Graham Reid | | 2 min read
Rosetta (with Billy Strings and Larkin Poe)
For at least a decade before it became a popular opinion, Elsewhere championed the McCartney's Ram album (and the album by Paul's brother Mike which was like a slightly lesser companion album).
We also went into bat for Ringo's country album Beaucoups of Blues of 1970, his first serious solo album after Sentimental Journey, an album of standards which mum liked and he'd grown up on.
On the basis of Beaucoups of Blues and some interesting singles, we always tried to give Ringo a fair hearing and as recently as 2021 we looked at his career in the Seventies, and also took a more damning look at this albums of the past decade.
We concluded that piece – which does seem dismissive but a fair assessment of his modest talent – that as he passed 80 we might have heard the last from him on record.
Well, we were wrong. There's a new album and it . . .
First a quick recap.
Ringo, as much as anyone, must have been surprised by his success after the Beatles' break-up in 1970.
The group's fourth best singer who'd written nothing of great note (the prosecution submits Octopus's Garden) quickly delivered the chart-bothering singles It Don't Come Easy, Photograph, You're Sixteen and Back off Boogaloo.
And his third solo album Ringo in 1973 – which benefited from songs and contributions by Beatle comrades and pals like Marc (T. Rex) Bolan, members of The Band and Billy Preston – became popular as an ersatz Beatle reunion.
There were diminishing returns thereafter and very little after 1980 was of any consequence.
Ringo may have been the big seller but critics have long made a case for its country music predecessor Beaucoups of Blues (1970), produced over just three days in Nashville by the legendary pedal steel player Pete Drake and with the city's finest session players.
Yes, it can be maudlin – it's frequently a country weeper – but it suited Starr's sad-sack persona.
In the Beatles, Starr had frequently sung country-flavoured songs – Carl Perkins' Matchbox and Honey Don't, the Buck Owens hit Act Naturally, his own Don't Pass Me By --but surprisingly never returned to the genre in any sustained way after Beaucoups of Blues.
Until now with his new album Look Up.
Going the full Stetson and with esteemed producer T Bone Burnett writing and wrangling the impressive supporting cast (Molly Tuttle, Lucius, bluegrass rocker Billy Strings, Larkin Poe adding serious guitar-rock grit to Rosetta, and Alison Krauss), Starr sounds comfortable and confident within his admittedly limited range.
Burnett – enjoying a moment with the recent Coward Brothers album (with Elvis Costello) and last year's excellent The Other Side – has astutely directed Starr toward more upbeat material.
Under an optimistic title, Look Up exudes a positivity which becomes Starr, and even when he hits that melancholy spot which country excels at (Time On My Hands) he sounds more assured than he did on Beaucoups of Blues.
Look Up isn't a great country album – there are makeweights like Never Let Me Go and Come Back – but it's inarguably Starr's most consistent album for half a century. He sounds committed and heartfelt, especially with Alison Krauss on Thankful, a Starr-penned paean to his wife of more than 40 years, Barbara Bach.
Like Beaucoups, this album will enjoy some critical approval but, outside of Beatle completists and the inquisitive, probably not much of a country or mainstream audience.
Come out of curiosity about 84-year old Ringo -- who's looking pretty damn good -- but stay for the musicians like Tuttle, Larkin Poe and others.
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For more on Ringo Starr at Elsewhere, some of it uncharitable, start here.
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You can hear this album at Spotify here
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