ADRIAN THRILLS opinions Look Up by Ringo Starr – Ringo goes nation with slightly assist from his pals
Ringo Starr: Look Up (Decca)
Verdict: Ringo goes to Nashville
Sixty years after Beatlemania and the British invasion of the American charts, Liverpool’s greatest musical exports are still big news.
Despite splitting up in 1970, the Fab Four were once again toppermost of the poppermost at the end of 2024.
In addition to a deluxe vinyl box-set, and a Martin Scorsese-produced Disney+ documentary, we saw Paul McCartney bringing the curtain down on his Got Back tour in December with four triumphant gigs in Manchester and London.
Now Ringo Starr — who made a surprise appearance with Macca on the last night of the tour — is getting in on the act with a new solo album that’s his best in years.
His first since 2019’s What’s My Name, it sees the drummer hook up with producer T. Bone Burnett on a set of country-ish tunes that are well suited to his laid-back voice and loose-swinging playing style.
Thanks to crossover albums by Beyoncé and Post Malone, and Shania Twain’s Glastonbury spot, country music enjoyed a resurgence last year.
But you could hardly accuse Ringo, 84, of jumping on the bandwagon. Inspired by country-blues singer Lightnin’ Hopkins, he tried to emigrate to the States while still in his teens.
He also sang lead on The Beatles’ 1965 cover of Buck Owens’s country and western standard Act Naturally – a song he still performs live – and made his first solo country album, Beaucoups Of Blues, in 1970.
Now Ringo Starr — who made a surprise appearance with Macca on the last night of the tour — is getting in on the act with a new solo album that’s his best in years
Drummer for The Beatles Ringo Starr pictured performing onstage in 1965
As is his habit, he gets by with a little help from his friends on Look Up. But instead of relying solely on seasoned session players, producer Burnett has spiced things up by pairing him with younger luminaries, too, including Grammy-winning bluegrass guitarists Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings.
Singers Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, of country-pop band Lucius, are also on board.
Of the 11 tracks here, nine were written or co-written by Burnett — with Ringo getting just one songwriting credit.
But the former Beatle, who recorded his parts at his home studio in L.A., sounds fully engaged. Six years ago, he seemed to have settled into an undemanding late-life rhythm on What’s My Name. Now, he’s taking more chances.
Opening track Breathless sets the tone for an album of love songs and heartache ballads. A bluesy country number, it’s punctuated by quirky drum fills.
According to Burnett, Ringo revolutionised the approach of every drummer who came after him, and his playing here is exemplary — forceful and unfussy, like the man himself.
Elsewhere, bluegrass virtuoso Tuttle adds striking female harmonies to the optimistic title track.
She contributes more singing, guitar and mandolin on I Live For Your Love, and then performs Can You Hear Me Call as a full-blown duet with Ringo.
A more familiar sidekick, Joe Walsh, of the Eagles, adds a fiery slide guitar solo on Rosetta. Time On My Hands is a lament for lost love.
Ringo’s sole co-writing contribution, Thankful, ends the album on a high. With bluegrass star Alison Krauss adding harmonies that recall the two Burnett produced albums that she made with Robert Plant, it’s a heartfelt ballad that provides a fitting finale.
Released in the UK on Decca, the label that famously turned down The Beatles in 1962,
Look Up is a stylish return…and one that also belatedly puts right one of pop’s great historical wrongs.
Franz Ferdinand: The Human Fear (Domino)
Verdict: Art-rockers grow up gracefully
With their skin-tight trousers and spiky chords, Franz Ferdinand were part of the last great wave of British guitar music when they released their first album 20 years ago.
The Glasgow art-rockers — named after the Austrian archduke whose assassination sparked the First World War — won a Mercury Prize for that self-titled effort, but they’ve never quite recaptured their early momentum.
Back in 2004, they wanted to ‘make records that girls can dance to’. On their sixth album, The Human Fear, they still want us to dance, although the songs of frontman Alex Kapranos have become gloomier with age.
Now a married father of one, he sounds preoccupied with middle-aged angst, even though his underlying message seems to be: keep calm and carry on.
‘Did you ever… feel the fabric of existence come unspun?’ he sings on Audacious, all glammy guitars and a catchy chorus that recalls Mott The Hoople’s version of All The Young Dudes.
The best songs — Everyday Dreamer, Night Or Day and Bar Lonely — hark back to the energetic thrust of early hits Take Me Out and The Dark Of The Matinée
On The Doctor, he plays a patient who wants to stay in hospital, despite feeling better: ‘I’ve become accustomed to this level of attention, I have nurses I can talk to and thermometers to hold.’
The best songs — Everyday Dreamer, Night Or Day and Bar Lonely — hark back to the energetic thrust of early hits Take Me Out and The Dark Of The Matinée.
Some scatter-gun attempts at other styles, including synth-pop and reggae, don’t have the same impact.
A notable exception, however, is Black Eyelashes, a rock song featuring a bouzouki — and an impressive nod to Kapranos’s Greek ancestry.
Both albums are out today. Franz Ferdinand start a tour at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, on March 5 (ticketmaster.co.uk).
Moonchild Sanelly:
Full Moon (Transgressive)
Having sung with Gorillaz and worked with Beyoncé (on her Lion King: The Gift soundtrack), Johannesburg-based singer and rapper Moonchild Sanelly strikes out alone on an album of brash ‘ghetto funk’ tunes.
Her songs switch effortlessly between high-octane electronica and South African dance styles, but there are softer nods to her roots as a spoken-word poet, too. Big Booty namechecks David (and Brooklyn) Beckham.
To Kill A Single Girl laments how a fondness for tequila almost ruined her love life. It’s a striking statement of intent from a rising star.
Angel Olsen
Cosmic Waves Vol. 1 (Jagjaguwar)
Angel Olsen’s original songs often feel like 1950s torch ballads, but the Missouri singer shows her versatility by curating a compilation that should really be billed as ‘Angel Olsen & Friends’.
It’s a record of two halves: the first features new music from five American indie acts; the second contains Olsen’s versions of older songs by the same artists.
Side one highlights include the raw guitar of Poppy Jean Crawford, Maxim Ludwig’s piano balladry and Sarah Grace White’s melodic vocals.
Olsen adds countrified touches on side two.
