When a former member of The Beatles speaks, you listen.
Ringo Starr shocked the world when he announced that he’d be putting out a full-length country music album. On January 10th, the former Beatles drummer will release Look Up – which he excitedly describes as a country record. It originally started out as just one song, and then it grew into an EP, and ultimately transformed into an 11-song track list that includes features from Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, among others.
He’s not the first artist to go outside of his normal genre to dip into country, and I can assure you that he won’t be the last either. We’ve seen a number of artists like Post Malone and Beyonce make the switch this year, and Ringo is just another very big name to throw his name into the figurative cowboy hat. When he first announced the album, he made sure to voice that his love and appreciation for country music drove the project:
“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.
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! And I am so glad we did. I want to thank, and send peace and 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.”
With still a couple of months to go before Look Up becomes available, Starr has released two singles: “Time On My Hands” and “Thankful.” Both have plenty of steel guitar to go around, and the smooth vocals of Ringo work surprisingly well with the country sound. There’s no doubt that he’s capable of crafting country music, but what drove the former Beatles drummer to try it out, you might be asking?
Ringo suggested that his recent exploration into country music really just came from the idea that no genre is off limits as an artist, and he appreciated the vessel of emotion that country music tends to offer:
“You can put a lot of emotions in country songs, you know? Music is open. You can do rock, you can do this, you can do that. You don’t have to be stuck (in one genre).”
That’s sentiment seems to be especially true in 2024, where as I mentioned earlier, a number of non-country artists have released country music. Besides Post Malone and now Ringo, Beyonce was undoubtedly the biggest artist to make the move into country (even though she insisted that Cowboy Carter was not a country music album).
Starr even joked about Beyonce, saying that as he was trying to figure out what to name his country project, he threw out a Queen Bey idea of sorts:
“Once we were laughing (when someone asked), ‘What are you going to call the album?’ I thought, ‘Be. On. Say.’ But nobody laughed. That was just having fun, because she (Beyonce) was great.”
Honestly would have loved to see the reaction from the “Bey Hive” if Ringo would have named his country music album “Be. On. Say.” Would have been hilarious, though Look Up is probably the more professional and lawsuit-adverse choice.
