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It was a no-brainer for Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, 84, to stage two L.A. fires benefit shows at Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium on Tuesday and Wednesday night.
Joined by the likes of Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, and Jack White, the live performances with Starr — who just released his first country album in 55 years, Look Up, on Jan. 10 in collaboration with songwriter-producer T Bone Burnett — will become a two-hour CBS special, Ringo & Friends at the Ryman, to air in the spring.
At the same time, proceeds from a performance of the Beatles single, With a Little Help from My Friends, will support the American Red Cross and those impacted by the California wildfires, according to Forbes Magazine.
“I came to the Ryman the first time 10 years ago, something like that,” Starr, who’s had a Beverly Hills home for decades, said during a Zoom news conference with Burnett at the Ryman on Wednesday. “And just to be here is a blessing. And the vibe here is so great that we ended up spending my 72nd birthday here in the back somewhere. Someone threw the party. The Ryman for me, I just feel an extra little beat in my heart every time I play here. It’s so far out.”
Along with Starr’s solo hits, Beatles classics and Look Up tracks, the Ryman shows will feature the drummer reflecting on country music’s influence on his life, The Beatles and his solo career.
“It was emotional music when I first started listening to it and I’m quite an emotional person myself,” said Starr of country music’s early appeal that led to his first solo country album, 1970’s Beaucoups of Blues.
“So, I like to say in the ‘50s, every country song was either, ‘The wife left. The dog’s dead. Or I need some money for the jukebox.’ And all those great singers around besides Hank Williams, we all start with him. Or I did. Hank Snow from Canada. It’s weird, I remember him so well. He was more country than a lot of country guys.”
Starr and Burnett go all the way back to the ‘70s when the drummer used to throw legendary parties in L.A. but it was the Fab Four that was responsible for the two meeting up again more recently.
They were both at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in L.A. where Olivia Harrison was reading from a poetry book about her late husband and Beatles guitarist George.
“(I said to T Bone), ‘If you’ve got a song you think would be good for me, send it down,’” said Starr. “And that’s how it started. I love the man.”
Burnett would come up with nine co-written songs for Look Up and seemed thrilled to be working with Starr given the gift he felt the Beatles gave America when they first performed in 1964, seven years after the producer at the age of eight or nine first heard “the explosion of freedom and love” expressed in Jerry Lee Lewis’ Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.
“By 1959 that whole rock n’ roll revolution was over,” said Burnett.
“And then the Beatles came and played in New York in February 1964 and they gave us back our music. So I’ve got this deep gratitude to all those cats and Ringo in particular.”
Starr stares out looking rather soulful from the Look Up black and white album cover wearing a large white cowboy hat that he chose himself.
“I went on the internet and thought, ‘Yeah, I’m going into the Wild West,’” said the drummer of choosing the hat. “And I brought it with me today.”
As for the joy his music continues to bring some 60 years after the Beatles crossed the pond, the Liverpool-born Starr says the world clearly needs it.
“There’s always a need for joy,” he said. “The world keeps going round, and there’s a lot of craziness and violence and people making demands on other people. And it’s the world we all know. I was born in 1940 and a lot of people didn’t like us then. So it’s a part of our world. It’s a pity.”