Ringo Starr needs no introduction. The Beatles’ drummer has released his first album since 2019’s What’s My Name, coaxed out of his short-form EP projects by legendary producer T Bone Burnett. Starr’s latest album, Look Up, is a mixture of reflective tracks and country twangs, the latter of which was heard on his sophomore album, Beaucoups of Blues. Starr spoke to Cult Following and a host of other outlets about his latest release, his love of country music and how it feels to be working with Burnett after a chance conversation between the pair led to ten tracks of fresh Starr material.
Burnett, the producer who has worked with everyone from Elvis Costello to Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, has praised Starr’s latest album, and the voice he found on it. Burnett, who played guitar during Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, insists Starr, as well as much of the drummers’ work with The Beatles, is tied to country music.
Speaking of Look Up before its release, Burnett called it a chance to pay tribute to Starr, who shaped the way he plays. He said: “To get to make this music with him was something like the realization of a 60-year dream I’ve been living. None of the work that I have done through a long life in music would have happened if not for him and his band. Among other things, this album is a way I can say thank you for all he has given me and us.”
Burnett joined Starr in a live-streamed Q&A, the singer fresh off a tour where Look Up contributors Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings, as well as Jack White and Sheryl Crow, joined for a two-set gig. Beaucoups of Blues track Without Her appeared in his show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and was paired with Look Up tracks Thankful, Time On My Hands, and the title track.
Speaking from The Ryman, where he and friends are set to play a gig shortly after the interview, Burnett credited Starr and The Beatles with giving “us back our music.” He said: “They opened doors and windows that so many of us have walked through, climbed through over the years. I’ve got this deep gratitude to all those cats, and Ringo in particular. The gift that they have given us, that he’s given us, is immeasurable. To even get to be friendly with Ringo means a tremendous amount to me.”
Starr, on the other hand, shared why a return to the country genre was on the cards, and it all stems from his love of the genre. “It was emotional,” he said. “It’s emotional music when I started listening to it and I’m quite an emotional person myself. In the 50s, every country song was either ‘the wife left,’ ‘the dog’s dead,’ or ‘I need some money for the jukebox’.”
Those emotional moments and brushes with country still linger for Starr, who recalled a would-be gig alongside Eddie Cochran before his tragic death in 1960. Starr said: “Ringo, Rory and The Hurricanes, which I was part of, we were gonna play this gig in Liverpool, and all the local bands were there but, just after Rory and the Hurricanes, we were the top band, and Eddie Cochran, hit the tree. He died.
“But you know, as teenagers, we were like ‘well, he could have waited ’til after the gig’. That’s what you’re like as an eighteen-year-old. Eddie was great, he brought a lot of energy to everybody. I came in a little older than him but the same group really.”
Cochran had been set to play the 6,000 seat Liverpool Stadium, but died before he had the chance. He was replaced in the lineup by Gene vincent headlining, with Rory Storm and The Hurricanes (with Starr as drummer) and Gerry and the Pacemakers filling up the rest of the bill. Starr went on to leave the band and the rest is history, becoming one of the most recognisable drummers in the world.
Imagery played its part in this band, with a profile of Starr chosen as the cover of Look Up. Burnett explained how Dan Winters came aboard the project. He said: “Dan Winters, he’s the premier portrait photographer in the world today. I thought [the Look Up album cover] was soulful. I thought it was emotional. I kind of pitched for it, I must say. I’m fond of saying nobody has generated more goodwill in the world than Ringo Starr in my lifetime.
“I say that without hyperbole. So much of his work is very lighthearted, and yet when you start getting into it, getting up and spending the last couple of months listening to everything he’s recorded, and there’s a lot of very deep, serious stuff in there. Ringo has paid his dues.”
Ringo confirmed his part in the photoshoot was “bringing the hat, that’s all. Myself and the hat.” But he also brought the much-loved “peace and love” to Look Up, which he says is more important now than ever. He said: “I think there’s always a need for music, and there’s always a need for joy. The world keeps going round and round. There’s a lot of craziness, violence, people making demands on other people. That’s the world we all know.
“I was born in 1940. There’s a lot of people out there [who] didn’t like us. It’s part of our world, it’s a pity, but I do this and hope someone will do it too and that’s two of us that’s done it. I can’t say ‘do this’ but I can’t demand it either. That’s my way of doing it, really, it translates into every language. Peace and love.”
Where Starr can speak well of his work, we turned to Burnett for which song highlights the value and continued consistency of Starr’s voice most of all. He answered: “I think Time on My Hands you can hear him singing. You know, it’s very clear. Ringo’s got beautiful diction, you can understand every word he says, and he’s got beautiful tone.
“What was that Harry Nilsson song? It’s a ballad. Anyway, as I was going through his back catalogue, I heard this Harry Nilsson song, it was a ballad, and it reminded me of Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel. It had that other-worldliness about it.”
Read our review of Ringo Starr’s Look Up here.
