Word: ringo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Time Takes Time occupied a notable team of four top producers (Don Was, Jeff Lynne, Peter Asher and Phil Ramone), 14 songwriters (including Ringo) and such graybeard kibitzers as Brian Wilson (who provides a Morse-code background % vocal of dit dit dit-dits on the Diane Warren tune In a Heart Beat). Somehow it all coheres, perhaps because this musical militia wanted to honor the group that shaped their pop tastes, and to do it with the one Beatle who could take direction from them as he did from Lennon and McCartney...
...anybody paid tribute to Ringo Starr when he turned 50, we missed it. Makes sense. Ringo was the Least Beatle, the onstage mascot, the one who didn't write songs or sing well. He was along for the amazing ride three pop geniuses took through the '60s. Early on, his goofy smile and steady beat kept the group grounded. Sometimes the other lads would throw him a tune (With a Little Help from My Friends, Yellow Submarine) that tapped the great good will he shared with his audience. But when John, Paul and George swerved off into drugs, mysticism...
...Ringo will be 52 next month, and now there's reason to celebrate. After a fitful movie career and some of the marital and chemical troubles mandatory for all aging rock stars, Ringo is back -- clean, keen and on tour with an All-Starr band that includes Todd Rundgren, Joe Walsh and Nils Lofgren. And as his first album in nine years proves, he is back in the 1960s. The songs for Time Takes Time, all new, sound beamed from some long-ago Top 40 station that plays only early, previously unheard Beatles songs...
...same will do just fine. Maybe the tunes are less ersatz Beatles than upscale Archies: gourmet bubble gum. Maybe some of the lyrics took less time to write than they do to sing. Maybe the entire album marks Ringo's retreat to the simple life. But to this battered ear, the stuff sounds like music. The highlight is the mesmeric thumper After All These Years, Ringo's anthem to "traveling the world in a rock 'n' roll band. It's in my blood! It's in my blood!" Ours too. This is retro-rock to stir any '60s survivor. Rise...
MUSIC Least Beatle Ringo Starr is back -- in the 1960s...