The sheer force of his fame and celebrity with The Beatles may have shrouded the fact that Ringo Starr was always first and foremost a musician and, in the early years after the Fab Four split, he mostly fulfilled his musical ambitions playing a supporting role to other artists, including solo work by his fellow Beatles. Starr had his own hit singles and solo albums, too, before putting together his first All Starr Band in 1989 with some of the leading rock musicians of the day, including Joe Walsh (The Eagles), Nils Lofgren and Clarence Clemons (The E Street Band), Rick Danko and Levon Helm (The Band), Dr John, Billy Preston and Jim Keltner. By 2012 Ringo had toured with 12 different All Starr line-ups, variously involving musicians of the stature of The Who's John Entwistle, Cream's Jack Bruce, Procol Harum's Gary Brooker, Humble Pie's Peter Frampton, Free's Simon Kirke, Supertramp's Roger Hodgson, ELP's Greg Lake, Mott The Hoople's Ian Hunter, Squeeze's Paul Carrack, The Zombies' Rod Argent, Average White Band's Hamish Stuart, Spooky Tooth's Gary Wright, Bachman Turner Overdrive's Randy Bachman and his own son Zak Starkey. While Starr has inevitably always been the focal point, the other members also get a high profile as the band perform a broad landscape of songs associated with The Beatles and Starr's solo career, as well as their own repertoire.
