Ringo Starr: Look Up

Although The Beatles’ influences tilted heavily toward early rock-and-roll and rhythm and blues, they were also fans of country music, and, on occasion, elements of the genre found their way into the group’s original compositions and cover choices. George Harrison loved a classy country lick and counted guitarists like Nashville mainstay Chet Atkins and rockabilly hero Carl Perkins as favored sources, and both John Lennon and Paul McCartney incorporated country imagery and melodies into their own songwriting. But it was Ringo Starr who most often took on the role of the country Beatle, supplying lead vocals on the Buck Owens hit “Act Naturally,” as well as Perkins’ “Honey Don’t” and “Matchbox,” and recording a full program of country songs, Beaucoups of Blues, in 1970 as his second solo album.

Now, some 55 years later, Starr is returning to his love of country with Look Up—11 songs, most written wholly or in part by T Bone Burnett, who also produced the album. Billy Swan, who scored a No. 1 hit in 1974 with “I Can Help” and co-wrote Look Up‘s “I Live for Your Love” with Burnett, also contributed “You Want Some.” And Ringo himself is credited as a co-writer on the finale, “Thankful,” along with Bruce Sugar, who co-produced the recording with Daniel Tashian (another one of Burnett’s co writers this time around). Starr, who plays drums throughout the album as well as sings, has always had a natural feel for country, and Look Up is no exception.

From the rocking opener, “Breathless,” featuring a characteristically note-perfect acoustic guitar solo from Billy Strings (who also trades electric guitar licks with Joe Walsh on “Rosetta”), through the ballad “Time on My Hands” (the first track released from the album) Ringo Starr and a romantic duet with Molly Tuttle, “Can You Hear Me Call,” the Starr-Burnett collaboration proves to be a can’t-believe-it took-this-long match. Other guests, among them Lucius, Larkin Poe and Alison Krauss, the latter on “Thankful”—a song that would not have been out of place on a mid-period Beatles LP—make appearances, and of course, Burnett’s touch in the arrangements and instrumentation is, as always, spot on. (Paul Franklin’s pedal steel guitar is delicious.) But the true star is, undeniably, Starr himself, who, at age 84, has released one of the most fully realized and thoroughly endearing albums of his remarkable career.