On the heels of his new country album Look Up, the former Beatles drummer will play the Nashville institution in February
Nashville is reaching peak Ringo. On the heels of his new country album, Look Up, Ringo Starr will make his Grand Ole Opry debut next month. The former Beatles drummer was invited to perform on the long-running country-music radio show by Emmylou Harris, herself an Opry member.
Harris popped the question to Starr onstage at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, the onetime home of the Opry, during the first of Starr’s two-night stand at the hallowed theater. “I’d love to,” Starr replied. “It’s an honor and a pleasure. Thank you.” Starr’s Opry appearance is slated for Feb. 21, part of the Opry’s 100th anniversary celebration.
Harris is one of many guests performing with Starr at the Ryman for the recording of a CBS special to air on a later date. Jack White, Rodney Crowell, Sheryl Crow, Mickey Guyton, Jamey Johnson, and the War and Treaty are among the other artists collaborating with Starr or singing their own versions of his songs. Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, and Larkin Poe, who all perform on Look Up, are on the bill too. (The second concert is set for Wednesday night.)
Look Up features all new songs, many of them written by T Bone Burnett, who produced the project. “The name ‘Ringo Starr’ sounds like the sheriff of Tombstone, Arizona. It’s very much a cowboy name, and my first thought was I would write a cowboy ballad,” Burnett told Rolling Stone recently. “I tried to write a Gene Autry kind of cowboy song. It just started rolling from there.”
“I like old country, old style,” Starr told RS of the album, “and that’s what we’ve got.”
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