Classic Album Review: RINGO
The Post-Beatles "Beatles" Album
Here’s a new one for ya. Gonna start a new series where I talk about an old album that I’m reading a lot about and listening to a bunch. Probably gonna be a lot of Beatles material in these, so I’m sorry or you’re welcome.
These are going to be half review, half self-indulgent history lesson surrounding the album. I might do one a month or I might never do it again, but right now I’m just super into this Ringo album and I needed to write about it, so here we goooooo!
I’m kicking off this new series with a review of Ringo Starr’s 1973 album, RINGO. It’s the Beatles album that never was. John, Paul, and George—all three other ex-Beatles—wrote and played on this album. To varying degrees, it’s a success! It was a pretty big deal at the time, and I think it holds up alright, for the most part.
After the breakup of The Beatles, Ringo put out two albums. One, a standards cover album, Sentimental Journey, and a country inspired album called Beaucoups of Blues. Ringo didn’t really have to do a whole lot on these albums, other than show up, sing, and play some drums on the second album. During all this, Ringo was much more invested in acting. He put out a few singles after these two albums, but decided to not make an album following them up.
Ringo was off having fun in films—if you watched Get Back you’ll remember Ringo was set to be in a movie called The Magic Christian at the end of January 1969—and he was not spending so much time with music. On the two albums he put out, he didn’t have to write anything, so it wasn’t like he was overly busy in that department.
In 1972, Apple put out Ringo’s T.Rex movie called Born To Boogie. Ringo produced, directed, and acted/performed in it. There’s an interesting jam with T.Rex, Elton John on piano, and Ringo on the drums (check out 14:20 in the video below). It’s definitely not something you’re going to want to watch all the way through.
Side note: researching Ringo’s activities around this time led me down a hole of the movies he’s either produced or directed. He had a 1978 special on NBC called RINGO (not related to the album of the same name) that featured a fictional Ringo Starr and his doppelgänger Ognir Rrats…. I watched this entire thing so you don’t have to. Also Carrie Fisher is in it???
What I love the most about Ringo is that he was everyone’s friend. He basically called up all his friends and said look, I want to make a rock album, but I need a little help from my friends to get this done. Between the rest of The Beatles, The Band, Klaus Voormann, Billy Preston, Randy Newman, and other Apple artists, Ringo had his first All Starr Band lineup to make the album.
Here’s the original track list with the writers in parentheses
Side one
"I'm the Greatest" (John Lennon)
"Have You Seen My Baby" (Randy Newman)
"Photograph" (Ringo Starr, George Harrison)
"Sunshine Life for Me (Sail Away Raymond)" (George Harrison)
"You're Sixteen" (Bob Sherman, Dick Sherman)
Side two
"Oh My My" (Ringo Starr, Vini Poncia)
"Step Lightly" (Ringo Starr) – 3:15
"Six O'Clock" (Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney)
"Devil Woman" (Ringo Starr, Vini Poncia)
"You and Me (Babe)" (George Harrison, Mal Evans)
However, the version you see online includes “It Don’t Come Easy,” "Down and Out,” and “Early 1970” which were all previously released before the album came out and weren’t originally on the album in 1973.
After being rereleased on CD, the current iteration of the album has become canon. “Down and Out” being stuck in as track 4, and the other two songs being tacked onto the end of the album—even though “It Don’t Come Easy” is easily one of Ringo’s best original songs (with a little help from George Harrison, of course).
I’m going to focus mostly on the songs the other Beatles helped write, as they are the strongest contenders on the album. Ringo’s “Oh My My,” “Down and Out,” “Step Lightly,” and “Devil Woman” are all pretty sub par—to be polite.
“Early 1970,” the b-side to the single “It Don’t Come Easy,” serves as a time capsule of The Beatles post Abbey Road as Ringo sings about his former bandmates and whether or not he’ll be able to collaborate together with them again. He sings for Paul, John, and George respectively:
“And when he comes to town, I wonder if he'll play with me.”
“And when he comes to town, I know he's gonna play with me.
“'Cause he's always in town, playing for you with me.”
The final verse ending with, “When I go to town, I wanna see all three.” Unfortunately, all four members of The Beatles never got together in the same room again after 1969—which is crazy to think about. Several occasions put three of them together, but there is no documented occasion with all four Beatles together after their final photoshoot in August 1969.
Ringo played drums on Harrison’s All Things Must Pass as well as on Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and Imagine. The two would regularly include Ringo in their recording sessions for albums and singles alike. McCartney on the other hand, wasn’t as keen on collaborating with his former bandmates immediately following the breakup. If you’re interested in the strife between the four ex-Beatles, You Never Give Me Your Money is an incredible book outlining the Beatles’ relationships after the death of Brian Epstein all the way through 2010. It was really fascinating. Anyway…back to RINGO.
Let’s look at the ex-Beatles’ contributions to the album.
George Harrison
“It Don’t Come Easy”
“Photograph”
“You and Me (Babe)” - with Mal Evans of "Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” hammering fame on Get Back
“Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)”
George was generous in a way, to give Ringo the only writing credit on “It Don’t Come Easy.” Even though he was heavily involved in writing that one, he gave it to his dear friend (that he would later sue in the mid 70s) to give him a fighting chance as an artist. John and George tried to help Ringo, giving him several songs over the course of the 1970s to help keep his music career alive.
“It Don’t Come Easy” and “Photograph” are really the highlights of George’s contributions to the album. He must have known “Photograph” was a hit, because he kept the co-writing credit on that one! The other two songs are fine, but they’re definitely better than Ringo’s original contributions to the album.
Paul and Linda McCartney - “Six O’Clock”
It’s not hard to see this McCartney track appear as a bonus track for RAM, Wild Life, or Band on The Run. The melody is extremely McCartney-ish. It’s got the repeated refrain “I don’t treat you like I should” that goes perfect with Paul’s early Wings era music. There’s an extended version on Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna where you can hear Paul singing the chorus very clearly after the song ends and comes back. It really sounds just like Paul’s Ram era voice. To me, this is the best of the ex-Beatle contributions to the album. I only wish there was a version Paul recorded on his own!
John Lennon - “I’m The Greatest”
People freaked out a little bit when they found out John, George, and Ringo were in a recording session together in the early 1970s. Apparently the thought was that they were getting the Beatles back together without Paul, replacing him with Klaus Voormann (bassist and Revolver cover artist). This simply wasn’t true—they were just recording Lennon’s “I’m The Greatest” together, which is still very cool! If you listen to the song, you can hear Lennon singing with Ringo along with George’s guitar playing “I’m The Greatest” is such a John Lennon song. It feels like a leftover thought from Abbey Road in the style of “Mean Mr. Mustard.”
Unfortunately, Ringo’s peak of creative success ended here. Other than contributing to his former bandmates’ albums, he’d never really have anything all that interesting or worth listening to for the rest of his career. Goodnight Vienna, Ringo’s next album, has “The No-No Song,” so I’ll give him that, but that’s about it really.
In 1976, Ringo put out Ringo’s Rotogravure which also featured input from all three former Beatles, however none of the songs are nearly as good or interesting. Paul and John had musical input on that album, but George was too busy at the time to record anything, so he gave Ringo “I’ll Still Love You” to record. He wasn’t happy with it and sued Ringo over it. So much for George’s Sue Me Sue You Blues…
Anyway, I hope this was interesting to at least one person lol, see you next week with a regular This Song Rules!