BY: DIGITAL WAX MEDIA STAFF

 

In erring on the side of caution, it is often best practice to avoid sweeping generalizations. However, with two living, breathing Beatles actively producing new music in the year 2025, one can’t help but feel that this phenomenon is one we collectively take for granted as a society. Nonetheless, more than 60 years removed from The Beatles’ studio debut comes a brand new LP from Ringo Starr in the form of Look Up.

 

Although he’ll likely never escape the looming shadow of his mop-topped past, Ringo Starr’s discography is surprisingly dense at this stage. With 20 albums already under his belt – dwarfing the 13-album core catalogue of the Fab 4 – Starr has decided to have some fun with album 21, committing fully to the style of the American country music of which he is notoriously fond. Though Look Up is being marketed as Ringo’s full-on embrace of the country genre – complete with album artwork featuring the man himself adorned in a Stetson hat – he would adopt heavy country influences for his 1970 LP, Beaucoups of Blues.

 

The shift to full-blown country has been met with a warm reception by fellow musicians within the industry. Starr recently performed multiple shows at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium backed by many of Look Up’s collaborating musicians, as well as bonafide superstars including Sheryl Crow and Jack White. The Liverpool native even received an invite from surprise guest Emmylou Harris to play the Grand Ole Opry, to which he graciously accepted.

 

Ringo’s love for country music dates back decades, with the drummer taking a pass on lead vocals for The Beatles’ 1965 cover of Buck Owens and The Buckaroos’ “Act Naturally” just two years after the release of the highly popular original. It stands to reason that Starr would gravitate toward material in the country vein. The everyman quality of his voice lends itself well to the genre, just as the accent-heavy, lower-pitched vocal stylings of country music offer an accessible platform for Starr’s limited range.

 

The accent in question of course refers generally to a southern twang rather than a Liverpudlian drawl, but it’s a minor detail most are willing to overlook in the case of Ringo. After all, along with completely reinventing pop and rock drumming as part of arguably the most sea-changing act in modern musical history, Ringo just has the “it” factor that makes him a magnetic figure.

 

It’s this variable that has granted the singer a solo career as extensive as the one he has had over the years. We all love Ringo, and his contributions to the art of drumming are invaluable. But objectively speaking, it’s widely understood that his bag of tricks as a solo performer is fairly limited in scope.

 

That’s no knock on Ringo Starr. It’s a wonderful thing that there remains an audience for one of the influential and beloved musicians of the past century. Naturally a Ringo Starr record is going to be a different experience than a Paul McCartney record, the primary difference being that a listener knows more or less precisely what to expect going into a Ringo album.

 

“More or less” is used as a qualifier here, as hearing Billy Strings performing on over a fourth of Look Up was not on the bingo card of this writer. Strings joins the likes of Molly Tuttle, Larkin Poe, Lucius, bluegrass superstar Alison Krauss, and even guitarist Joe Walsh for the star-studded country affair.

 

The project was reportedly spearheaded by musician and producer T Bone Burnett, the resume of whom reads like a who’s who of popular music over the past century. Along with arranging the backing musicians who would contribute to Look Up, Burnett wrote or co-wrote over 80% of the tunes comprising the album. Ringo himself co-wrote the album’s final track, and to the delight of most everyone, played drums on every single one of the album’s tracks.

 

It’s worth noting that, in the case of Look Up, Starr seems to be approaching the country genre with a degree of reverence and genuine respect. Top-notch Nashville session players can be heard backing the proceedings, and stylistically the album lands much more closely to “Waylon and Willie” territory than to anything Florida Georgia Line or any number of other bro-country acts ever produced.

 

One might argue that this is to be expected given Starr’s past embraces of classic country stylings. But it doesn’t take a fantastical stretch of the imagination to picture some label executive concocting a potentially-lucrative late-career crossover project a-la Elton John’s collaborative The Lockdown Sessions, released in 2021. That isn’t to say that The Lockdown Sessions is contrived or lacks value – it’s actually a fairly interesting endeavor. But given the current state of contemporary country music, listeners should rejoice in the fact that Look Up was not Burnett and Starr’s attempt at a countrification of the Lockdown Sessions concept.

 

The music itself – gaggle of guest stars, Nashville twang and T Bone Burnett notwithstanding – will feel familiar to any listeners who has heard any of Starr’s releases from any point in his career. The drummer’s distinctively dry baritone hangs in the air as it always has, like the subject of a photo placed in a collection of backgrounds, each featuring slight variations from one another.

 

Generations of listeners have grown up to the sound of Starr’s discernible warble, and in many ways, to hear it feels like being wrapped in a warm, familiar embrace. Ringo’s solo work feels a bit like walking into your great grandmother’s house – it’s austere; it’s predictable; it’s pleasant, and it’s cozy; but it’s not necessarily somewhere you would choose to live or even visit outside the context of your great grandmother making it her place of residence.

 

Opener “Breathless” with Billy Strings is fairly close to home for Starr and falls more in line with the “country through the lens of Liverpool” aesthetic explored early on during his career with The Beatles than with the purer Nashville essence which does emerge at various points throughout the duration of Look Up.

“Look Up” with Molly Tuttle is a hopeful number that follows a standard country/blues progression. Infused with the spirit of Ringo’s eternal optimism and continual insistence upon peace & love as a legitimately tangible possibility, the title track acts as an engaging musical vehicle for a legitimately poignant – if occasionally maudlin – conception. The track’s bridge section offers the poetically simple advice that one ought to, “live to fight another day,” as, “good things are going to come your way,

 

“Time On My Hands” on my hands very much has a classic country feel. In fact, the heartbroken-and-down-on-my-luck narrative compounded by the exquisite whine of a steel guitar makes that track sound as though it could have been an old Gary Stewart tune. “Never Let Me Go” acts as a fun, harmonica-laden shuffle, while Rosetta serves as the record’s heaviest cut. It is at this point throughout the runtime of Look Up that the electric guitar takes its sole stand as the primary focal point of one of the album’s tunes.

 

This is also the point in the record where Eagles, James Gang, and (occasional) All-Starr Band guitarist Joe Walsh – also a brother-in-law to Ringo- makes his appearance as part of the album’s impressive list of features. The rock & roll legend can be heard contributing slide guitar to the record’s eight cut, which also features Billy Strings and Larkin Poe.

 

Despite delivering little in the way of perspective-altering, sea-changing musical moments, Look Up is a joyful listen and fits comfortably within the lexicon of Ringo Starr’s sprawling solo discography. The album will undoubtedly appeal to fans of Starr’s distinct brand of affable interpretation.

 

The project finds the music legend having a great time while maintaining a certain awareness of his status as an outsider in the country genre. Though he clearly is taking measures to go about this sort of genre exploration in the most respectful manner possible, Look Up is likely not going to be making believers out of traditionalists of the genre any time soon. For all of its merits and the points at which it legitimately anchors itself to genre in genuine fashion, those truly familiar with the classic country from which the record takes its cues will almost certainly struggle to get past the obvious export at the center of the proceedings in the form of the record’s star[r] performer.

 

For listeners such as these, Look Up is unlikely to transcend the realm of novelty. While it is an undeniably commendable effort, one shouldn’t necessarily anticipate the arc of Starr’s legacy as the swinging, lovable drummer for The Beatles to be shifting to that of his being heralded as the next George Jones any time soon based on this record.

 

Nonetheless, those less than keen on Starr’s characteristic delivery will still struggle to find much about which to complain, as the production is incredibly tight and crisp, making for an exceptional sonic experience made all the more pleasing by the undeniable musicianship of some of Nashville’s finest pickers. At the end of the day, Sir Ringo Starr is a global and cultural treasure; he’s walking history, and any recorded document he decides to offer us for posterity is one which we all will be lucky to have received.