SCOTT ROBERT RITCHIE
It’s definitely a cliché to describe someone as “84-years-young,” but in the case of Ringo Starr, it's definitely warranted.
If you’re lucky enough to spend any time with the rock-and-roll legend, you can tell he’s still having fun. And he’s still looking out for new things to try. After changing the world forever as the drummer of The Beatles, then embarking on a decades-long solo career defined by a joyful surrender to whichever direction his inspiration led, Starr has now done something even he didn’t see coming. His country album Look Up arrived early last month (January 10), marking his first full album in six years, and first with Nashville connections in 55.
Never one to plan things out, a twist of fate led to this brand-new chapter for the pop culture icon. But to hear him tell it, that’s where Starr has always thrived. He’s still in love with making music and has never needed more of an excuse to do it than that. And hey, it’s been working so far.
“It’s what I do. I’ve only ever dreamt of being a musician, and I’ve been a drummer since I was 13 [who] went to be in a band, and that’s all worked out really well,” he says through a charming, Cheshire Cat grin, with close- cropped hair matching round sunglasses in a jet-black gleam. It’s an understatement, sure, yet Starr keeps coming back to the thread. “It all just fell into place, and even this record just fell into place. I didn’t sit here planning ‘I’m going to do a country album.’”
That may be true, but as he speaks with Nashville Lifestyles from his home in Los Angeles, Starr admits the end result feels perfectly natural, too. Produced by American roots master T Bone Burnett (with co- production by Daniel Tashian, Bruce Sugar, and Starr himself ), Look Up’s 11 songs combine a classic take on country songcraft with the refreshing, British-invasion “cool” Starr helped define, plus Americana guest appearances by Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Alison Krauss, Lucius, and Larkin Poe.
Optimism shines alongside an unmistakable vocal, and right from the start, Starr’s enthusiasm is obvious – even if his drawl comes with an English twang.
“It’s a country album because the songs can be sad, but they’re sad in an up kind of way,” he says.
In the end, it’s an intriguing, unexpected project from an artist known all around the world by a single name – one who is synonymous with America’s pop music explosion. Yet Look Up offers a glimpse at where the explosion started, and that’s a story even lifelong fans may not know. Often described as the “country-est” Beatle, the down-home detour actually speaks to Starr’s deep love of country, which he says goes a long, long way back indeed.
DAN WINTERS
“Always,” he declares, hitting a note of solemn respect. In fact, Starr came into The Beatles as a roots-music obsessive, enthralled by Hank Williams, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and more. He actually tried to immigrate to the U.S. through Houston as a teen, because he found out that’s where Hopkins lived. Lucky for the world, the pile of forms he was given to fill out was far more work than Starr and his pals were up for, so they ended up heading home.
Eventually, Starr’s voice graced country- inspired recordings at the height of Beatle Mania, including songs he wrote himself like
“What Goes On” and “Don’t Pass Me By,” and the band’s beloved cover of Buck Owens’ “Act Naturally.” He says his partners John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison appreciated country as another flavor in their groundbreaking mix. “They were open to that ... there was no like, ‘Oh, you can’t do that,’” he explains. “I’m an emotional type of guy, and every country song back then was, ‘the wife’s left, the dog’s dead, and I don’t have enough money for the jukebox.’ ... I’ve just always loved country music, and I still do.”
Look Up started when Starr bumped into Burnett in L.A. in 2022, reconnecting decades after their first introduction. Now known as the Grammy-winning producer behind monumental projects like the O’ Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand, and more, Burnett is fully at home in the mystic world where the classic forms of American music converge — and has even helped others like Elton John and B.B. King tap their early influences. As it turns out, the reunion was perfectly timed.
It was sometime in the 1970s when Starr and Burnett first met — and that’s according to Burnett, since Starr finds that whole era a bit... fuzzy. It would have been a few years after Starr did his first Nashville album, Beaucoups of Blues — which officially proclaimed his love of the country style — and when the pair crossed paths again, Starr was working on a series of pop and rock EPs. He casually asked his old friend to write a song for one of those projects, and somewhat accidentally, Burnett wrote nine. But they weren’t pop, or rock.
“This has been my problem all through life,” Burnett admits, speaking with Nashville Lifestyles in a separate interview. “Once I start, I can’t stop.” “He sent me this song, an incredibly beautiful country song ... I had this big plan to invite him to produce an EP on me,” Starr recalls. “Anyway, we were talking and he mentioned to me, ‘I’ve got some songs.’ I said, ‘Well, how many have you got?’ And he goes, ‘Nine!’ And I thought, ‘Man, let’s make an album!’”
Once they got started, Burnett quickly realized how comfortable Starr seemed as a “country” artist. It was like he was made for the role. The producer notes that, in truth, The Beatles were just as influential to modern country as Hank Williams or anyone else, so the trick was just to let Starr be himself.
“I mean, really, The Beatles were a roots- music band if you get right down to it,” Burnett explains. “They reinvented rock and roll several times. But if you think about it, all their stuff was very much what would now be called American roots. So, it’s not really a step away from anything, it’s just him.”
Still, a big part of the record’s authentic feeling comes down to Burnett’s songwriting. It’s a very purposeful combination of the “emotional” headspace Starr described, full of nuance. Topics often deal with loss or hardship, but leave plenty of space for hope to spring through. And that’s precisely where the Look Up title comes from.
“I was trying to write songs that were the truest to who Ringo actually is,” Burnett goes on. “One of the mistakes I think people make when they do records with heritage artists is they get the idea that they’re going to update them. Do a hip-hop track with Ringo or something. I wasn’t about to try to update Ringo — more like go for the core of who he is. Who he was, and who he is still.”
Burnett would get the songs started in Nashville and send them to Starr, who would lay down his drums and vocals in the comfort of his home. The song would go back and forth a few times, and then Burnett would add in harmony vocals or guitar contributions from their flattered guests, who were all overjoyed to help out a hero.
“And between us, we made a great country album,” Starr says.
In terms of sound, the Brit-country brightness is established from the opening track, “Breathless” (featuring Billy Strings), but it’s Starr’s rich, melancholic voice that steals the show.
“My voice came out great, because every song is in my key,” he says with a laugh. “Usually, people send me a song and it’s in like F-demented. It’s like very high, some craziness to it, and I think, ‘Don’t they know me?’” “I’ve always thought he was the least appreciated of the four singers in The Beatles,” Burnett adds.
Fans got an early taste of the record with “Time On My Hands,” which Starr says ticked all of his country-music boxes — from lost love and loneliness to a weeping steel guitar, and the determination to make a new start.
“It’s a really cool track, and it has a lot of space in it,” he says. “And it’s the [country] sentiment that, for me, is great.”
Others like “Never Let Me Go” feel like a prime-era Beatles single (plus twang, that is), and while “I Live for Your Love” (featuring Molly Tuttle) shimmers with euphoric devotion, “Come Back” features a Gene Autry-style Western flair, and the crunchy country-rocker “Rosetta” taps a blazing guitar solo from Billy Strings. The swinging rockabilly track “You Want Some” is one of only two songs Burnett did not write — it was penned by Billy Swan — and it’s joined by the last track on the record, “Thankful” (featuring Alison Krauss), which Richard Starkey and Bruce Sugar wrote before Look Up started.
Thinking back now, “thankful” is how Starr is feeling about the whole adventure. Just after the album’s release, he headlined two nights at the Ryman Auditorium, and although he’s played there with his All Starr Band before, this time felt different. Maybe it was knowing that his country dreams were finally realized, and that he was truly following in the footsteps of heroes like Hank, Patsy, and the rest.
“When I get on the Ryman stage, my heart is full,” he says with honest reverence. And that’s what he hopes fans take from Look Up as well. “I hope they get joy from this record,” he says. “I mean, it’s a lot of sad songs, but there’s always an upside. There is sunlight at the end.”
He didn’t see it coming, but everything worked out in Starr’s favor once again. In fact, it’s been such a positive experience, he might even consider doing another.
“I am so pleased I did it,” he says. “As I said at the beginning, it just came about. I didn’t plan it ... but it was easy for me. I’d have no problem doing another [country album], so we’ll see.”