It’s reassuring to know that in this crazy world, some things never change: Ringo Starr remains the most charming person on the planet. The Beatles legend may be the most universally loved figure in the music world – But even at 85 years old, he still has a lot of songs in him. He laughs loudly and says, “It’s like my four-year-old granddaughter always says, ‘Siri, play Ringo!'”
Ringo prepares to release his new country album, Long Long Road; the single “Choose Love” will be released on Friday. He recorded it with producer T Bone Burnett, a year after their acclaimed Nashville collaboration “Look Up.” “I love country music, so it wasn’t a big deal,” Ringo says. He receives support from friends – including up-and-coming young artists like Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings as well as stars like Sheryl Crow and St. Vincent.
Ringo’s inexhaustible energy is simply astonishing – 60 years after he sang “Yellow Submarine”. Anyone who sees him on stage today sees a whirlwind: constantly in motion. This raises a question: Would Ringo agree that he is still the best dancer in rock & roll? “Yes, I would,” he says. “I’m just a mover.”
A whirlwind on stage
He’s truly an inspiration – he drums or swings throughout the show, although he could probably get away with a chair. “That would be wonderful,” he says. “The drum stool is like an armchair: ‘Okay, let’s go.’ No, you have to be upright and fully committed.”
“Long Long Road” proves that Ringo is still as big as ever. He surprised everyone last year with “Look Up,” his first country album since 1970’s solo gem “Beaucoups of Blues.” But on the new Nashville album, he sounds fresh and alive, surrounded by musicians at the forefront of their time. “That’s just who he is,” Burnett says. “He has been bringing people together for a long time – and he is a born collaborator.”
On “Long Long Road,” out April 24, he plays alongside a cast of new renegades of the genre, including Tuttle, Strings and Sarah Jarosz. “Isn’t that fantastic?” says Ringo. “Molly was so great, and Billy Strings is incredible. What a warm reception I had in Nashville. It was just a great experience, so we just went ahead and recorded another one.”
“Choose Love” and the long road
The single “Choose Love” is a country reinterpretation of the title track from his 2005 album, in which Ringo sings the line: “The long and winding road is more than a song.” That line still has weight for him. “It’s a long, long road, brother,” he says. “That’s kind of my life: leaving Liverpool, living in London, coming to New York, moving to LA. That’s why I wanted to call it ‘Long Long Road’. I didn’t even want to put ‘It’s A…’ in front of it because that gives it a certain length. ‘Long Long Road’ can just go on forever.”
Ringo exudes his famous wisdom and wit, as well as his room-filling laugh. (As John Lennon told him in “A Hard Day’s Night,” “You’re a window-rattler, son.”) Today, his Zoom background shows a tropical beach with palm trees. “I like that,” he says. “In winter, this is my backdrop. When summer comes, it’s something different.” He sprinkles in quintessential Ringosophical wisdom like: “I get up in the morning, do my thing, and do my thing.”
Last year he made his Grand Ole Opry debut at the invitation of Emmylou Harris. He played “Act Naturally,” the Buck Owens classic that he featured on the Beatles album “Help!” sings. He also filmed the special “Ringo & Friends at the Ryman” with stars ranging from Brenda Lee to Rodney Crowell to Jack White, who sang “Don’t Pass Me By.” (Tuttle did the honors on “Octopus’s Garden.”) The Ryman special also included a shout-out from an old friend: Paul McCartney, who knows his way around long and winding roads. Macca said, “He was the first one in the Beatles to really get us excited about country music.”
The Nashville Ringossance
The new album continues his Nashville ring dominance. “I think I made the right decision, took the right turn,” he says. “How it happened: We were listening to Olivia Harrison read from her book – Came the Lightning, her poems for George. There were about 50 people there and one of them was T Bone, who I’ve met since the ’70s.” He asked Burnett to write him a song – and got more than he bargained for. “He sent me a country track. I thought, ‘Well, I guess I’ll do a country EP now?’ But then he came to town, we sat together, and I thought: Maybe he could produce a whole album with me. I asked, ‘How many songs do we actually have?’ And he had them in his pocket – nine.”
“I can’t help it,” Burnett admits. “He asked me to write a song for him – and look what came out of it. I have a nice one long Song written for him.” But after the success of “Look Up,” the melodies just didn’t stop. “It’s so much fun to write for your voice, for your mind,” Burnett says. “He has one of the most recognizable voices in the world, so every word you write, it’s in your head. It becomes easy. It’s like guardrails that you can follow along a path.”
Country has always been in Ringo’s soul. “When I talk like that, it’s because of where I come from,” he says, exaggerating his Liverpool accent. “That’s fucking country, right? But growing up in Liverpool was a blessing because it was a port. The ships went to America and came back with lots of records, country and blues. Liverpool was kind of the capital of what was happening in America. The boys brought in all these records. And after three days they had spent all their money and sold the records again. That’s how it was.”
From Liverpool to Nashville
When the Beatles broke up in 1970, Ringo recorded the country album Beaucoups of Blues with pedal steel legend Pete Drake, who had played on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline. But instead of a superstar country-rock outing, Ringo headed to Music Row to do it their way. “Pete Drake was the country man who held everything together,” says Ringo. “We were working with George Harrison in the studio and I sent my car to pick him up at Heathrow. He said, ‘Hey, is that your car, Hoss?’ He called me ‘Hoss’! ‘I see you like country music’ – because I had a lot of cassettes in the car. ‘You should come to Nashville and make a country record.’ I said, ‘A month in Nashville – can I handle that?’ He said, ‘What? ‘Nashville Skyline’ took two days!’”
And the Nashville studio professionals actually pulled off “Beaucoups of Blues” in no time. “I flew in and the first morning we chose five songs, recorded them during the day, finished them at night. The next day five more – first the band, then me. The album was finished in two days. Today it takes two days just to plug in.”
But Ringo and T Bone were careful not to make “Long Long Road” a retro trip. Like “Look Up,” it’s full of fresh energy. “It’s Been Too Long” features vocals from Tuttle and Jarosz. “Ringo only sang a few duets in his life,” says Burnett. “But two of them were with Molly Tuttle. They sound beautiful together. I love Annie Clark aka St. Vincent from Dallas; she’s a kindred spirit. Sheryl Crow – what a great woman. They’re real artists, and Ringo is a real artist, so I wanted to have other people around him.”
Team player and jack of all trades
That’s how Starr has always preferred to work – as a team player. “This works for me,” he says. “I just like to play. I have a lot of grandchildren, and three of them are drummers. I’ve played on a lot of other people’s records over the last ten years. I record my part, send it back and say, ‘Take me or leave me!’ Maybe it’s not what they wanted – but not many have ‘let me’ yet.”
He is going on tour again with his All-Starr Band, which has been on the road with a changing line-up since 1990. “The audience and I know each other,” he says. “I know they love me and they know I love them – so we can have fun. I always tell the band, ‘We have to stay up.’ And that’s exactly what we do.”
We should all have as much energy as this man. “Well, you have to eat more broccoli,” he says. “Everything that’s good about me I give to broccoli. So now I say: Peace and Love and Broccoli.”
Carl Perkins and the circle closes
On “Long Long Road,” his simple voice sounds thoughtful—it’s quite possibly the best album an 85-year-old has ever recorded. Recorded in Nashville and LA, it features six Burnett compositions and three by Starr himself. (“Give me a melody and a chord and I can write songs,” Ringo says proudly.) He also covers a vintage 1950s song by rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins, one of the Beatles’ greatest heroes: “I Don’t See Me in Your Eyes Anymore.” Ringo sings it with the stoic sense of fate that has always permeated his singing – from classics like “It Don’t Come Easy” to “Photograph”.
All four Fab Four were deeply rooted in country sounds. “Look, the Beatles would be called an Americana band today,” Burnett says. “Across the board: George Harrison played a Chet Atkins country gentleman’s guitar and picked in the Carl Perkins style, which all goes back to Arnold Schultz, who taught Bill Monroe. Bill was the mandolin player in Arnold Schultz’s band, and his Uncle Pen was the fiddler.”
But Ringo was the twangiest of the guys. Even before joining The Beatles, he played in a Liverpool skiffle combo called The Texans. “His drumming feel is very much a Texas feel,” says Burnett, himself a son of Fort Worth. “It’s a swing feel like Milton Brown and the Brownies.” Ringo has always had the Lone Star State in his sound – and a good dose of New Orleans to boot. “He has a similar intensity to Earl Palmer, the drummer who played on all those Little Richard recordings. ‘Baby Don’t Go’ on the new album has a very New Orleans feel, very second line. But the way he does it, it sounds completely unique.”
“Long Long Road” reaches back to his earliest Americana influences. “We did a Carl Perkins song on this record,” says Ringo. “I didn’t know ‘I Don’t See Me in Your Eyes Anymore’ before. He writes in a way that I like to sing.”
The Perkins cover was the moment Ringo’s entire musical journey came full circle. “The first two songs I ever recorded with the Beatles were both Carl Perkins songs. And now we’re back with Carl. That’s how it is. I don’t sit here and make big plans. I just say yes to something and then it unfolds.” For Ringo, it’s still as simple as that.
