherPerigee, New York City 2011, ISBN 978-0-399-53679-3 , o. S. ( excerpt from Google Books ).
  25. ↑ Jimmy Dean's Big Bad John on YouTube
  26. ↑ “'Ringo' is, in all respects, a cash-in record. […] Greene's dry newsreader's account […] number one for one week, a position of the song itself doesn't really merit. […] Its spoken word verses and faceless chorus ape Jimmy Dean's neo-folk Big Bad John. It's a lot less inspiring [and…] it doesn't even half-attempt a hook. ”  - Review of the song at nohardchords.wordpress.com
  27. ↑ David D. Johnson: John Ringo: King of the Cowboys. His Life and Times from the Hoo Doo War to Tombstone. University of North Texas Press, Denton 2008, ISBN 978-1-57441-243-7 , p. XI ( excerpt from Google Books ).
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on May 14, 2019 in this version .