Salutation appropriate for John, Paul, or George, but not Ringo (5)
I believe the answer is:
toast
'salutation' is the definition.
(as in toasting someone with a drink)
'for john paul or george but not ringo' is the wordplay.
'for' becomes 'to' (eg both can mean 'in the opinion of').
'john paul or george but not ringo' becomes 'ast' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'to'+'ast'='TOAST'
'appropriate' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for toast that I've seen before include "Food (that one can drink!)" , "person much admired" , "meal component" , "Brown in front of a fire" , "A bit of a bloomer, possibly" .)