A new interview with Ringo in Variety offers more detail on his upcoming country album, Look Up, produced by T Bone Burnett, along with a TV special stemming from the LP, along with Ringo's take on the upcoming "Beatles '64" film coming to Disney+ on Nov. 29.
Some highlights:
“[Look Up is] 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.”
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.”
...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.
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