Ringo Starr’s first album in six years, Look Up finds him in a reflective mood. Produced and co-written by the equally legendary T Bone Burnett, it is largely a country album (albeit with moments of blues, pop, and even psychedelia scattered like fairy dust through the mix), featuring some of Nashville’s finest talents – Molly Tuttle, Alison Krauss, Billy Strings, and Larkin Poe, all of whom drop in to lend a hand at strategic moments across the album. Despite Ringo’s lifelong love of the genre, it is his first country album in fifty years, and the result is a low-key, beautifully produced album which, despite a few less certain moments, offers a number of highpoints across its eleven tracks.
It kicks off with Billy Strings supporting Ringo on the Beatles-meets-Dylan blues of Breathless, a ramshackle acoustic rocker that proves strangely addictive. Only slightly let down by lyrics that hark back to the naivety of 60s pop, it’s nevertheless a breezy opener, with a wonderfully hazy, psychedelic outro. The title track, which features Molly Tuttle, is up next and it offers grittier guitars, harmonised vocals, and liquid slide guitar, all of which serves to recall the poppier moments of Pink Floyd’s massively underrated Obscured By Clouds. It’s a strong song, beautifully arranged and recorded, and it provides the album with an early highlight. Based around a lush acoustic backdrop, the gentle heartbreak of Time On My Hands is a countrified ballad with a similar vibe to the Stones, even down to the Andrew Loog Oldham-esque string section that swoops over the second half. It’s another song that finds comfort in gentle melancholy, and the strings are a nice touch that wrap the piece up nicely. Billy Strings returns for the shuffling Never Let Me Go which feels like a melodic continuation of Love Me Do, separated from the original by a sense of experience and loss. The album reaches its halfway point with I Live For Your Love, Molly Tuttle once again lending a hand, her sweet vocals helping to keep it from becoming too straightforward a crooner. Nevertheless, mid-paced and somewhat lachrymose, it’s one of the weaker tracks here, and it’s a relief when the dusty Come Back (feat. Lucius) rolls into town, complete with whistling intro, backing vocals, and rusty slide guitar.
The second half opens with vocals Can you Hear Me Call, which treads a line between the Beatles and Eric Clapton’s self-titled debut album, Molly Tuttle duetting over a surprisingly bouncy backdrop. Better still is Rosetta, which ropes in Billy Strings and Larkin Poe for a seriously gritty country rocker worthy of Neil Young. It’s moments like this, when the band deploy a little more firepower, that the album really hits its stride, and it’s a shame there aren’t a few more like Rosetta sprinkled across the record. It’s back to a canter, however, with the whimsical You Want Some, its belligerent title belying the lovelorn 50s country-pop within. Molly Tuttle and Larkin Poe drop in for the slightly psychedelic String Theory, a suitably colourful piece that keeps the album’s momentum before Ringo wraps everything up with Thank You. With a guest spot from Alison Krauss, it ruminates on how love can turn a shattered life around, the lyrics echoing A Little Help From My Friends, as languid guitars circle the closely entwined vocals. It’s a memorable finale, and it brings the album to a contented close.
Look Up feels like a passion project from a pop star who has nothing left to prove. With beautiful production and solid guest spots, it’s essentially a love letter to the genre from an artist who, as a teen, emigrated to Texas to be closer to the music he loved. Low key and unassuming, the album is at its best when Ringo and his band let loose – as they do on Rosetta or the title track. Overall, it’s hard to overlook the obvious pleasure Ringo took in recording this album and, for genre aficionados in particular, it’s a sweet tribute to all things country. 8/10
