‘Long Long Road’ is the new album from Ringo Starr, produced by T Bone Burnett, it is his one of his finest collections to date. It is another collaboration with Burnett following hot on the heels of the widely acclaimed ‘Look Up’ from 2025. It has a similar country vibe as that record and for me ever so slightly shades it. Much of it was recorded in the spiritual home of country music, Nashville. Ringo had this to say about working with Burnett again ““I’m blessed to have T Bone in my life right now and working with me on these records, after we did the last record, which I love listening to, this one just sort of happened. I like to say sometimes I make the right moves, like you can go left or right at any point, and one of the right moves was hooking up with T Bone for Look Up, and now for this one, which I’m calling Long Long Road, because I’ve been on a long long road.”
It opens with “Returning With Tears” which is a light, but delightful country style tune with a gorgeous counter point vocal from Molly Tuttle. “Baby Don’t Go” is a soft blues shuffle underpinned by Ringo’s perfect but always wonderfully understated drums. Starr’s voice is relaxed, laid back and suggests that he is having a lot of fun recording it. The ghost of early Johnny Cash is alive and well in “I Don’t See Me In Your Eyes Anymore” and I love that vamping doo wop style backing vocal. This is my favourite track on the album as I write this. If the Beatles were still recording, then I think “It’s Been Too Long” could have been one of those beautifully idiosyncratic contributions his songs made to classic Beatles albums. It primed the album as its first single back in March. Perhaps the catchiest earworm of a hook on this record is delivered with “Why” a strolling soft shoe shuffle that makes you sing along and tap your feet from the opening notes.
Ringo shares writing credits with Bruce Sugar on “You And I (Wave Of Love)” he also shares a sublime vocal with Molly Tuttle. Of all the love songs that are out there this sits among the best, after a couple of listens I have been singing it to my wife, although I suspect I have not done it justice! “My Baby Don’t Want Nothing” is another great love song, one of the many songs on this album written or co-written by T Bone Burnett. Ringo gets another songwriting credit on “Choose Love” which he composed with Mark Hudson, Gary Burr, Dean Grakal and Steve Dudas. This was the second single from the album and was released early in April. I love the way he winds a few Fab Four song titles into the lyric, “The long and winding road is more than a song. Tomorrow never knows what goes on” The sentiment is perfect, I mean why would you not choose love? The supremely talented St. Vincent provides harmonies.
There is a haunting, lilting Latin feel to the purring beat of “She’s Gone”. The fiddle playing that overlays the song from David Mansfield is sublime. The album title track closes the record as a perfect bookend to a great album. The track is another Starr Sugar co-write. Sheryl Crow performs heavenly harmonies. The spoken word interlude from Ringo is unexpected but it works so well. It ends with a lonely solid snare shot just after the music fades.
Burnett clearly loves working with Mr. Starkey and of the album and reuniting with Ringo he said ““I’ve loved Ringo’s playing and his singing for my whole life, and then one night we were at a poetry reading together and he said, why don’t you write a song for me? So, I wrote him a Gene Autry type song because I always heard Ringo as a Texas artist, the way he played felt just like Texas music to me. Ringo Starr is a recording artist of the highest calibre, and I wanted to surround him with these young masters, bringing in some of this extraordinary young energy that’s happening around Nashville for both of these records.” Ringo Starr is riding a hot seam of great country tunes with this and his last album and long may he continue!
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