Ringo Starr on Returning to Country With a New T Bone Burnett-Produced Album: ‘I Was the Country Guy’ in the Beatles — and He Still Is

On his just-released new single, “Time on My Hands,” Ringo Starr sings, “The lesson’s been learned / I’m over her now / That bridge has been burned.” But one bridge that Starr definitely never burned is the one connecting him to country music. It’s a link he established as the Beatle who sang most if not all of that group’s true country songs, not to mention the member who recorded one of his first solo albums in Nashville. He crosses that overpass again with a forthcoming album, “Look Up,” produced and largely written for Starr by one of the great figures of roots music, T Bone Burnett.

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“Well, I was the country guy” in the Beatles, Starr acknowledges, sitting down in a West Hollywood hotel suite to discuss the new album, which comes out Jan. 10. The others had their own obvious love of the genre, but he was the designated hitter: “When we did a ‘Matchbox’ or whatever, where our version was sort of a country-ish thing,” that cover song would be his assignation. And when he wrote his first song for the group, “Don’t Pass Me By,” that was the most flat-out country the Beatles ever got. So there’s some symmetry in him coming back around to do an album that is unabashedly rooted in the sounds of Nashville, although it will surely be noted, in the modern parlance, that “Look Up” fits in nicely within the Americana movement as much as pure country.

“I think it’s a great mixed bag,” Starr says, “and the people we have on it — Molly Tuttle, mainly, and Billy Strings — are young old-style country, in a way, you know what I mean?”

The featured guests are Strings, Tuttle, the sister duo Larkin Poe, another female duo, Lucius, and, on the closing track, Allison Krauss — all making substantial contributions, even though only one of the tunes, with Tuttle, is a full-on duet. Says Burnett, “I didn’t want to do one of those records like Post Malone just did, where there’s a face card added onto every song, because I felt it was beneath Ringo. Really, why throw celebrity at Ringo Starr? But I did want to bring some young energy in. So I went to who I thought were some of the best young country musicians. Molly plays and sings on four songs and Billy plays and sings on three. Billy Strings plays some incredible heavy metal guitar in there.”

Starr likes “Time on My Hands,” the first single, because its lonesome theme is squarely in the tradition of the genre. “I always say, well, there’s three things” that classically define country — “you know, the wife’s left, the dog’s dead, and there’s no money for the jukebox. And that’s how it was when it started.”

The album does explore themes a bit deeper than that, though. Burnett is partial to “I Live for Your Love,” a song he co-wrote with Billy Swan, and notes, “Ringo loves it, because it’s where he is now. ‘I don’t live in the future, I don’t live in the past’ — that’s such a good thing for him to be able to feel, having the extraordinary past that he has.”

Starr went to Nashville to do his second solo album, “Beaucoups of Blues,” quickly recorded and released in 1970 — and he hasn’t returned to that well very often for a single track, let alone for an entire album. He explains how it and the hook-up with his producer happened.

The singer-drummer actually played drums on a track on one of Burnett’s earliest albums as a recording artist, a 1977 release by his then-group the Alpha Band … which comes as a surprise to Starr now. “I have no memory of it,” he admits. “People have said, ‘Oh, and that was great. You came over, I came over.’ It was a different world.” But he does remember Burnett from the mid-’70s, in the era when the future producing great was in Bob Dylan’s band. “I had a house somewhere in L.A. — sometimes it was hard to find — and I would throw parties, with a lot of musicians, and somehow he was always there.”

Cut to November 2022, when a book event was thrown at the Sunset Marquis for Olivia Harrison. Starr was then in the midst of cutting a series of EPs, having more or less abandoned the full-album form, the last of which was with Linda Perry as writer-producer. After exchanging pleasantries, Starr told Burnett, “Well, I’m making EPs in the studio. And you know what, it would be great if you felt like joining in and doing a track, and I’ll put drums and vocals on.” Subsequently, he says, “it was mad because he sent me this beautiful, beautiful country track” — “Come Home” — “and I hadn’t thought he would do that. I thought he’d send me, like, what I’m doing — pop-rock. So I thought, ‘Oh, I’m gonna do a country EP.’ He was coming into town, and I said, ‘Well, come on over and we’ll have a chat.’ He says, ‘Well, you know, I’ve got some songs for you.’ I said, “How many?’ And he said, ‘Nine.’ So I thought, ‘Let’s do an album. Would you produce an album?’ You know, he wasn’t thinking of it. I wasn’t thinking of it. But that day it came together.”

Says Burnett, “I thought Ringo was deserving of a serious album… I’ve been lucky to have been at the right place at the right time to be with somebody who was having a moment in his third act, starting with Roy Orbison and ‘A Black and White Night,’ and with Ralph Stanley and ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ and with B.B. King and Gregg Allman and Leon Russell and Elton John… Occasionally you catch a glimpse of what somebody can mean now who had an illustrious past, and something that doesn’t have to do with the charts and all that stuff, but just has to do with the timelessness of who they are. And there’s a great reward in doing that… There’s nobody in the world who’s generated more good will than Ringo Starr. I feel like this is a moment where we can all give something back to Ringo for all he’s given us. And nobody means more to me than the Beatles and Ringo.

“He’s such a beautiful singer, Ringo,” Burnett continues. “He was in a band with two of the best singers in rock and roll history, so people never took him as seriously as a singer as they should. … I was listening to the Beatles radio on satellite radio and I heard him sing a a Harry Nilsson song, a beautiful ballad, and it knocked me out. I thought, God, this cat is a great singer. So that part of this was bringing songs that could bring out what a great singer he is. And I don’t think he’s ever sounded better than on this record, at 84 years old, and he’s still getting better.”

Says Starr, in rather more modest terms, “Well, as someone was reminding me, when I was with Rory Storm (and the Hurricanes, his pre-Beatles group), we had ‘Ringo Starr time’ and I did three or four songs. You know? And I’m still doing them!”

Points out Burnett, “If you listen to all the country stuff he did ‘What Goes On’ and ‘Act Naturally’ and ‘Honey Don’t,’ he did so much great country music in the Beatles. And, you know, he’s called Ringo Starr because… I mean, that’s a cowboy name, right? He wanted to be a cowboy when he was a kid. As we all did back in those days; we always all wanted to be Gene Autry or something. So when he asked me to write a song for him, I wrote that song ‘Come Back’ in a Gene Autry style for him, and it kind of kicked off this whole songwriting binge I’ve been on” — for himself as well as for Starr. (Burnett ended up recording “Come Back” on his latest album, too.)

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Starr confirms the Gene Autry connection. “I was like 9 or 10, and on Saturday morning would be all these kids’ cartoons and movies… and for us and whatever the film was about, if it was cowboys, we’d be cowboys, and we’d sort of dress in whatever style fit the movie — and if it was a Western, we’d be galloping home. That’s how I got there, why I got there. He did ‘South of the Border'” — he begins singing, “South of the border, down Mexico way” — “and he had three guys riding alongside him on horses, and I just felt it was just great. It’s one of my memories of life, of music, and that was a very early one.”

He remembers submitting “Don’t Pass Me By” for the White Album and, unlike some of his earlier tries, having it make the cut. “‘I listen for your footsteps’ — I wrote that song sitting at home one day. That was the first song that I wrote that actually made the record. Because I had this habit of making the boys laugh when I wanted to present my songs, because I would have rewritten a well-known song, and I didn’t know. I thought, ‘Wow, yeah, this is good’ … But I got over that and started writing myself. You know, George came to the fore as a great writer. And if we’d have been still going now, I think I would’ve had more songs than I had then.”

Starr recalls recording “Beaucoups of Blues” in Nashville in two days in 1970. “This one took a few more days,” he quips. “But then, that was with (Nashville steel stalwart) Pete Drake, because we were recording with George. He was doing his record (“All Things Must Pass”) and he asked Pete to come over, and we sent my car to the airport to get him. And when Pete came in, he said, ‘Hey, Hoss, I see you like country music?’ Because I had a lot of cassettes in the car. ‘You know, you should come to Nashville and make a record.’ ‘I don’t think so. It takes too long. I don’t want to be away for a month.’ And he said, ‘A month? (Bob Dylan’s) “Nashville Skyline” took two days.’ So I said, OK!” Sure enough, when he went to make that 1970 album, we’d pick five tracks in the morning and we’d record five tracks at night. And then the next day, five tracks, five tracks, and it was over.”

Although there is affection for that quickie 1970 effort, more foresight and care was put into “Look Up.” Burnett “has chosen two great sides of me — the voice and the attitude,” Starr says. “He did them in a really great key for me, and that helped. And the tracks, they feel like they’re written for me, even if some of them were written before this came about.”

In Beatles news, it was recently announced that Martin Scorsese has produced a documentary, “Beatles ’64,” directed by David Tedeschi, that will premiere on Disney+ Nov. 29. Starr is one of the producers credited on the project and sat for a fresh interview.

“Honestly, it’s a little hard now,” says Starr. “There’s only Paul and I, and it was the four of us…” But he’s glad the doc includes his and McCartney’s contemporary recollections. “The Maysles brothers who did (the original 1964 footage) were really great. They were always filming, and … did you see the original? So, you know, we were lively and we were excited. We’re in America, for God’s sake. And we played New York and we’re heading for Washington on the train, and they got some great footage of the moment… Marty is producing this remake with his director of choice and putting us more in it to talk about that, so you’ve got that time and this time talking about that time. But I haven’t seen the finished film yet.” (He was due to see it Thursday night.) “The original was great and Marty was in awe of the Maysles brothers… He admired them so much, so that was great to have him on board, because he admired the people who did it.”

Starr is over a recent illness that caused him to cancel the last few dates on a Ringo Starr and His ALl-Starr Band tour that “knocked me down. It wasn’t the virus” — as in COVID, as first reported. “I had that two years ago. It was a mad thing eating my body, and they found out when they took my blood that the white cells there was 12,000 of ’em. That’s pretty high. And that happens. That’s what saved your life — they were fighting the attacker. And so with pills and medication, I got over it in two weeks.”

Burnett marvels at the shape Starr keeps himself in. “I saw him play at the Ryman a few months ago, and, he took a break in the middle and his dressing room was upstairs, and he ran up the stairs.” He means, literally ran up the stairs, after drumming as well as singing through much of the first half. “So I think he’s got plenty of miles left in him.”

The next All-Starr tour is a ways away, but Starr will be doing two live performances soon enough, at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Jan. 14-15, with some of the players who appear on the new album — Starr is referring to the shows as being “with a little love from my friends.” The Ryman shows will be filmed for a special. Tickets go on sale Oct. 25 at ryman.com .

Track list for “Look Up”:

1. Breathless (featuring Billy Strings) (written by T Bone Burnett)
2. Look Up (featuring Molly Tuttle) (Daniel Tashian, T Bone Burnett)
3. Time On My Hands (Paul Kennerly, Daniel Tashian, T Bone Burnett)
4. Never Let Me Go (featuring Billy Strings) (T Bone Burnett)
5. I Live For Your Love (featuring Molly Tuttle) (Billy Swan, T Bone Burnett)
6. Come Back (featuring Lucius) (T Bone Burnett)
7. Can You Hear Me Call (featuring Molly Tuttle) (T Bone Burnett)
8. Rosetta (featuring Billy Strings and Larkin Poe) (T Bone Burnett)
9. You Want Some (Billy Swan)
10. String Theory (featuring Molly Tuttle) (Daniel Tashian, T Bone Burnett)
11. Thankful (featuring Alison Krauss) (Richard Starkey, Bruce Sugar)*

Produced by T Bone Burnett; Co-Produced by Daniel Tashian and Bruce Sugar; “Thankful” produced by Ringo Starr and Bruce Sugar with T Bone Burnett

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