Ringo Starr Going Country (Again) on Upcoming ‘Look Up’ Album

Ringo Starr‘s first new full-length album in six years, Look Up, will find the former Beatles drummer and solo star going country, again. The 11-track album of original songs produced and co-written by T-Bone Burnett is due out on Jan. 10 and was prefaced on Friday (Oct. 18) by the tear-in-your tea ballad “Time On My Hands.”

“I have loved Ringo Starr and his playing and his singing and his aesthetic for as long as I can (or care to) remember,” said Grammy-winning producer/songwriter Burnett, 76, in a statement. “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.”

Burnett wrote or co-wrote nine of the songs on Starr’s 21st solo album, on which the peace-and-love advocate sang and played drums; one song so written by Billy Swan and another was co-written by Starr and Bruce Sugar. According to a release announcing the project, Starr co-wrote the album’s closer, “Thankful,” which features one of Burnett’s previous collaborators, bluegrass singer/fiddler Alison Krauss.

Burnett also roped in some other Nashville ringers for the project, including Billy Strings, Larkin Poe, Lucius and Molly Tuttle. Though pop and R&B stars dipping their toes into the country pool has become de rigueur over the past year, with swerves into the genre by Beyoncé, Post Malone, Ed Sheeran, MGK and Lana Del Rey, the release noted that Starr’s appreciation for all things twangy goes back more than half a century.

“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,” Starr said of his collaboration with friend of more than four decades Burnett, which was spurred by a chance meeting in L.A. in 2022 where the ex-Beatle asked Burnett to write a song for an EP he was working on at the time.

“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!,” Starr added of the tracks Burnett wrote that all had a country vibe. “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.”

“Time on My Hands” finds Starr wistfully lamenting the loss of a true love over pedal steel and gently strummed acoustic guitar, with his signature laconic vocals taking center stage in the ballad about the one that got away. “I used to have a true love/ Everything was fine/ But now she’s found a new love/ She’s no longer mine,” he sings.

From the country-tinged Beatles songs he performed and wrote, including “Act Naturally,” “What Goes On” and “Don’t Pass Me By,” to his 1970 sophomore solo album Beaucoups of Blues,” Starr has dipped his toe into the genre since his early, pre-Beatles days playing in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. In fact, the release added, Starr was so enamored with country and blues as a teenager that he tried to emigrate from London To Texas in his younger years after learning that blues great Lightnin’ Hopkins lived there.

Starr’s first new full-length album since 2019’s What’s My Name, will get a proper country welcome on Jan. 14-15, 2025 when the singer/drummer headlines the legendary Ryman Auditorium; tickets for the show will go on sale on Oct. 25.

Check out the full track list and cover art for Look Up below.

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