''Ringo Rama'' is the 13th studio album by
Ringo Starr, released in 2003.
Background and recording
As the follow-up to ''
I Wanna Be Santa Claus
''I Wanna Be Santa Claus'' is the 12th studio album by Ringo Starr. A Christmas album, it was issued in 1999.
Background and recording
Ringo Starr and musical partner Mark Hudson composed "Dear Santa" and "Christmas Eve" in July 1998 at Starr' ...
'' (1999), it continues Starr's alliance with
Mark Hudson as well as most of his collaborators from that last project. Annoyed that
Mercury had not put enough promotion towards ''I Wanna Be Santa Claus'',
Starr left the label in 2000.
[ Contributors this time around include ]Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album '' Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of '' Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (1 ...
, Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...
, Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American musician, songwriter, arranger, and record producer who has composed various film and television soundtracks. He is best known for his 1967 album ''Song Cycle'' and for his collaborations with ...
, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin (born Shawna Lee Colvin, January 10, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. While Colvin has been a solo recording artist for decades, she is best known for her 1998 Grammy Award-winning song " Sunny Came Home".
Early ...
, Timothy B. Schmit, and Eric Clapton.[ Starr said "People would ask, "So who's on the record?" and we'd say, "Just a couple of local guys. You know, like Eric Clapton and Dave Gilmour." Because they do both live just around the corner."] Recording had taken place at Starr's recording studio in London, Rocca Bella, and Hudson's Whatinthewhatthe? Studios in Los Angeles, with the sessions being produced by Starr, Hudson and Gary Nicholson.[
]
Music and lyrics
Starr commented that the opening track, "Eye to Eye", sounded "like there's a war going on and we're trying to make it a war of love." "Missouri Loves Company", a play on words of misery loves company, was written quickly after Dean Grakal thought of the title phrase. The song features Gilmour on guitar.[ "Instant Amnesia" features, as Starr mentions, "some of the best drumming I've ever played in the last ten, fifteen years."] "Memphis in Your Mind" references several Sun Studio
Sun Studio is a recording studio opened by rock-and-roll pioneer Sam Phillips at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 3, 1950. It was originally called Memphis Recording Service, sharing the same building with the Sun Records label ...
artists, such as Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
and Orbison. With George Harrison's late 2001 passing before ''Ringorama'' was started, Starr composed " Never Without You" in tribute to his friend, having Clapton perform the guitar solo duties. The song originally started out as a tribute to John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
and Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), sometimes credited as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who reached the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal ov ...
, but Starr thought the song was getting "too messy".[ After choosing to focus solely on Harrison, lines from Harrison's songs—"]Within You Without You
"Within You Without You" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. Written by lead guitarist George Harrison, it was his second composition in the Indian classical style, aft ...
", "Here Comes the Sun
"Here Comes the Sun" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1969 album ''Abbey Road''. It was written by George Harrison and is one of his best-known compositions. Harrison wrote the song in early 1969 at the country house o ...
" and "All Things Must Pass
''All Things Must Pass'' is the third studio album by English rock musician George Harrison. Released as a triple album in November 1970, it was Harrison's first solo work after the break-up of the Beatles in April that year. It includes the h ...
"—were included.[ Starr asked Clapton based on his stature as a friend to both Starr and Harrison: "We're all good friends. So I asked Eric to play and he said 'yeah'."][
Starr wanted to include a Roy Orbison "growl" on the song "Memphis in Your Mind", and proceeded to call Orbison's widow, Barbara Orbison; she sent him a "growl" on a CD, with a message "I'm sending over a growl".] The song also features Gilmour on guitar.[ The title for "Trippin' on My Own Tears" came about during a night out between Starr and Hudson when Hudson said "I was trippin' on my own tears, I was so down" and Starr replied "That's just a great line".] The country-influenced "Write One for Me" was a duet with Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album '' Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of '' Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (1 ...
,[ who sang on it at Starr's suggestion.] Starr had a phone call with his lawyer, who was also Hudson's lawyer, to "tell them to write one for me, so they did—but they wrote a song with that as the title!"[ At that point the song was unfinished, but was later finished when they got together.][ Asked if "Love First, Ask Questions Later" was like another part of ]the Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
' "All You Need Is Love
"All You Need Is Love" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a non-album single in July 1967. It was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The song was Britain's contribution t ...
", Starr responded that the song is how he feels "the world should be and my hope that we all might stay in love."
"Elizabeth Reigns" came about while Starr and Dean Grakal were recording at Rocca Bella Studio, some time before Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. Asking Starr what ER stood for, Grakal proceeded to start on a song, with Starr exclaiming "I'm not going to sing about the Queen."[ "English Garden", which mentions Starr's wife ]Barbara Bach
Barbara Bach, Lady Starkey (born Barbara Goldbach in 1947) is an American actress and model. She played the Bond girl Anya Amasova in ''The Spy Who Loved Me''. She is married to former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.
Early life
Bach is a nati ...
and their dog Buster, includes in the final part some verses taken from Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
's "Let 'Em In
"Let 'Em In" is a song by Wings from their 1976 album ''Wings at the Speed of Sound''. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney and reached the top 3 in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. It was a No. 2 hit in the UK; in the ...
". Starr explained: "That always happens when you're sittin' in the garden, doesn't it? So I just put he linesin and called Paul for permission. He said, 'Sure.' He knew about it ahead of time." After looking at several albums where one artist would record all the instruments for a particular song, Starr wanted to do one such track, and the result was "I Really Love Her".
Release
On 20 May 2002, Starr signed a recording contract with Koch. Released by Koch on 25 March 2003, ''Ringorama'' managed a number 113 peak in the US on the ''Billboard'' 200, his first album in the 21st century to do so. The album also charted at number 1 on the Top Independent Albums
The Independent Albums chart (previously titled Top Independent Albums) ranks the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays (EPs) in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by ''Billboard'' magaz ...
chart in the US. The first 100,000 copies included a DVD of the recording sessions.[ To help promote the album and the "Never Without You" single, Starr appeared on '']The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that first aired from May 25, 1992, to May 29, 2009. It resumed production on March 1, 2010 and ended on February 6, 2014.
The fourth incarnation of the ...
'' in the US on 13 March. During a show arranged for the press on 22 March, Starr and The Roundheads performed "Memphis in Your Mind" and "Never Without You", at the Bottom Line Club in New York City.[ Starr again performed "Never Without You" for '' The Conan O'Brien Show'' on 25 March; later that day for MTV's '']Total Request Live
''Total Request Live'' (known commonly as ''TRL'') was an American television program broadcast on MTV that premiered on September 14, 1998. TRL featured popular music videos played during its countdown, and was also used as a promotion tool by ...
''; and for '' Good Morning America'' on 9 April.[ On 21 October it was announced that a 3-disc version of the album would be released on 11 November, and included three bonus tracks, an interview disc and a DVD containing a "Making Of" documentary and the music video for "Never Without You".] The bonus tracks were "OK Ray", "I'm Home" and "Blink",[ all of which were recorded for a movie.]
Reception
AOL Radio
AOL Radio powered by Slacker (formerly AOL Radio powered by CBS Radio, and prior AOL Radio featuring XM) was an online radio service available in the United States only. It had over 200 free internet radio stations.
History
Roots
AOL Radio ...
rated "Never Without You" at number 5 on their top 10 Starr songs list.
Track listing
The 16 tracks of ''Ringorama Deluxe Edition'' are as follows:
Personnel
Personnel per booklet.
;Musicians
* Ringo Starr – drums, percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
, lead vocal, keyboards, electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...
, acoustic guitar, slide guitar, bass, background vocal, megamouth
*Steve Dudas – electric guitar, guitar solos
A guitar solo is a melodic passage, instrumental section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. In 20th and 21st century traditional music and popular mus ...
on "Eye to Eye", "Instant Amnesia"
* Mark Hudson – electric and acoustic guitar, bass, keyboards, mellotron, Wurlitzer organ
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...
, backing vocals,
* Eric Clapton – guitar solos on "Never Without You" and "Imagine Me There"
* David Gilmour – guitar solos on "Missouri Loves Company" and "I Think Therefore I Rock and Roll"
*Cliff Downs – acoustic guitar
*Gary Nicholson – twelve string acoustic guitar
*Dean Grakal – acoustic guitar
*Grant Geissman
Grant Geissman (born April 13, 1953) is an American jazz guitarist and Emmy-nominated composer. He has recorded extensively for several labels since 1976 and played guitar on the theme for ''Monk'' and other TV series.
Career
Geissman was born i ...
– dobro
*Herb Pederson
Herbert Joseph Pedersen (born April 27, 1944 in Berkeley, California) is an American musician, guitarist, banjo player, and singer-songwriter who has played a variety of musical styles over the past fifty years including country, bluegrass, p ...
– banjo
*Jay Dee Maness – pedal steel
The pedal steel guitar is a console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all steel guitars, it can ...
*Gary Burr
Gary Burr, born in Meriden, Connecticut, is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, primarily in the country music genre. Many of the songs he has written have become Top-10 hits, the first of which was " Love's Been A Little B ...
– bass, acoustic and electric guitar, guitar solo on "What Love Wants to Be", backing vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...
,
*Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...
– upright bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar ...
* Paul Santo– bass on "Elizabeth Reigns", electric and acoustic guitar, backing vocals, keyboards
*Jim Cox – Wurlitzer organ, B3 organ, piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
*Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American musician, songwriter, arranger, and record producer who has composed various film and television soundtracks. He is best known for his 1967 album ''Song Cycle'' and for his collaborations with ...
– accordion on "What Love Wants to Be", "Elizabeth Reigns" and "English Garden"
*Dan Higgins – Saxophone
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...
, flute, clarinet
*Gary S. Grant – trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
, piccolo trumpet
*Mickey Raphael
Michael Siegfried "Mickey" Raphael (born November 7, 1951) is an American harmonica player, music producer and actor best known for his work with Willie Nelson, with whom he has toured as part of The Family since 1973.
He has performed or rec ...
– harmonica, bass harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...
* Roy Orbison – mercy growl
* Barbara Starkey, Buster, Monly, Mr. B, sleeping birdies – background vocals on "English Garden"
* Sarah Hudson, Nicole Renee Harris, Christina Rumbley, Jack Blades
Jack Martin Blades (born April 24, 1954) is an American rock musician. He has worked in the bands Rubicon, Night Ranger (as bassist and one of the lead vocalists), and Damn Yankees (as one of the founding members). He has also recorded with ...
, Sophia Sunseri – backing vocals on "Eye to Eye"
*Sarah Hudson, Christina Rumbley, Nicole Renee Harris, Victoria Shaw, Adam Ray, Mark O'Shea, John O'Shea, Jack Blades – backing vocals on "I Think Therefore I Rock and Roll"
* Timothy B. Schmit – backing vocals on "Missouri Loves Company", "Instant Amnesia", "Memphis in Your Mind", and "Write One for Me"
*Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin (born Shawna Lee Colvin, January 10, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. While Colvin has been a solo recording artist for decades, she is best known for her 1998 Grammy Award-winning song " Sunny Came Home".
Early ...
– guest vocal on "Trippin' on My Own Tears"
*Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album '' Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of '' Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (1 ...
– guest vocal on "Write One for Me"
;Production
*Mark Hudson, Ringo Starr – producers
Producer or producers may refer to:
Occupations
*Producer (agriculture), a farm operator
*A stakeholder of economic production
*Film producer, supervises the making of films
**Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...
* Paul Santo, Bruce Sugar – recording
*Tim LeBlanc, Steve Dudas – additional recording
*Dave Way
Dave Way is an American producer, mixer and audio engineer based in Los Angeles, California, United States. He has worked with Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow, Kesha, Pink, Christina Aguilera, Macy Gray, Ringo Starr, Shakira, Phoebe Bridgers, John Doe, Sa ...
– mixing
*Tim LeBlanc, Damon Iddins, Matt Marrin – assistant engineers
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the ...
*Josh Rosenberg, Amy Galland – production coordinators
*George Marino – mastering
*Jim Cox – string and horn
Horn most often refers to:
*Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound
** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments
*Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...
arrangements
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...
*Tyrone Drake – art direction and design
*Ringo Starr, Barbara Starkey, Mark Hudson, Dean Grakal – photos
*Mark Hudson – cover illustration
*Brent Carpenter
Brent Carpenter is an American television director, editor, cinematographer and producer.
Career
As an editor he worked on the television series ''Empty Nest'', '' The Ben Stiller Show'', ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'', '' Sessions'' and working ...
, John Franck – DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, o ...
and design
Chart positions
References
; Footnotes
; Citations
External links
*
{{Authority control
2003 albums
Ringo Starr albums
Albums produced by Mark Hudson (musician)
Albums produced by Ringo Starr