Ringo Starr dedicates country album to The Beatles mate George Harrison

Sir Ringo Starr just dedicated his latest album, Look Up, to one of his late The Beatles band mates.

The drummer, who worked with T Bone Burnett on the LP to co-write and produce the 11 tracks, has late George Harrison to thank.

Starr and Burnett decided that they wanted to make music together when they met up at the 2022 launch party of Olivia Harrison's book titled, Came the Lightening - Twenty Poems for George, at the Sunset Marquis hotel in Los Angeles.

Recalling his attendance at the event to support Harrison’s widow and her work, the Hey Jude hitmaker said: "We bonded as friends in the ‘70s because I was a resident in LA for a while and I had a lot of parties and any party I had he was there. I did not invite him once! He would be there and he’d come with one of the band. So he would be there and I got to know him a little bit.”

"How this record came about was because Olivia was reading poems for George at the Sunset Marquis hotel and I was there and T Bone was there and a lot of other people were there. ‘How are you doing? What’s going on?’ I’m doing this. If you’ve got a song that you think would be good for me send it down.’ That’s how it started,” he added.

"He was the inspiration. He sent me this song and it was the most beautiful country track I’d heard in many years. It was sort of ‘50s country and so I thought, ‘I’ll just make a country EP now,’" Ringo Starr concluded.