Ringo Starr and T Bone Burnett have revealed the inspiration for the Beatles legend's first country music album in more than half a century in an interview with Music Week.
Former Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder Revue guitarist Burnett wrote or co-wrote nine of its 11 tracks on Look Up, which he also produced.
Starr explained he bumped into the Nashville-based musician, who he first met in the 1970s, at a Los Angeles hotel in 2022, where George Harrison's widow Olivia was giving a reading of her book Came the Lightening: Twenty Poems For George.
"We were at the Sunset Marquis,” said Starr. “We came down to listen, and T Bone was there. He told me he was making an EP, so I said, ‘Well, if you had a song, maybe you could send it to me and I’ll put the drums on it and sing it?’"
Burnett’s recollection of the evening is similar, except for one small point of difference.
“We were at a poetry reading at the Chateau Marmont. He says the Sunset Marquis, I say the Chateau Marmont," he laughed. "Olivia Harrison was reading poems she'd written for George, who was in the same band with Ringo, as you'll remember! And Ringo came over and said, 'Write me a song.' And I said, 'Absolutely, I will.'"
Everything he did in The Beatles was country music – from Honey Don’t and Matchbox to Act Naturally, What Goes On and Don’t Pass Me By – even Octopus’s Garden is a country song
T Bone Burnett
Burnett, who has won Grammy Awards for his work on film soundtracks such as O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain and Walk The Line, continued: "I decided to write him like a Gene Autry song, because almost everything he did in The Beatles was country music – from Honey Don’t and Matchbox to Act Naturally, What Goes On and Don’t Pass Me By – even Octopus’s Garden is a country song.
"The Beatles were very much an American music band. Even though they were English, they were playing the best of American music and giving it back to us. It was very important to me to give something back to Ringo for all he’s given us. I think that’s a big part of the energy of the record.”
Starr, who made a surprise appearance at Paul McCartney's concert at The O2 in London last night, was so enamoured with the track, entitled Come Back, that he considered making a country EP, but later expanded the scale of the project after being inspired by the consistency of Burnett's output.
"I called a couple of people and we did four country songs, and then T Bone came to town," said the Liverpudlian. "I'd just finished doing an EP with Linda Perry – she wrote them and put them together, and I played drums – and I thought maybe I’d ask T Bone to do an EP.
"We were sitting around in the studio and he said, 'Let's talk about songs.' I said, ‘Well how many songs have you got?’ And he goes, ‘Nine,’ so I thought, ‘Oh, let’s make it a real record.’ He sent me some incredible songs. Of the nine songs, we did eight of them and then he brought a couple more."
Burnett elaborated further on the process.
“I ended up writing nine songs because I didn’t know if he would like any of them or not," he admitted. "But then he liked them all and said, ‘Let’s just make an album. Will you produce it?’ I said, ‘God, I’d like nothing better.’ There was no plan or anything like that, we just stumbled into it."
He added: "I love the record. I think the last record I made that I put this much of myself into was Raising Sand [by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss]. And before that, it was O Brother, Where Art Thou? I was just consumed with those records the whole time I was making them.
"There are other records that I made that are close to me: The Union by Elton John and Leon Russell; The Diving Board by Elton John; the BB King record One Kind Favor; the Gregg Allman record Low Country Blues. All those records are incredibly important to me, but this one was a profound collaboration."
T Bone put it all together: he’s a great producer and now we’re onto the next stage. Gotta put the damn thing out, brother!
Ringo Starr
The LP’s lead track, Time On My Hands was written by Burnett, Paul Kennerly and co-producer Daniel Tashian, while album closer Thankful – which features singer Alison Krauss – was a collaboration between Starr and co-producer Bruce Sugar.
"I'd written Thankful, the last song, with Bruce Sugar, and I think [Burnett] had to put me on the album," chuckled Starr. “I’ve had so much fun, and I have to thank T Bone, because the tracks are good,. And I feel I played good on them and I actually sang good on them, because I could handle the key. T Bone put it all together: he’s a great producer and now we’re onto the next stage. Gotta put the damn thing out, brother!”
Look Up, which is released on January 10 via Decca/UMG Nashville, comes almost 55 years after Starr's previous solo country venture, 1970's Beaucoups Of Blues. That project came about following a meeting with the late American musician and producer Pete Drake during the recording of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass LP.
“After The Beatles split up, George was making a record and I’m on it,” explained Starr, sharing his memories of the period. “He’d asked Pete Drake to come to England to play on the record and I sent my car to Heathrow to pick him up. Pete came into the studio and said, ‘Whose car is that?’ I said, ‘It’s my car.’ He said, ‘Oh, you like country music?’ Because I had a lot of country cassettes in the car.
"A day went by and he said, ‘You should come to Nashville and make a record.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to spend weeks in another city making a record.’ And he said, ‘Weeks? We did [Dylan’s] Nashville Skyline in two days.’ I thought, ‘Two days, I can handle!’
“We went to Nashville, landed, and the next day we picked five songs and recorded them. The next day, we picked another five songs and recorded them. And the next day, I got back on the plane!”
Subscribers can read the full Music Week interview with Starr here.
PHOTO: Dan Winters
