Ringo Starr Brings Out More Stars for Epic Nashville Shows: ‘The Coolest Man’

Ringo Starr brought his lifelong country vibe to – where else – Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for two sold-out shows this week, but even more, both nights were simply a celebration of the 84-year-old rock legend and his joy-making career as the Beatles drummer and beyond.

As Emmylou Harris said near the end of the second evening: “Is he not the coolest man on the planet?”

Harris was among the battalion of Nashville’s best and brightest who were irresistibly attracted to that coolness, filling out the bill for “Ringo & Friends at the Ryman.” Filmed Tuesday and Wednesday night at the historic venue, it will be edited for a two-hour special this spring on CBS and Paramount+.

True to Starr’s career longevity and diversity, the “friends” who shared the stage for the 19-song setlist represented every genre and generation of the past seven decades, from Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Brenda Lee (whose career predates the Beatles) to contemporary bluegrass virtuoso Molly Tuttle. In between were appearances by Sheryl Crow, Rodney Crowell, Jack White, Mickey Guyton, The War and Treaty, Jamey Johnson, sister duo Larkin Poe, Billy Strings and Sarah Jarosz.

Backing them up was a band assembled by Grammy-winning producer-musician T Bone Burnett, and it included such A-listers as producer-guitarist Daniel Tashian and steel guitarist Paul Franklin, as well as Jim Keltner, whom Starr called his “favorite drummer” during a Wednesday afternoon news conference at the Ryman.

Burnett served as the show’s emcee, and he’s also the one who can be credited with Starr’s latest deep dive into country, Look Up. The 11-track album, released earlier this month, is the artist’s first in five years.

During the news conference, Starr told how the album was born in late 2022 when he ran into Burnett at an LA event and asked him to contribute a song to a pop-rock project he was working on at the time.

“And he sent me the most beautiful country track I’ve heard in many years — sort of ’50s country,” Starr recalled.

In a matter of weeks, Burnett wrote or co-wrote eight more country songs. “Once I started,” he said during the joint news conference, “I couldn’t stop.”

 After Starr heard those, he shelved the pop-rock project. “I said, ‘Let’s make an album,’” Starr recalled. “That’s how it all happened. There was no real plan. It was just bumping into each other, and it ended up here.”

At the news conference, Starr also chronicled his lifelong love affair with country, starting with the foundational music of Hank Williams. He cited Kitty Wells and Hank Snow as early influences, even riffing a few bars of Snow’s classic “I’m Moving On.”

“It’s emotional music,” Starr said about the genre, “and I’m quite an emotional person myself.”

Country sounds regularly crept into Beatles music, often with Starr taking lead vocals on songs such as “Act Naturally” (a Buck Owens cover on 1965’s Help!) and “Don’t Pass Me By,” which he wrote for an appearance on 1968’s White Album. After the group broke up in 1970, one of Starr’s first solo ventures was a country album, Beaucoups of Blues, which he recorded that same year in three whirlwind days in Nashville. The city has since provided more vivid memories for the artist with Ryman appearances during his 2012 and 2016 tours.

“For me, it’s a blessing that I can play here,” Starr said of the hallowed hall. “I just feel an extra little beat in my heart every time I play here. So far-out.”

Onstage Wednesday night, he also seemed to have an extra spring in his step, singing and swaying his way through new music and old, often topping off his performances with two fingers on each hand jauntily raised in his trademark peace sign.

Starr and Jack White kicked off the evening with an old-school rocker, “Matchbox,” a Carl Perkins classic that was an early Beatles cover with Starr on lead vocals. Starr quickly long-jumped on his timeline to his first solo pop hit, “It Don’t Come Easy,” joined by Crow, Guyton and Tuttle. He then spanned even more decades, delivering “Time on My Hands” from the new album — the only time during the show that he took center stage solo.

Indeed, Starr is a committed collaborator: In an interview earlier this month, he avowed, “I only want to be in a band.” Still, even when he walked off the Ryman stage — which he did for nine of the 19 performances — he effortlessly claimed the spotlight when artist after artist interpreted choice selections from his massive catalog.

Standouts included The War and Treaty’s soulful “Without Her” (one of four songs that singer-songwriter Sorrells Pickard contributed to Beaucoups of Blues); Mickey Guyton’s torchy “You Don’t Know Me at All” (from Starr’s 1976 album, Rotogravure), and Larkin Poe’s gender-bending “I Wanna Be Your Man” (which Starr sang on the 1964 album, With the Beatles).

Starr did his own gender-bending with “Boys,” a 1960 hit for the American girl group, the Shirelles, that the Beatles covered on their debut album. That time around, Starr sang lead with Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison providing the bop-shoo-wops. For the Ryman show, that bit of merrymaking fell to Crow, Larkin Poe and Tuttle as Starr sang and drummed.

“Look Up,” Ringo Starr

On Tuesday evening, Emmylou Harris capped the show by delivering a surprise invitation for Starr to make his Grand Ole Opry debut — just one more honor to add to his storied career. He’s now set to appear in the Opry’s circle on Feb. 21 as part of its ongoing 100th anniversary celebration.

At the show’s end, Harris and Starr were joined by the entire cast onstage for “Yellow Submarine,” among the most iconic Starr-sung Beatles hits. (The appearance of Brenda Lee for the song seemed to especially delight Starr; the Fab Four actually opened for the pop and country icon in the early 1960s when she toured the UK.)

The evening’s finale performance was the perfect fit: “With a Little Help from My Friends,” which Starr sang on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. For the Ryman shows, no doubt Starr got more than a little help, not only from all his musical friends onstage, but also from the 2,300 fans on their feet who lustily belted out the familiar chorus.

Show producers have announced the song performance will keep on helping: Proceeds from its release will go to support the American Red Cross and those affected by the California wildfires.

Starr and his All Starr Band have announced a 10-date tour, which begins June 10 in Bridgeport, Conn.