You’d think Ringo Starr has done everything and achieved all he could possibly want in his incredible life. Not so, it seems. The drummer really wants one more Grammy for the supposedly ‘last’ Beatles track, Now And Then.
In an interview with Music Week, Ringo admitted: “I’d love to win a Grammy. That’s the business I’m in – and the track is good. The last track ever by the boys. We tried it in the ’90s when we got Free As A Bird out, but we didn’t take much interest because it didn’t sound like John, and George got a bit fed up.
"He didn’t want to do a third one and so we just put it to bed, but now they’ve got better equipment. They lifted John’s voice off a cassette, for God’s sake – off a cassette! And it was like John was suddenly in town.”
The genesis of the track is now well known: “He (Paul) said, ‘You know that track we did? Well, I’ll put it together. Are you going to play drums on it?’ I said, ‘Sure, send the files over.’ That’s how we do it now – and I put the drums on and sang on the chorus.”
"He did a great job. He put the strings on and the lead guitar that gave the track its emotion, I feel. So anyway, it worked out really great and let’s hope for a Grammy. We’ll see; a lot of people are up for Grammys.”
Now And Then drew much praise when it was released in November 2023. Lennon sounded more alive, unlike the ghostly presence he was on the 1995 ‘new’ Beatles track Free As A Bird. And it provided the band with an eighteenth UK Number One, their first since The Ballad Of John And Yoko in 1969.
Elsewhere in the interview, Ringo spoke about AI: “We’re all a bit afraid of it, because it can steal you. If they just play any five of my songs into the computer, AI gets all of it and knows my every vocal move. They can have me sing anything and it will sound like me, because it’s taken from my personality. But the good side is the way we used it on Now And Then. God knows where it’s going to go. We’re all worrying about it, but nobody’s really stolen anything yet.”
Ringo is gearing up for the release of a new album early next year. Look Up is his first new record since the pandemic and his first in the country vein since Beaucoups Of Blues in 1970. The album came about after the 84 year old met T Bone Burnett at an event held by Olivia Harrison in LA in 2022. The pair got chatting, Ringo asked Burnett to write him a song and the producer not only came up with nine, but also agreed to produce the new album.
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