The song is the latest from his upcoming country record
Ringo Starr has released “Thankful” featuring Alison Krauss. The track serves as the closer on his upcoming country record, Look Up, due on January 10th via UMG Nashville. This stunning collection marks Starr’s first country record in over 50 years, featuring 11 original songs produced by T. Bone Burnett and recorded this year in Nashville and Los Angeles.
Nine of the 11 songs were written or co-written by Burnett, one by Billy Swan, and the other co-written by Starr and Bruce Sugar. Burnett enlisted some of Nashville’s finest and hottest talent for the record, including Billy Strings, Larkin Poe, Lucius, and Molly Tuttle.
Starr’s lifelong love of country music has been apparent and celebrated throughout his illustrious career. He performed and wrote numerous country and country-tinged songs throughout his years with The Beatles (i.e. “Act Naturally,” “What Goes On,” “Don’t Pass Me By”) as well as with the earlier Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, and recorded a country album, Beaucoups of Blues, in 1970 as his second solo album. His love of country and the blues led him to try and emigrate from London to Texas while still a teen, after reading that Lightnin’ Hopkins lived in Houston.
The artist’s new album comes after a chance meeting with Burnett at an event in Los Angeles in 2022 (the two had first met in the 1970s). Starr asked Burnett to write a song for an EP he was recording. Taking the task to heart, Burnett returned with nine songs, all in a country vein, which happily put Starr on a path to record Look Up: his first country album in more than 50 years and his first full-length album since 2019.
“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.” Ringo recalls. “I had been making EPs at the time and so I thought we would do a country EP -but when he brought me nine songs I knew we had to make an album! And I am so glad we did. I want to thank and send Peace & Love, to T Bone and all the great musicians who helped make this record. It was a joy making it and I hope it is a joy to listen to.”
“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. None of the work that I have done throughout a long life in music would have happened if not for him and his band. Among other things, this album is a way I can say thank you for all he has given me and us.”
Starr will bring this new music to Nashville when he headlines the famed Ryman Auditorium on January 14-15, 2025.
