Ringo Starr - Long Long Road (2026) [CD-Rip]

Review by Mark Deming

Ringo Starr was a talented working musician before he became perhaps the most famous drummer in the world when the Beatles broke big in the early '60s. At the age of 85, Starr still records and tours regularly because that's what a working musician does, and there's something charming about the modesty of his late-period career -- he's not aiming for hits or creating event albums, and instead he's content to make music that feels good to him, and he hopes his fans will feel the same. Starr made one of his best and most satisfying albums in two decades with 2025's Look Up, where he teamed with producer and songwriter T-Bone Burnett and cut a set of rootsy tunes with a country accent and Burnett's philosophical bent present in the lyrics. By all accounts, Ringo and T-Bone had a splendid time working together, and about 18 months later they issued a follow-up, 2026's Long Long Road. This album is largely cut from the same cloth as Look Up, though it has more of a mature pop sound rather than its precursor; while there are still clear country influences here, "Choose Love" is an unabashed Beatles homage with lyrical and musical quotes from the Fab Four's songbook (along with guest vocals from St. Vincent), "She's Gone" is a song of loss with a bluesy undertow, and "You and I (Wave of Love)" is a mature pop number whose clean lines don't blur its emotional center. Burnett assembled much of the same studio crew he used on Look Up for these sessions, including David Mansfield, Daniel Tashian, Dennis Crouch, and Patrick Warren, as well as guest stars Billy Strings, Sarah Jarosz, and Molly Tuttle, and the accompanists are warmly precise without being flashy, as the easy, committed flow of the music meshes well with Starr's vocals, which similarly wear their messages on their sleeve without overstating the case. It's rare for a singer to be doing some of the best work of their career as an octogenarian, and yet Starr delivers these songs with a soulful force that connects beautifully despite his narrowing range. Long Long Road suffers a bit in comparison with Look Up, primarily in terms of the quality of the material, with Burnett and Starr (along with the latter's co-writer, Bruce Sugar) contributing a few B+ compositions instead of the consistent A- tracks on the earlier album. That said, you'd have to go back to the 1970s to find a Ringo Starr solo album that was as well-crafted with his particular skills in mind as Look Up, and Long Long Road shows Burnett and Starr continue to work together beautifully.