Ringo Starr Shares 2nd Track From Country Album, ‘Look Up’
by Best Classic Bands Staff
Ringo Starr will release a country music album, Look Up, produced and co-written by T Bone Burnett, via the Lost Highway label, on January 10, 2025. The collection features 11 original songs, recorded this year in Nashville and Los Angeles. The album is available for pre-order in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. Listen to two of the tracks below. Starr will be bringing this new music to Nashville when he headlines the famed Ryman Auditorium on January 14 and 15. Tickets are available at ryman.com.
Nine of the 11 songs on Look Up were written or co-written by Burnett, one by Billy Swan and the other co-written by Starr and Bruce Sugar. Starr sang and played drums on all the songs. Burnett enlisted some of Nashville’s finest and hottest talent for the record, including Billy Strings, Larkin Poe, Lucius, Molly Tuttle and Krauss.
Listen to the album’s debut track, “Time On My Hands,” written by Paul Kennerly, Daniel Tashian (who is a co-producer on the album along with Sugar) and Burnett
Starr co-wrote the album’s closer, “Thankful,” featuring Alison Krauss. “I love this track,” he says. “I wrote it with my producer and engineer Bruce Sugar and I feel we put an LA country sound to it. For the lyrics, I always like to focus on the positive, and for this song in particular, about what we can be thankful for. I hope it brings you some joy and peace and love.”
From the Oct. 18 announcement: Starr’s lifelong love of country music has been apparent and celebrated throughout his illustrious career. He performed and wrote numerous country and country-tinged songs throughout his years with The Beatles (“Act Naturally,” “What Goes On,” “Don’t Pass Me By”) as well as with the earlier Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, and recorded a country album, Beaucoups of Blues, in 1970 as his second solo album. His love of country and the blues led him to try and emigrate from London to Texas while still a teen, after reading that Lightnin’ Hopkins lived in Houston.
Starr’s new album comes after a chance meeting with Burnett at an event in Los Angeles in 2022 (the two had first met in the 1970s), where Starr asked Burnett to write a song for an EP he was recording. Taking the task to heart, Burnett returned with nine songs, all in a country vein, which happily put Starr on a path to record Look Up: his first country album in more than 50 years and his first full-length album since 2019.
“I’ve always loved country music. And when I asked T Bone to write me a song, I didn’t even think at the time that it would be a country song – but of course it was, and it was so beautiful.” Ringo recalls. “I had been making EPs at the time and so I thought we would do a country EP -but when he brought me nine songs I knew we had to make an album! And I am so glad we did. I want to thank, and send Peace & Love, to T Bone and all the great musicians who helped make this record. It was a joy making it and I hope it is a joy to listen to.”
Ringo Starr and T Bone Burnett (Photo: Dan Winters; used with permission)
“I have loved Ringo Starr and his playing and his singing and his aesthetic for as long as I can (or care to) remember,” says Burnett. “He changed the way every drummer after him played, with his inventive approach to the instrument. And, he has always sung killer rockabilly, as well as being a heartbreaking ballad singer. 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.”
Watch a brief feature of Starr and Burnett
Ringo Starr Look Up Track List (writers)
Breathless (featuring Billy Strings) (T Bone Burnett)
Look Up (featuring Molly Tuttle) (Daniel Tashian, T Bone Burnett)
Time On My Hands (Paul Kennerly, Daniel Tashian, T Bone Burnett)
Never Let Me Go (featuring Billy Strings) (T Bone Burnett)
I Live For Your Love (featuring Molly Tuttle) (Billy Swan, T Bone Burnett)
Come Back (featuring Lucius) (T Bone Burnett)
Can You Hear Me Call (featuring Molly Tuttle) (T Bone Burnett)
Rosetta (featuring Billy Strings and Larkin Poe) (T Bone Burnett)
You Want Some (Billy Swan)
String Theory (featuring Molly Tuttle) (Daniel Tashian, T Bone Burnett)
Thankful (featuring Alison Krauss) (Richard Starkey, Bruce Sugar)
Related: Our 2018 concert review of Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band
1 Comment so far
Jump into a conversationGee, I hope the other songs are better than the one in the article. Not country, not interesting, and pretty lifeless. If they released this under Joe Blow, it would be panned by everyone. Too bad.