Born To Boogie

Mojo Awards 2011: Ringo Starr honoured

“There is and only ever will be one Ringo Starr.”

Starr’s talents have been underrated since John Lennon’s famous quip, when asked if his bandmate was the best drummer in the world, that “he’s not even the best drummer in tbe Beatles”.

Speaking at the ceremony in east London, fellow musician Phil Collins said of Starr: “He’s a fantastic drummer. That’s been overlooked for years. Everybody talks about him being the joker, the cheeky chap, but he’s a great musician.”

Starr, 71, said he was delighted to win the Mojo Icon Award. He also squashed the rumours that he will team up with Sir Paul McCartney at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, claiming that he will be touring the US at the time.

Other winners at the Glenfiddich Mojo Honours included Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

He thanked his British fans with a line from one of his songs: “God only knows what I’d be without you.”

Alexander described him as a man whose lyrical style “is utterly unique to the point where it almost defies categorisation. Genius is the only word for it.”

Rumer was named best breakthrough act and former Sex Pistol John Lydon won the award for outstanding contribution with his band Public Image Ltd.

The biggest ovation of the night was for Motown legend Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas, who announced that she had just turned 70 then broke into an impromptu version of Jimmy Mack.

Arctic Monkeys, who were overlooked in this week’s Mercury Prize nominations, won best album for Suck It And See. The classic album award went to Primal Scream for 1991’s Screamadelica.

The ceremony was held at The Brewery in east London and the awards were voted for by readers of Mojo magazine.

Classic Rock Radio: Tony Visconti Archive Interview: Born To Booge

The film is based around a concert that took place at the Then Wembley Empire Pool in London and also features some fantasy sequences including a jam session that also features Ringo Starr and Elton John. Ringo Starr directed the film for the Beatles film company Apple Films and at the time Ringo dubbed Marc the logical successor to the Beatles crown. Much work has gone into the DVD not least the sound of the DVD which has been overseen by Tony Visconti who as well as being the producer for most of Marc's career also recorded the audio for the concert and studio sequences of the film. Tony oversaw the new mix and restoration of the audio soundtrack and also produced a new 5.1 surround mix fro this DVD. It was mostly a pleasant experience. Having remixed three David Bowie live albums in the past two years has given me great insight for cleaning up the old master tapes and getting maximum impact with modern technology. So I was extremely eager to have a second chance at mixing this film. But I wasn’t expecting the emotional impact it had on me. The mixes were sounding so alive and matched with the videos we were mixing to, I often forgot that Marc was no longer with us, and then I remembered and it felt like a bummer. The surround sound versions really made me feel like this filmed concert was last week. At times it felt like Marc was in the room. But there were two others in that film who are no longer with us either, Steve Currie and Mickey Finn. We used to be so tight in the studio, joking around and working like dogs to get it right. So, I mixed this film with mixed emotions. The most tedious part was listening to each instrument and vocal, track by track, and cleaning them up. What I mean by that is sometimes the level would jump for no reason at all (maybe I got the jitters when I recorded it over 30 years ago in the mobile) or maybe Marc didn’t like his guitar level and he would just whack it up very quickly. These things were very difficult to control 30 years ago, but not today. When Marc was not singing there was a load of audio junk on his vocal tracks. We carefully drew volume lines to bring that track down, not completely out, when he wasn’t singing. Then there were hums, crackles, feedback etc., some were left in for the rock and roll quotient, but very annoying ones were removed. When all this was done, then I settled down to mix the songs in a very traditional manner.

Born to Boogie

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