Ringo Starr, quite possibly still going around warning everyone with ‘peace and love’, is opening and closing his mouth again, letting words tumble out and reminding everyone that he once provided the voice for Thomas The Tank Engine and friends.

He’s also nattering about his famous chum, Sir Paul McCartney.

Apparently, the 10th best drummer in The Beatles (after John Lennon, Sir Macca, George Harrison, George Martin, Billy Preston, Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe, Yoko Ono, Astrid Kirchherr and that arhythmic dripping tap in studio 2 of Abbey Road) is still in close contact with the only useful living member of the Fab Four.

Of course, you’d expect Ringo (real name Ringles Starrguitar) to still be in contact with a bloke he’s know since he was a whippersnapper. This isn’t news is it?

The news is, that they have no plans to work together any time soon… which is barely newsworthy in itself because Paul McCartney has a perfectly able drummer as it is.

Ringo told BBC Radio 2 presenter Steve Wright (who currently looks like a melted waxwork of David Gest):

“He surprised me when I was playing Radio City Music Hall, and he got up and he played ‘Birthday’, which I played with him because I wanted the opportunity to ply with him again, and he’s on the last record, he’s not on this one.

“We do hang out a bit but we’re not in each other’s pockets, and if the opportunity is real, I’ve played on a couple of his records, he’s played on mine.”

“We never sit there and say, ‘oh yeah we’ll put it together’, I’ll do ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Hey Jude’, he’ll do ‘Octopus’s Garden’.”

While that may read duller than ditch water, you should go back and read it out loud in your best Ringo Starr impression because EVERYONE is able to do a Ringo impression and it is NEVER not funny.

Elsewhere, there have been rumours that the living Beatles are to reunite and play at the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games in London this summer. Ringo’s not having it.

“There was talk about The Olympics last year, but I’m not here, I’m booked to tour America. I don’t know if he’s going to do it, but I’m off.”

He hates England, doesn’t he?

Guitarists are all idiots. Every single one of them. They’re the ones who think they’re the heart of a band, resentful that the singer gets all the sex, the bassist gets all the cool fans and envious of the drummer because… okay, they’re not jealous of drummers at all.

Of course, as writers are prone to making pointless lists, Rolling Stone magazine have decided that the world needs another Greatest Guitarists Ever list.

As ever, there isn’t one name in the top 10 that will surprise you because these lists are always gleaned from the same old axe-wielding losers. Naturally, we’ll be proffering people who are far more worthy.

With insulting predictability, Jimi Hendrix has been proclaimed the “Greatest Guitarist of All Time” by a panel of clearly catholic musicians put together by Rolling Stone Magazine. That’d be Jimi Hendrix who was only really very good when he reigned it in and made 2 minute pop songs, as opposed to all those dreary, dreary jams.

One rock bore, Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine, says in Friday’s issue:

“His playing was effortless. There’s not one minute of his recorded career that feels like he’s working hard at it — it feels like it’s all flowing through him.”

The rest of the Top 5 is made up of the usual clowns: Eric Clapton (2), Jimmy Page (3), Keith Richards (4) and Jeff Beck (5).

Elsewhere, B.B. King features (6), alongside Chuck Berry (7), Eddie Van Halen (8),  Duane Allman (9) and Pete Townshend (10).

Naturally, there was absolutely no space for anything other than the usual rock pedlars in the Top 10. What about those great country pedal steel players? How about jazz? Could you argue against Django Reinhardt’s inclusion, especially given that he could play all of the chosen Top 10 off any stage AND, crucially, do it with a hand that only had two working figures!

Of course, jazz if filled with astonishing guitarists and Django may be something of an obvious choice… but seriously, unless someone shows us a guitarist who can play that great with one finger, we’re not budging. Away from jazz, there’s a whole load of brain-meltingly good folkies too.

John Renbourn, of Pentangle fame, was a supreme show-off, but more crucially, able to paint entire pictures with six strings where Hendrix et al simply noodled down their shafts and grunted over 12 bars. While there’s no denying the tweeness of this next video, likewise, you can knock it for craftsmanship.

It’s worth pointing out that skill isn’t the only factor that should be looked at. Think of all the hugely influential and brilliant noise guitarists out there! Ron Asheton of The Stooges couldn’t play for shit, but was awesome at, to paraphrase Iggy Pop, tellin’ ‘em how we all felt.

Kurt Cobain (who is probably on the Rolling Stone list somewhere) was a fine exponent of noise (go listen to Endless Nameless) as was Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine. He could make a guitar sound like anything he wanted – most of the time, it seemed like his whole objective was to make his guitar sound like anything but a guitar. That, as the next clip will testify, he simply wanted to make it suffer and throw-up.

And how about those who resided in the funk? Chic’s Nile Rodger’s is one of the best innovators who ever lived, pipped perhaps by Jimmy Nolen who sat in with James Brown’s band (when they were at their finest). Nolen developed the “chicken scratch” guitar sound which influenced the whole of soul music and, of course, through sampling, the whole of hip hop.

Earth Wind and Fire, George Clinton and a whole load more took note of Nolen in cuts like ‘Papas Got a Brand New Bag’, ‘I Got You (I Feel Good)’, ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World’, ‘Cold Sweat’, ‘Funky Drummer’, ‘The Boss and… need we go on?

Alas, the problem with Best Guitarists Ever lists is that they focus way too heavily on rock, rock ‘n’ roll and metal. And that’s boring.

Next week, tune in as we complain about magazines that rely too heavily on lists made up entirely of things about The Beatles.

Argue all you want, but there’s absolutely no denying that George Harrison is the coolest of The Beatles. John and Paul fought it out for best songwriter while George slid into effortless cool, taking it easy and releasing records as and when he pleased.

How cool was George? He faced everything with a shrug. The Quiet Beatle wrote in his diary in ’69: “Got up went to Twickenham rehearsed until lunchtime — left the Beatles — went home, and in the evening did King of Fuh at Trident studio, had chips later.”

And so, with Martin Scorsese’s documentary ‘George Harrison: Living in the Material World’ getting everyone talking about George, let us look at his best music… okay?

Of all the Beatles, George was almost certainly the most identifiable as a proper individual. At times, he almost seemed to be separate from the rest of the Fabs, with John and Paul vying for leadership and Ringo looking like he’d be lost without them (although his leaving the group at one point suggests otherwise).

Thanks to this icy cool, George went from being nerdy, guitar-geek to someone who was a bona-fide counter-culture pin-up who didn’t even need to try to be the Beatle with the best swagger.

It is because of this laid-back approach that his music in the Fab Four (and beyond) is so often overlooked. So while he’s briefly in the spotlight again, let us peer at his backcat and check out his best work.

Feel free to disagree and get outraged at omissions in the comments.

WAH WAH

HERE COMES THE SUN

WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS (Acoustic version)

TAXMAN

MY SWEET LORD

ISN’T IT A PITY

IF I NEEDED SOMEONE

SOMETHING

NOT GUILTY

FAR EAST MAN

BEWARE OF DARKNESS

BONUS TRACK: THE PIRATE SONG

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