Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Ringo Starr discusses his countrified latest album “Look Up,” being a gifted collaborator, crafting peace-inspired songs.
Like other creators inspired to become musicians in the rockabilly era, 84-year-old former Beatles drummer and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Ringo Starr is blessed with strong fundamental skills, a whimsical perspective on the universe and an unrepentant musical curiosity.
That’s why legendary performer and producer T Bone Burnett, who shares that energy, had nine country songs already written, sitting in his pocket at the ready for a meeting. Though they have likely encountered one another many times over the 50 years they’ve known each other, their collaboration was cemented at a party a few years ago at Los Angeles’ Sunset Marquis hotel, when they began an extended creative conversation.
Fast-forward to a snowy January morning and Starr is on a Zoom call with a reporter while holding a vinyl copy of “Look Up,” his 21st solo album since 1970 and the product of that partnership with Burnett.
Since the Fab Four’s breakup 55 years ago, dozens of artists have collaborated on Starr’s solo releases and joined him on stage with his touring All-Star Band since 1989. Collaboration was also key in the making of his new album.
“Ah, Allison Krauss, Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle. They’re great. Larkin Poe, yes. T Bone really got some players for this, wow,” Starr said while reading his album’s liner notes. He is briefly bemused by his good fortune in recording an album that sounds culled from the early 1950s, when Nashville took the helm as the commercial hub of the country music industry.
“I mean, I’m glad I didn’t whip out my phone book. Had I done that, we would’ve had a 40-piece orchestra,” Starr said, reflecting on his many years spent hanging out, listening to and playing music.
What inspires Starr’s collaborative desires?
The timeless feel of “Look Up” was a natural evolution of the musical collaboration that allowed blues and folk music to birth bluegrass, country, R&B, rock and soul music by the 1960s, Starr said.
Also, though the circumstances are different, he’s currently in the same state of artistic wanderlust that allowed him to craft an album every 18 months between 1970 and 1983.
“I wasn’t on the road touring, so, basically, I was calling up my mates that I loved and asking them what they were doing and if they would want to make whatever kind of records they wanted to make with me — country, rock, it really didn’t matter,” Starr said.
“By 1989, Pepsi wanted me to tour, so I called those same friends and said, “Hey, I need a band for some dates. Do you want to tour with me?”
Back then, similar to now, being near the rock icon’s peaceful vibrations was an irresistible invite.
‘Doing the best we can for each other’
“You mean I can’t just sing, ‘She loves you, yeah yeah yeah’ and the people will show up?,” he joked.
Sure, everyone loves a Beatles revival. But during the conversation, when Ringo Starr puts on a white Resistol hat, turns his peace signs into finger pistols, sings early Beatles classics, and then breaks into crooning Hank Snow records, it offers something more.
Notably, it does not recall the “boy from the black mining hills of Dakota named Rocky Raccoon” that the lads from Liverpool sang about on The White Album or when they covered Buck Owens and The Buckaroos’ “Act Naturally” in 1965.
“We painlessly did the best we could for each other,” said Starr, about the ethos that guided the recording of his new 11-track album.
Before recording his latest, Starr was previously set to release “pop-rock” EPs. However, Burnett did the best he could for his legendary friend and brought about a change of course.
“One evening, T Bone played the demos of the songs he wrote for me. I was so emotionally moved by his work that I tracked the drums and vocals on four of those nine songs within an hour. Once we started, we worked quickly. He (assumed the role of) producer, then went and found the players he felt we needed and they worked in Nashville while I was in Los Angeles,” Starr recalls.
Ringo Starr’s easygoing ‘Look Up’
Starr’s album is an easygoing listen.
The title track is a leisurely rocker not far from the Tom Petty school of sonically effervescent but lyrically profound countrified rock:
“No matter where you place / In the human race / There is mercy / There is grace / Look Up / Up above your head / Where the music plays / There’s a light that shines / In the darkest days / Look up / Live to fight another day / Good things are gonna come your way,” he sings, as Grammy-winning progressive bluegrass artist Molly Tuttle coos background vocals.
“Rosetta” features bluegrass-honed rockers Billy Strings and duo Larkin Poe’s guitar, mandolin and lap steel guitar, respectively. Starr’s weathered vocal still works when it isn’t forced. It’s familiar and fun when it’s clear that he’s smiling underneath, assuming the metaphorical role of a singing cowboy reviving his trusty steed-like voice for yet another stampede.
Burnett praised the band’s hall-of-farmers like pedal steel guitarist Paul Franklin and Grammy winners like bass player Dennis Crouch for playing songs inspired more by the feel of the vocal than the notes on the page.
“Since I was a teenager discovering music and trying to immigrate to Houston to be like (legendary bluesman) Lightnin’ Hopkins, listening to Ray Charles, Motown, big bands and yeah, country music, I’ve always been attracted to the most emotional lyrics, musicians and singers,” Starr said.
‘An explosion of freedom and love’
“The heaviest (veteran) Nashville players and I had a good time making an album,” Starr reflects.
Instead of making a pop or rock album, Starr authentically explored how country intersects with those genres. The result? A sound that he initially loved and that has constantly evolved is inspiring another branch in a broad family tree of superstar creators.
While onstage at a Ryman Auditorium press conference before the second of two sold-out nights of Starr and a band of superstars performing live, Burnett offered a timeless description of early country and rock music that doubles for why the former Beatle’s latest album is such a success.
“Everything in those records is an explosion of freedom and love,” Burnett said.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.tennessean.com ’
