Ringo Starr - Liverpool 8 (2008)

2009-12-31T16:35:10Z

Ringo Starr - Liverpool 8 (2008)


01. Liverpool 8 
02. Think About You 
03. For Love 
04. Now That She's Gone Away 
05. Gone Are The Days 
06. Give It A Try 
07. Tuff Love 
08. Harry's Song 
09. Pasodobles 
10. If It's Love That You Want 
11. Love Is 
12. R U Ready

Keith Allison 	Clapping, Handclapping, Main Personnel, Vocals (Background)
Brent Carpenter 	Handclapping, Vocals (Background)
Gary Burr 	Guitars, Handclapping, Keyboards, Mandolin, Soloist, Vocals (Background), Whistle (Human)
Brent Carpenter 	Clapping, Vocals (Background)
Jesse Davey 	Guitar (Electric)
Steve Dudas 	Guitars, Handclapping, Soloist, Vocals (Background)
Mark Hudson 	Bass, Bongos, Clapping, Guitars, Harmonica, Keyboards, Mellotron, Piano, Soloist, Vocals (Background)
Sean Hurley 	Bass
Suzie Katayama 	Conductor, Orchestral Arrangements
Zac Rae 	Keyboards
Ringo Starr 	Clapping, Drums, Organ, Percussion, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
David A. Stewart 	Guitars, Slide Guitar
Bruce Sugar 	Handclapping, Vocals (Background)
Dave Way 	Bass

For a Beatle, Ringo Starr has had a relatively quiet latter-day solo career. After salvaging his tattered reputation in 1992 with Time Takes Time -- his first album in nearly a decade and his first in nearly 20 years to serve his legend well -- Starr settled into touring regularly with his ever-changing All-Starr Band, documenting almost every tour with a live album, then turning out a new studio album every three or four years. After Time Takes Time, all these albums were recorded in collaboration with Mark Hudson, best known as one of '70s popsters the Hudson Brothers but also an L.A. session man who slowly became Ringo's right-hand man. Starr's albums with Hudson never grabbed much attention outside the Beatles hardcore -- unlike Time Takes Time, they were rarely studded with stars and once he decamped from the majors to the indie Koch in 2003, they never received much of a marketing push, either, so they played solely to the devoted, who were always satisfied by the happily Beatlesque music Starr made with Hudson. This collaboration continued into 2007 as the duo embarked on what would become the Liverpool 8 album, but they had a falling out in the final stages of recording, with former Eurythmic David A. Stewart brought in at the last minute to polish up the album and collaborate on its title song. Stewart helps give Liverpool 8 the gloss the album needs as it's not only Ringo's first major-label album in five years, it's his homecoming to Capitol Records, the label that released the Beatles albums and Starr's first, best solo albums (highlights from which dominated the 2007 hits comp Photograph, released a matter of months before Liverpool 8).

On the surface, Liverpool 8 does indeed feel a bit like a comeback: Stewart's "re-production" -- so named in the liner notes as he gussied up Hudson's original production -- turns the music shiny and sleek and there are several cheerful forays into baby boomer nostalgia, whether it's the outright reference to "It Don't Come Easy" on "Gone Are the Days" or Ringo's stroll through his back pages on "Liverpool 8," reminiscent of Paul McCartney's marveling at his past on "That Was Me," a rollicking number on his 2007 album Memory Almost Full. At times, Liverpool 8 recalls Memory in how it balances nostalgia and mortality -- on "R U Ready" Ringo jovially stares into the great beyond -- which is just enough of a hook to reel in boomers who haven't listened to Ringo in years. Nevertheless, this sentimentality, like the Stewart reproduction, is just window dressing on an album that is essentially not all that different than the three that preceded it. Liverpool 8 is a relaxed, amiable collection of friendly pop tunes: it's nothing too flashy and it has no one tune that calls attention to itself, but it's a well-constructed, casually charming pop record. In a way, the smaller-scale productions of the Koch records served latter-day Ringo better, as they were as humble and unpretentious as his music, but even if Liverpool 8 is a little bit too pumped up and slick for its own good, Starr remains eminently likable, which is enough for those who have enjoyed Ringorama or Choose Love. However, it may not be enough for those hoping for another Ringo or Goodnight Vienna, which is what the big marketing push, complete with the album's release as a USB bracelet, suggests it is. Liverpool 8 is not another Memory Almost Full, an album that offers enough reminders of the past but is about the present; it is merely another good latter-day record for Ringo, filled with songs about love and spiked with a ridiculous novelty number (this time, it's "Pasodobles," where Starr warbles about a Spanish dance). For those who already love Ringo, that's plenty good enough, but for those who often (and often unfairly) run the good man down, this is too light, easygoing, and sometimes unapologetically silly to change their minds. ---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic Review

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Ringo Starr - Y Not (2010)

2009-12-31T15:56:24Z

Ringo Starr - Y Not (2010)


1. Fill In the Blanks 
2. Peace Dream 
3. The Other Side of Liverpool 
4. Walk With You 
5. Time 
6. Everyone Wins 
7. Mystery Of The Night 
8. Can't Do It Wrong 
9. Y Not 
10. Who's Your Daddy

Keith Allison 	Guitar, Vocals (Background)
Michael Bradford 	Bass
Mike Bradford 	Bass
Gary Burr 	Guitar
Ann Marie Calhoun 	Violin
Steve Dudas 	Guitar
Cindy Gomez 	Vocals (Background)
Ben Harper 	Vocals (Background)
Mark Hart 	Guitar
Vann Johnson 	Vocals (Background)
Janice Liebhart 	Vocals (Background)
The Marx Brothers 	Vocals (Background)
Richard Marx 	Vocals (Background)
Paul McCartney 	Bass, Vocals
Billy Squier 	Guitar
Ringo Starr 	Drums, Keyboards, Percussion, Piano, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Dave Stewart 	Guitar
Joss Stone 	Vocals
Tina Sugandh 	Indian Chants, Tabla
Bruce Sugar 	Keyboards, String Arrangements
Benmont Tench 	Organ, Piano
Joe Walsh 	Bass, Guitar, Vocals (Background)
Don Was 	Bass, Bass (Upright)
Edgar Winter 	Horn, Sax (Alto), Sax (Tenor), Vocals (Background)

Ringo Starr defined his solo career through his collaborations, scoring his first big hit with the assistance of his fellow Fabs and later sustaining himself through his All-Starr Band, so his decision to produce 2010’s Y Not on his own appears to be a big deal. Of course, those collaborators sharpened Ringo’s focus but never altered his amiable pop -- that friendly, shambling sound is Ringo, something Y Not proves without a shadow of a doubt by sounding virtually interchangeable with its immediate predecessors despite a production that inexplicably feels like a response to George Harrison’s 1987 comeback, Cloud Nine. Since Ringo bathes himself in unrepentant nostalgia, this 20-year flashback is odd but appropriate because Starr is all about cheerful reminders of happy times filled with Peace Dreams and memories of “The Other Side of Liverpool.” Starr does have some famous friends to bolster his journey through the past -- Van Dyke Parks co-wrote “Walk with You” but his presence is obscured by a Paul McCartney harmony, Joe Walsh is partially responsible for the stiffly thumping “Fill in the Blanks,” Richard Marx keeps the '80s nostalgia flowing on “Mystery of the Night,” while Joss Stone valiantly tries to pull the proceedings into the present on the album-closing “Who’s Your Daddy,” a song where Ringo comfortably plays second banana -- but he has no overall collaborator; he’s steering this ship himself and has no desire to depart from his familiar course home. Again, like there was on Liverpool 8, there is charm to Starr’s tried and true: exciting it is not but it’s as comforting as an old friend who doesn’t change, he just stays the same. ---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic Review

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Ringo Starr - Liverpool 8 (2008)

Ringo Starr - Y Not (2010)