A new solo album by a former Beatle that – astonishingly – demands repeated plays

For artists lacking any obvious feel for the style, ‘going country’, similar to mainstream white artists dabbling in reggae in the 1970s following the breakthrough of Bob Marley, tends to elicit the sour whiff of a morning after the last chance saloon. Particularly at a time when a slick multi-hyphenate brand of country music is the pop trend du jour, carpetbagging and bandwagonism abounds.

The lyrics on Look Up are elementary to the point of banality, which is as it should be

Ringo Starr needn’t worry. Starr is the cowboy Beatle. He has loved this music from a young age, which is a long time. The Beatles wisely facilitated his enthusiasm. Starr sang a Buck Owens cover on Help! and contributed ‘What Goes On’ and the magnificent thunk of ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ to Rubber Soul and the White Album respectively. Almost as soon as he became an ex-Beatle, Starr made an entire country record; Beaucoups of Blues remains his most convincing solo album. As a singer – or, at least, a drummer who sings – if his hangdog drawl is suited to anything, it is the plain-spoken pathos of honky-tonk hymns.

As the current country-pop craze peaks, it is a smart and obvious move for Starr to realign himself with the genre. It also lends some much-needed context to a solo career which has often seemed offhand and frankly inessential.

To this end, Starr has enlisted T-Bone Burnett. Burnett, the best-connected man in Nashville, is a seasoned hand at these kind of projects on which a marquee name is assisted by a host of expert facilitators beavering away in the background. Here, Burnett writes or co-writes nine of the 11 tracks, plays, produces and wrangles a parade of guest artists – among them Alison Krauss, Larkin Poe, Lucius and Molly Tuttle – to chip in.