Ringo Starr has been a fan of country music since he was a kid. He added some country flavor to The Beatles’ output, like on “Act Naturally,” from Help!, and in 1970, he released his country record, Beaucoups of Blues.
Now, Starr has a brand new album of country songs, produced by T Bone Burnett. The album features guest appearances from artists like Billy Strings, Lucius and Alison Krauss, and it also gave him his first No. 1 in 50 years when it went to the top of the U.K. country charts.
In this session, Starr talks about making Look Up, and he explains why a great country song should always be emotional.
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.