Ringo Starr has announced his next album: a country record, produced and co-written by T-Bone Burnett. Look Up is due out in January 2025. It’s his first new LP since 2019, and his first country record in more than 50 years.
In addition to Burnett, who co-wrote nine out of 11 songs on the record, Look Up features a host of country, bluegrass, and Americana talent including Alison Krauss, Billy Strings, Larkin Poe, Lucius, and Molly Tuttle. The first single from the album, “Time On My Hands,” is out today.
Shortly after the album’s release, Starr plans to celebrate the occasion by taking over Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium. He last released a country record in 1970 as his second solo album, the evolution of a passion that even led him to attempt a move from London to Texas as a preteen. Starr decided to make Look Up in 2022, after a chance meeting with Burnett led to songwriting sessions.
“I’ve always loved country music. And when I asked T-Bone to write me a song, I didn’t even think at the time that it would be a country song – but of course it was, and it was so beautiful.” Starr recalls. “I had been making EPs at the time and so I thought we would do a country [one]—but when he brought me nine songs I knew we had to make an album!”
“I have loved Ringo Starr and his playing and his singing and his aesthetic for as long as I can (or care to) remember,” says Burnett. “He changed the way every drummer after him played, with his inventive approach to the instrument. And, he has always sung killer rockabilly, as well as being a heartbreaking ballad singer. To get to make this music with him was something like the realization of a 60-year dream I’ve been living.”
