Ringo Starr returns to country & western… and it’s about time!

Four years ago, reviewing Ringo Starr’s album “Y Not”, I closed the article by writing:

“If I were his consultant, I would tell him: man, you need good songs, because you’ve never had a great voice and today your colleagues give you bad songs. Why don’t you think about doing a second episode of “Beaucoups of blues”, that beautiful 1970 record of yours with country & western songs?”

In the meantime I didn’t become Ringo’s advisor, but someone else must have given him the advice I would have given him. Because the announced (last May) country EP in collaboration with Linda Perry (formerly of 4 Non Blondes) and T-Bone Burnett (“sent me one of the most beautiful country songs I’ve heard in a long time. It’s a very old school country. It’s beautiful. So I thought, ‘Hey, I’ll make a country EP!'”) apparently has expanded into a full album, coming out in the next few months.

“Beaucoups of blues”, released in September 1970, was Ringo’s second solo album. The same year, the drummer released the very pleasant “Sentimental journey”, a collection of songs from the thirties, forties and fifties dedicated to his parents

But “Beaucoups of blues” remains one of Ringo’s most successful solo albums. Born from his passion for country & western, already expressed during the years with the Beatles in songs he sang or co-wrote such as “Act naturally”

“What goes on”

and “Don’t pass me by”

the album was recorded in Nashville, cradle of country & western, in just three days, and contains all original songs written specifically for Ringo (with the only exception of “Wine, Women and Loud Happy Songs”) and recorded under the supervision of Scotty Moore.

If you don’t know “Beaucoups of blues”, you can listen to it in full below.

If Ringo Starr’s next album is, as I hope, in the vein of “Beaucoups of blues”, I can’t wait to hear it.