All of us, no matter how media-literate we think we are, in some way or another absorb received opinion about particular musicians. It’s particularly easy when they are, in the literal sense of that most abused of words, iconic: when you are constantly exposed to a condensed simulacrum version of them. So it is that I realise that, even though I know deep down that it’s a construct, I have bought into the cliché version of Ringo Starr: the lunkish, clowning, “not even the best drummer in The Beatles”, along-for-the-ride foil for his more mercurial bandmates.
Of course, it’s not like he hasn’t perpetuated that himself. From “Octopus’s Garden” and oafish 70s drinking adventures through Thomas the Tank Engine narration to goofy “peace and love” public statements, he’s clearly been perfectly happy to be the cartoon Ringo. His solo work has hardly changed the world either. But if you look at candid Beatles footage as in the Get Back movie, and even if you just listen closely to The Beatles, you’re reminded that there was always the other Ringo, the thoughtful listener, dry wit and musical bedrock that made him an essential part of that machine.
And, it turns out, that Ringo is very much still in evidence. I had completely missed last year’s Look Up album – on which former Bob Dylan sideman, American folk scholar, producer and soundtrack maestro T-Bone Burnett completely jettisons the very LA, very session-musicians-trying-to-be-louder-than-each-other, very rawwwk sound that has dominated the previous solo work and created a sensitive framework for that reflective Ringo to emerge. This album takes off from there, spreading out through skiffle, doo-wop and other music of the boomers’ early youth, and it’s even better.
It is also, for all the Americana, an incredibly Merseyside record. Ringo’s accent is of course still intact, and the feel of the record is shot through with the port city’s romanticisation of the far side of the Atlantic. If that voice weren’t quite so recognisable, in fact, you could quite convincingly sell this as an old Scouse club singer’s moment of hip renaissance, and if I’d been told the backing band was groovy Wirral millennials The Coral I’d happily believe it. The songs are simple, in the way – with supreme irony – that Beatle-aper-in-chief Noel Gallagher’s ones are, but infinitely more suited to this sensitive rootsy backing than to Oasis’s chundering plod, and 85-year-old Ringo sings them wistfully, sweetly and very endearingly. If you can put aside the cartoon preconception – and you should – this is an absolute treat.
Listen to "It's Been Too Long":
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