The Beatles of course rule the world of music, always have and as far as influence and record sales go they are unlikely to ever be surpassed. I spoke to Jon Stevens the other day, and artist well-known in Australia as part of the band Noiseworks and as a solo artist – he’d just made an album with Dave Stewart (or Eurythmics fame) and Ringo had been over to Dave’s whilst Jon was there and agreed to play drums on a track, you could hear in Jon’s voice not just how humbled he was that Ringo had agreed to play on his album, but the sheer respect he had for the man as a musician.
Over the years you could of course argue that Ringo’s output has been variable but to me that’s largely the point – he was The Beatle that was happiest to try new things, and sure some worked wonderfully, whilst others were maybe best left forgotten. The point is that he kept keeping on, kept releasing new projects from his 70’s noodlings with Marc Bolan tohis albums (7 in the 70’s alone) and forays into film – notably his first starring role as Larry the Dwarf in Frank Zappa’s ‘200 Motels’ and later the less convincing ‘Caveman’.
Musically though, Ringo started off soundly despite his relative lack of writing he always managed to get the best out his assembled casts. Live he continually hit the road with ‘All Star’ projects.
This his 19th album actually sees him in relatively fine form. ‘Give Me More Love’ may have its moments that make you look away like his ode to Bob Marley, or his auto-tuned miss-step ‘Electricity’ but really its a solid enough release with the usual few gems. Its the enthusiasm Ringo stil retains though and his dogged determination that are the heart of the albums charm, taking in topics from life on the road (‘We’re on the Road Again’) to lilting love songs and proto Rock and Roll.
Where ‘Give Me More Love’ wins you over are tracks like the rockabilly of ‘Shake it Up’; the blue sky light rock of ‘Speed of Sound’; and the country styled ‘So Wrong For So Long’. It’s perhaps tracks like ‘Give More Love’ and ‘Show Me the Way’ though that even edge those.
Along the way there are some great guests from fellow ex-Beatle Paul McCartney to Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, Edgar Winter, and maybe most surprisingly Richard Marx,all of whom have of course played live with Ringo in the past.
As an added bonus the CD and digital release also add version of some of his best known songs – the most interesting of which perhaps is a version of ‘Back off Boogaloo’ that recently surfaced in demo form from way back in 1971 and has been rerecorded here. The best of them though may well be the rocking ‘You Can’t Fight Lightning’ which he wrote with Harry Nilsson from the 1981 release ‘Stop and Smell the Roses’.
47 years after his first solo release Ringo is still going strong.