Ringo Starr at the Grammy Museum
Last night at the Grammy Museum at LA Live downtown, the Museum continued their program of interview/short live performances with a night with Ringo Starr. Maybe you've heard of him. He was there for not only the Museum but also since he released a new solo album called 'Y Not' on January 12th - which by the way, is fun and has special guests...more on that later.
The event - which sold out in eight minutes - took place in a small theater at the Museum and consisted of a short interview of Ringo (and, later, Ben Harper) conducted by Robert Santelli - the executive director of the Museum - and a short set of songs. Ringo looks good for being 69 years old and there was a reason why he was always labeled 'the funny one.'
During the discussion, Ringo talked about his new record 'Y Not,' which is his 15th solo album, dating back to 1970. Starr not only assembled a large collection of musicians for it, but he was also the only producer on it - a first for him. In reference to his new-found production freedom he said 'it was the first time I could tell the guitarist what to do.'
Starr discussed the genesis of some of the songs in the question-and-answer portion of the evening - including how he writes them. He also told a story how, when he felt that the song 'Peace Dream' was missing something, he called Paul McCartney in England - who was coming to Los Angeles soon anyway - to listen to it. After McCartney did, he said that he could probably do something for it and added the bass part. Then Ringo had McCartney listen to a few other tunes and the legendary bass player and singer thought that "Walk with You" needed a little something else, so the final track is a duet with Starr and McCartney - which was not the intention at the beginning.
During the interview part, Starr pulled Harper on stage to buffer some of the questions and the visibly uncomfortable singer tried admirably to interject, but found himself not only just listening to Santelli and Starr interact, but also asked Starr a question himself. (He asked Ringo when the drummer realized that Beatlemania had started for him). Santelli then asked Harper how the two musicians met - through a myspace celebrity-interviews-another-celebrity series - followed by the two taking questions from the audience. The most interesting question was if Starr was aware of a pressing issue with one of his early solo LPs that had his album one side and a John Lennon solo record on the other. Starr said he was unaware of it and then Harper offered to pay double the amount to the audience member to buy it from him (the owner declined).
The admiration between Starr and Harper was very mutual and you could see that the two enjoyed each other - not only just in hanging out, but also in playing, which they did after they spoke. Starr brought up several of his people and Harper added several of his Relentless7 band and the group played a short set of tunes that included Starr's hit 'Photograph' and 'Walk With You' from Y Not two of Harper's songs "I Will Not Be Broken" and "Up to You Now". Starr then returned and they finished up the night with "The Other Side of Liverpool" a grim song from Y Not about Starr's upbringing in the tough England port town of Liverpool (his neighborhood is nicknamed 'The Dingle'), then the Starr/Beatle classic "With a Little Help From My Friends' as well as 'Boys' - on which Starr played drums.
Harper and his band and Ringo sound great together and the album also shows that. Starr co-writes all of the songs on the album with various people including Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, Joss Stone (who also sings on one), Richard Marx and Glen Ballard and Joe Walsh, McCartney, Don Was, Billy Squier, Edgar Winter and Harper all play and/or sing on it with Starr, who plays drums.
Y Not is on Hip-O and Universal Records and is available in stores, at amazon.com and on iTunes.
Harper's song "Up To You Know" is on his album White Lies for Dark Times, which was released in May of 2009 and "I Will Not Be Broken' is a new tune that hasn't appeared on an album yet.
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