JOIN USRingo returns
Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey), the drummer of Beatles, was not particularly talented in songwriting as the duo Paul McCartney and John Lennon. However, he occasionally sang lead vocals, usually for one song on an album including “With a Little Help from My Friends”, “Yellow Submarine” and their cover of “Act Naturally”. He also wrote the Beatles’s songs “Don’t Pass Me By” and “Octopus’s Garden”, and is credited as a co-writer of others such as “What Goes On” and “Flying.” Four decades after disbanding of Beatles, Ringo is still active, musically. Postcards from Paradise is his 18th studio album. That makes it six more albums than the ones he did with Beatles.
The opening song, “Rory and the Hurricanes”, celebrates his pre-Beatles Mersey beat band — the one that made Ringo a star in Liverpool when the other three Fabs were nobodies. It is autobiographical. “You bring the party down” is a happy-go-lucky pop song with Steve Lukather adding a blazing guitar riff to it. “Bridges” is a pop track featuring Joe Walsh of the Eagles. “Right side of the road” featuring Richard Marx has a reggae feel to it. “Not looking back”, again featuring Marx, has rather inane lyrics (I’m looking forward/ Not looking back). “Bamboula” is a funky track and “Confirmation” has a low-key soul groove. So much for variety.
There is no hip-hop artiste or flavour-of-the-month pop star on the album. All the 11 songs of the album have been written by him with a little help from his co-writers. One song in particular, the reggae-flavoured “Island in the Sun”, was co-written by every member of Ringo’s current All-Starr Band. Ringo may not be as famous as Paul McCartney, but he does make enjoyable music.