Nashville Starr

No, there’s no “Photograph,” “It Don’t Come Easy” or “You’re Sixteen”—some of Ringo’s later pop hits—on this album. This is pure honky-tonk, that flavor firmly established in the title track on which fiddle, steel, piano and trademark Jordanaires harmonies back Starr on a lament that some may interpret as being directed, at least in part, at his former mates: “Oh where are the things I saw in my dreams / Where’s the happy that freedom should bring / I see me today and know yesterday / That I threw away my most precious things.”

From then on, there are full-scale Nashville tales of a deadly love triangle, love bought, love lost, love and whiskey found and a somber rumination on war, as appropriate now as it was in the Vietnam era. The looseness and fun of the recording sessions carries over throughout: “When you’re hot, you’re hot,” Starr chirps after a sizzling Jerry Reed guitar solo trailing out “$15 Draw.” The Beatles’ drummer is clearly a guy at home in his element among musicians.

And there’s joy in Starr’s voice now when he talks about those Nashville days and nights. Perhaps his spirit is buoyed further because he’s calling from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, where his 10th All-Starr Band—an evolving troupe of oldies specialists—is beginning the tour that brings them to Nashville’s Wildhorse Saloon July 6.

“It’s so beautiful, it’s so wonderful,” says Starr, reflecting on the Falls. Curiously, he admits, while the Fabs conquered the world, they never made it to the great natural wonder. “I love it,” he says. “It’s really uplifting. You get up in the morning and look out the window and wow! There it is.”

This year’s All-Starr Band includes Colin Hay (Men at Work), Billy Squier, Hamish Stuart (Average White Band), Edgar Winter, Gary Wright and Gregg Bissonette. Band members perform songs from their personal repertoires as well as serve as backing band for Starr, the happy ringmaster who delivers a sampling of his solo hits and some Beatles classics.

Early shows, at least, ended with Starr performing Liverpool delinquent John Lennon’s anthemic, appropriate and now much-needed “Give Peace a Chance.”

While the All-Starr band offers a splashy taste of rock ’n’ roll glories past—Starr says the band “sounds really good”—he wasn’t seeking to revisit his own past glories when he came here in 1970.

This gentlest Beatle, who by nature attempted the role of peacemaker during his mates’ rancorous divorce, perhaps needed the freedom to express country heartache when the opportunity arose to record in Nashville. Drake brought Starr here after the two met up in London. Mr. Talking Steel has been gone now for a couple of decades, but Daniels remembers well the circumstances that led to the Drake-Starr alliance.

Harrison, a Dylan crony as well as enthusiastic apostle of all stringed instruments, liked that steely, mournful sound. During a New York jam session with Dylan and Daniels, Harrison asked the not-yet long-haired country boy for the name of the steel player on Dylan’s Nashville recordings. Daniels acted as telephone go-between, and shortly after Harrison employed Drake and his pedal steel on the triple album on which he bid his old mates Hare Krishna and farewell.

Pure chance, and Drake’s need of transportation to the studio, led to Starr’s trip to Nashville.

“It all came together because I sent my car to pick up Pete Drake at the airport when he came in to record with George,” Starr recalls. “He noticed I had a lot of country music in my car. Everyone always knew I liked country music.”

Among Starr’s stirring vocal efforts for The Beatles was his take on “Act Naturally,” a Buck Owens hit penned in part by Nashville’s Johnny Russell. (Russell has since passed away, but on the All-Starr Band’s visit to Nashville eight years ago, the singer-songwriter finally met Starr, an encounter of two affable, generous souls.)

After admiring Starr’s country music collection, Drake asked, “ ‘Why don’t you come down to Nashville and record an album?’ ” Starr recalls.

In his mind’s-eye, the prospect of recording any album likely conjured images of the long hours, nights and weeks the Fab Four spent fashioning Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour and The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album).