Dead End Drive-In: Now Showing – Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band
Written by Rob Watkins
Sunday, 12 May 2013 03:30
‘Ringo At The Ryman’ – Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band (Universal Music)
The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville first opened its doors in 1892 and what better place outside of Liverpool, England to record and celebrate the birthday of one of the biggest names in music, Ringo Starr, and with an extra special line-up covering songs from over four decades of music.
This DVD opens with the Carl Perkins standard ‘Matchbox’, a tune which harps back to and featured Ringo on lead vocal during the ea
rly days of The Beatles, carrying on with Ringo’s own solo hit from the early Seventies, ‘I Don’t Come Easy’ and a number of other notable Starr compositions littered throughout the set like ‘Wings’, originally released in 1977 but later re-recorded and released on ‘Ringo 2012’, ‘Anthem’, another newie’, and ‘Photograph’, another Starr hit co-written with George Harrison back in 1973, but this is The All Starr Band so naturally this features some awesome talent taking the spotlight from Ringo.
Like Todd Rundgren, for instance, on his power pop classic recording ‘I Saw The Light’, and ‘Bang The Drum All Day’ with Ringo taking on drum duties for his fellow live bandmates. The spotlight continues to shine on the likes of Gregg Rolie (Journey, Santana) on ‘Evil Ways’, ‘Black Magic Woman’ and ‘Everybody’s Everything’, the musicianship something of pleasure too, especially someone such as Toto’s Steve Lukather, performing his hits ‘Rosanna’ and ‘Hold The Line’, or Richard Page plucking his four string on ‘Kyrie’ and ‘Broken Wings’ – this could possibly be AOR heaven, but let’s not forget Ringo Starr as he also crops up throughout, banging out the songs that made him famous during his golden heyday in The Beatles.
Think ‘Don’t Pass Me By’, ‘Boys’, a song previously performed by Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, unbelievably as well of course by his next band too, and whilst on the subject of his next band along comes ‘Yellow Submarine’ and a little Happy Birthday singalong with the crowd.
There’s also a special guest appearance from Joe Walsh knocking out and rocking out ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ and sprinkle in ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ and ‘Act Naturally’ before climaxing on ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, and a little help he gets as the stage is filled with numerous guests assisting on backing vocals to compliment The All Starr Band, including an outro of ‘Give Peace A Chance’ to leave the stage to.
All Starrs United.
