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''Y Not'' is the 16th studio album by
Ringo Starr Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the ...
, released on 12 January 2010 on the UMe and Hip-O Records labels.


Music, lyrics and recording

"Peace Dream" features former Beatle
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 ...
on bass; another Beatle,
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 ...
is referenced in the song. "The Other Side of Liverpool" is about Starr's pre-Beatles days in Liverpool. " Walk with You" features shared vocals with McCartney. Starr duets with Joss Stone on closing track "Who's Your Daddy". In addition to McCartney, the album includes collaborations with
Joe Walsh Joseph Fidler Walsh (born November 20, 1947) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In a career spanning over five decades, he has been a member of three successful rock bands: the James Gang, Eagles, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr ...
,
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 ...
,
Ben Harper Benjamin Chase Harper (born October 28, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live perfo ...
and
Richard Marx Richard Noel Marx (born September 16, 1963) is an American adult contemporary music, adult contemporary and pop rock singer-songwriter. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Marx's Richard Marx (album), self-titled debut album went tri ...
. It was the first album of his career which Starr primarily produced (he had previously co-produced several albums).


Release

The first single from the album, "Walk with You", released 22 December 2009. In the US, the release of the album perpetuated the fact that The Beatles, either as a group, or as solo artists, have released or charted at least one song or album every calendar year since 1964.


Reception

The album debuted at number 58 on the ''Billboard'' Top 200 chart, with 7,965 copies sold in the US during the first week of release. The album also charted on the
Top Internet Albums The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the '' ...
chart in the US. As of February 2010, the album has sold over 30,000 copies worldwide. Reviews for ''Y Not'' were mostly mixed. Review aggregator
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a score out of 100 based on critic ratings, rated the album 60 out of 100, based on 11 reviews.
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
's
Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...
writes of the album: "that friendly, shambling sound is Ringo, something ''Y Not'' proves without a shadow of a doubt by sounding virtually interchangeable with its immediate predecessors ..Starr is all about cheerful reminders of happy times filled with Peace Dreams and memories of "The Other Side of Liverpool."" Erlewine concludes that "like there was on ''Liverpool 8'', there is charm to Starr’s tried and true: exciting it is not but it’s as comforting as an old friend who doesn’t change, he just stays the same." Jesse Cataldo of ''
Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...
'' rates the album two out of five stars. He writes that "it's nice to imagine that Ringo Starr's post-Beatles inability to produce much of consequence stems from his band-established character ..this failure, as especially evidenced on ''Y Not'', seems more predicated on some dearth of actual songwriting talent than the near-novelty quality of his persona." Although he contradicted that "to like it might even feel like charity, and would be excusable if the album's only fault was being mired in silliness", Cataldo added: "Flush with broad sentiment and a messy spread of good feelings, ''Y Not'' finds the funniest Beatle on the outside of the joke." In a review for the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', Randy Lewis opines that "the importance in life of sustained effort along a particular direction" is "a thought that's inescapable listening to the latest release from former Beatle Ringo Starr." He also states that "he spends a bit of time here simply banging away happily ..But the heart of the 10-song collection comes from his continued exploration of how to hold on to noble ideals in the face of ever-rising cynicism and violence." Lewis concludes that "he holds securely to an upbeat perspective that borders on cliché ..that's somehow reassuring coming from the guy who's spent most of his life in an intimate relationship with time."


Track listing


Personnel

*
Ringo Starr Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the ...
– lead vocals, drums, keyboards, piano, acoustic guitar, backing vocals, percussion * Steve Dudas – guitar *
Benmont Tench Benjamin Montmorency "Benmont" Tench III (born September 7, 1953) is an American musician and singer, and a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Early years Tench was born in Gainesville, Florida, the second child of Benjamin ...
–
Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...
, piano *
Michael Bradford Michael Bradford (born 1961) is an American musician. A native of Detroit, Michigan he is known mainly as a bass guitarist but also plays guitar and keyboards, and has done extensive work in music production and engineering. Among others, Brad ...
– bass guitar * Bruce Sugar – engineer, co-producer, keyboards * Keith Allison – guitar, backing vocals


Guest musicians

*
Don Was Don Edward Fagenson (born September 13, 1952), known professionally as Don Was, is an American musician, record producer and record executive. Primarily a bass player, Was co-founded the funk-rock band Was (Not Was). In later years he produced s ...
– bass guitar (#10),
upright bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
(#8) *
Joe Walsh Joseph Fidler Walsh (born November 20, 1947) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In a career spanning over five decades, he has been a member of three successful rock bands: the James Gang, Eagles, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr ...
– guitar (#1-2, #6), bass guitar, backing vocals (#1) *
David A. Stewart David Allan Stewart (born 9 September 1952) is an English musician, songwriter and record producer, best known for Eurythmics, his successful professional partnership with Annie Lennox. Sometimes credited as David A. Stewart, he won Best British ...
– guitar (#3, #5) *
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 ...
– bass guitar (#2),
additional 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 used ...
(#4) *
Billy Squier William Haislip Squier (, born May 12, 1950) is an American rock musician and singer who had a string of arena rock and crossover hits in the early 1980s. His best-known songs include "The Stroke", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "In t ...
– guitar (#3, #8) *
Edgar Winter Edgar Holland Winter (born December 28, 1946) is an American musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist, playing keyboards, guitar, saxophone, and percussion, as well as singing. His success peaked in the 1970s with his band the Edgar Winter Group ...
–
horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
(#8), tenor and alto sax (#10), Backing vocals (#2, #6) * Joss Stone – lead vocals (#10) *
Ben Harper Benjamin Chase Harper (born October 28, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live perfo ...
– backing vocals (#2) *
Richard Marx Richard Noel Marx (born September 16, 1963) is an American adult contemporary music, adult contemporary and pop rock singer-songwriter. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Marx's Richard Marx (album), self-titled debut album went tri ...
– backing vocals (#7) *
Ann Marie Calhoun Ann Marie Calhoun ( Simpson; born May 26, 1979) is an American classically trained violinist who has performed as a bluegrass and rock musician in a number of prominent acts, including Jethro Tull, Steve Vai, Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Ba ...
– violin (#3-#5) * Tina Sugandh –
tabla A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబలఠ...
and
chant A chant (from French ', from Latin ', "to sing") is the iterative speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two main pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes ...
ing (#2, #9) * Cindy Gomez – backing vocals (#3, #5)


Charts


References


External links

* {{Authority control 2010 albums Ringo Starr albums Hip-O Records albums Albums produced by Ringo Starr