Richard Starkey arrived in this world on July 7, 1940. The only child of parents that loved swing music. They divorced when he was only 5, leaving his mother to raise the future Beatles drummer largely on her own, a challenge that was compounded by her young son having appendicitis when he was six and contracting tuberculosis two years later. His mother married Harry Graves when Ringo was thirteen. Graves was a Big Band enthusiast and turned his step-son on to the stars of the genre. He also helped arrange a job for him as an machine apprentice in an equipment factory. There, a co-worker introduced Ringo to Skiffle music. It would become a shared passion that was an instant thing in common he would have with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.?
Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on July 7 include..
1941 Argent, Kinks and Zombies bassist Jim Rodford born.
1947 Family drummer Rob Townsend born.
1948 Iron Butterfly guitarist Larry Reinhardt born.
1963 The Rolling Stars get their TV debut on the UK's Thank Your Lucky Stars. It is the first of 13 appearances on the show for the group
1968 Yardbirds do last concert, Luton, England.
1969 Here Comes the Sun recorded at an Abbey Road Studios session that John Lennon wasn't at because of a car accident a few days earlier.
1976 The live album version of Free Bird is recorded during a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.
1977 Elvis Costello & The Attractions make live debut.
1977 Rainbow releases On Stage.
An album many Styx fans consider to be the group's best got released on this day in 1977. Grand Illusion rapidly surpassed the combined sales of the mid west group's previous six albums and heavy airplay for the title track, Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) and Come Sail Away triggered a surge of fans wanting to catch Styx live that moved them from theaters to arenas.
1977 Rainbow releases On Stage.
1980 The last Led Zeppelin concert with John Bonham drumming is staged in West Berlin.
1987 Ace Frehley releases Frehley's Comet.
1988 MTV rejects Neil Young video for This Note's For You.
1989 CD sales outpace vinyl albums for the first time.
1995 Rod Stewart tour jet makes emergency landing after hitting a bird.
2006 Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett dies of Pancreatic cancer and Diabetes complications.
2007 Live Earth concerts staged in Washington, London, Tokyo, Hamburg, Rio, Johannesburg, Sydney and Shanghai.
2007 Ozzy Osbourne lands the first spot in the Birmingham, England Walk of Fame.
2010 Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono join Ringo Starr during Radio City Music Hall concert on his 70th birthday.
2016 Cliff Williams announces he's leaving AC/DC.
