Ringo Starr’s decision to release an album of country music nearly 55 years after his last such endeavor feels both serendipitous and ineluctable. The happenstance occurred on November 10, 2022, when the iconic drummer attended an event at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Los Angeles to celebrate the release of Olivia Harrison’s book, Came the Lightening – Twenty Poems for George. Also on hand was renowned producer and singular musician T Bone Burnett. The two struck up a conversation, which eventually led the drummer to query whether Burnett would be interested in composing a song for him.

Here’s where the element of inevitably comes into play. In 1970, Starr traveled to Nashville and recorded Beaucoups of Blues with Pete Drake and a team of country aces. He hadn’t explored the genre in any depth over the subsequent decades. However, beyond being an acclaimed artist in his own right, Burnett is an avowed fan, who has said, “Nobody means more to me than The Beatles and Ringo.” So as he contemplated the task, he decided to craft a song that reflected the totality of Starr’s life and career, going all the way back to the Liverpool teenager’s infatuation with the music of Gene Autry.

Burnett explains, “I think there’s a real line from Carl Perkins and ‘Honey Don’t’ through Buck Owens and ‘Act Naturally.’ That continued with the songs Ringo wrote, like ‘What Goes On’ and even ‘Photograph,’ which is very much a folk-rock, country rock kind of tune. So when he asked me to write a song for him, I wrote ‘Come Back When You Go Away,’ which was an attempt to write a Gene Autry-type song without aping any particular Gene Autry song—just knowing the mindset and then tapping into that country and western style.”

Starr was enamored with the results, although surprised by the nature of “Come Back,” which he had thought would be in the pop-rock vein. When the two next met, the drummer broached the possibility of Burnett producing a four-song country EP. In response, Burnett presented nine additional songs written from a similar perspective. Starr was equally impressed by Burnett’s prolificacy and the caliber of the material, resulting in their partnership on Look Up, Ringo’s first full-length album since 2019.

Burnett’s familiarity with the scope of Starr’s vocal output helped him to tailor the compositions accordingly. The producer recalls, “Before I wrote ‘Come Back,’ I was listening to The Beatles Channel, and they played this Harry Nilsson song that he sang called ‘Easy For Me.’ I heard ‘Easy For Me’ and thought, ‘OK, that’s Ringo’s true voice. Then I wrote everything else into that vocal style because it’s the place he’s obviously the most comfortable. It’s the place where he does his most profound storytelling. It’s in the same place as ‘Little Help from My Friends,’ the same range.”

There was another element that also informed Burnett’s efforts. He notes, “When we’ve done movies like Crazy Heart about Bad Blake—this fictional character we created—the first thing Jeff [Bridges] and I did was we sat down and made a history of Bad Blake. What was the first song he ever heard? What records did his parents have that he played? What was the first song he ever wrote? What was the first song he ever bought at the record store? You put an imaginary history together for him.

“With Ringo you have a real history to deal with and to learn from. There’s an extraordinary historical record of what he recorded as well as the sources of those things. I also understand his ethos very well. It’s positive and joyous. So you can tell why he likes the stuff that he likes.”