Beatles legend Ringo Starr explains why he only did two takes for each song on new album

Ringo Starr might be 84 but he is still up for taking risks and new challenges - or as he puts it "taking the right turns" as he goes through life.

As a Beatle and legendary drummer he could be relaxing in his Beverly Hills home or falling back on past successes. Instead Ringo wants to talk about Look Up - his first country album in 55 years since Beaucoups of Blues in 1970 and his first LP in six years which will kickstart a host of live shows in 2025. He says he still gets up every day at 7.30am where he prays and meditates before going into his daily schedule. And one day in 2022 he received an email with a song attached from legendary country producer and songwriter T Bone Burnett which changed his life for the next few years.

The pair chatted at an event held by Olivia Harrison, the widow of Beatle George, in Los Angeles in 2022 having previously hung out in the 70s and Ringo suggested he could send him a song if he wanted to. Ringo explains: "I used to say hey, T Bone, because I bumped into him many times, and we laugh now, but I used to have a lot of parties in LA and he was always there, and I never invited him! He would always come with someone.

"It just came out of the blue, the album wasn't planned. I love this life I'm leading. I'm open and things happen. I can take that turn. I like to say they're the right turns.

"I was doing all these EPs and he sent me this beautiful track, and it was country.

"It never entered my mind that Mr. Country himself was going to send me a country song. I thought he would send me a pop song. And thought, we can make a country EP now."

But that wasn't the end of it and an EP soon became a much bigger project.

"T Bone came into LA we hooked up," Ringo says with a grin.

"And I said, 'Well, how many songs have you got?' And he pulled out a thing from his top pocket and said nine. They were all on a stick. And so we put it up, we flipped it into the computer and the Hi Fi, and I loved them all. There's only one out of the nine I didn't do on this record."

The pair got to work and in keeping with Ringo's relaxed attitude - he is known for saying peace and love - the recording process was kept very quick and simple.

"I thought, let me play with some of them. And what was it? In like 45 minutes, I finished drumming on four of them because I just wanted it to be rock, swing, countryish. You know, whatever I felt like doing.

"So I just love it, because there's more emotional drumming on this from me. I only do them twice now, use me or lose me!" He laughs.

Joking aside, most tracks were done in just two takes with the drums being either mixed together or used from the preferred take before Ringo's vocals were added.

The finished album contains sleeve notes by famed musician Elvis Costello in the form of a letter to producer T Bone and Ringo and Elvis insists Ringo has "never sung better than this".

Elvis also writes: "At this exact moment, this feels like the greatest solo record of his career by some considerable way…

"There is a lightness to his voice and an ease and the sentiments of the songs - never sentimental - seem exactly where I would want to be, if I had the surprising good fortune to have lived his long and remarkable life and still be singing from the heart.

"You can’t set out with the vain ambition to make a classic record but you and the Starr attraction may have arrived there. I hope people embrace it as this record has its arms out; deep and wide and open And as Ringo said in the song that he wrote: 'Thankful'."

Despite some people's surprise at the genre, to Ringo it must feel like a long overdue Country album in some ways.

He has been a country fan since he was a teenager before he joined the Beatles. He says: "I was like 17 when I first heard it, and I loved country music.

"Me and Roy my friend, we worked in the factory together, but at four O'clock on Sunday we went and listened to the radio. I was around for Bill Haley, but he always felt like your dad. And then Elvis and Buddy Holly and all those guys came. And so that's when the music really changed."

Next week, energetic Ringo will play some of the new album live in Nashville, the home of country before he heads back out on the road later in the year. He explained:"I'm still touring. I've got two tours lined up already with the All Starrs, the rest of the band.

"I'll do one(country song) there at the least. I might not go to two, because, you know, when you say, I've got this new CD out, and I'd like to play a track from it, the merchandise sales go roaring up. Half the audience doesn't want to hear anything new, so we just put one in. I think we're going to do things in reverse in Nashville, we're going to do three of the new songs and like five of the old songs by me and other people. So it'll be cool, but it'll all be in a country style there.

"So like A Little From My Friends, country style, that kind of thing. I'm looking forward to that."

Ringo's tour with his All Starr Band, which will be on the road in the US again this year, tends to end with the song A Little Help From My Friends and Ringo says he does not mind singing it again and again as his memory of his part in the biggest band the world has ever seen.

Speaking this week about the Fab Four - his best ever friends - he looked back and told the BBC: "I had three brothers, and you know, two of them are gone, and, yeah, I think of George and John. You know, things will happen and oh, you know, they come to mind. And I still miss them. But we were friends, and for me, we were brothers."

* Ringo's new album Look Up is out now on Lost Highway/Decca Records. You can get more info about his upcoming live shows at ringostarr.com

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