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Graham Clark
Music Features Writer
@Maxximum23Clark
1:00 AM 1st February 2025
arts
Review

Albums: Ringo Starr- Look Up

Ringo Starr- Look Up
Breathless; Look Up; Time On My Hands; Never Let Me Go; I Live For Your Love; Come Back; Can You Hear Me Call; Rosetta; You Want Some; String Theory; Thankful
(Lost Highway Records)


Ringo Starr’s first full-length album in six years, Look Up, sees the former Beatle discovering his musical love of country music, which may not be that surprising—almost everything he did in The Beatles was country music-influenced, from Honey Don’t and Matchbox to Act Naturally, What Goes On, and Octopus’s Garden, which could be a country music song.

Produced by T Bone Burnett, Bob Dylan’s former guitarist, the album features some of Nashville’s finest, including Billy Strings, Larkin Poe, and Alison Krauss, who guests on the album closer, Thankful.

Wisely, Burnett has put the songs in the right key that suits Starr’s voice, where no track is sung too low or high, and his love of the genre is reflected across the eleven tracks here, never taking anything back but instead always giving to this popular art form, which appears to be back in fashion.

Naturally Starr plays the drums on every track contained here, but by inviting guest vocalists on the majority of the tracks, the move has given the songs a fresh impetus.

Highlights include You Want Some, which indeed could be a Beatles song, and I Live For Your Love are apparently a tribute to his wife, besides not looking too much to the future but instead living in the moment and being thankful, where he mentions his famous "peace and love" message, which has become his trademark over the years. Alison Krauss adds another level to the song, making the track sound even more emotional.

A superb return where Starr is reborn with his love letter to country music via this fine album, his best in over twenty years.