With a Little Help

At the time of Starr’s quick layover in Nashville, singer Tracy Nelson had just settled outside Mt. Juliet with her band, Mother Earth, at the old Curd Farm on Curd Road. Nelson, who now lives in Dickson County, already knew both Scotty Moore and Pete Drake when Starr came to town. “We were talking about him [Drake] producing a country album on me,” says Nelson. “He just called me one day and said, ‘We’d like to do some photos for the [Ringo Starr] album cover at the farm.’

“It’s right about lunch time and I’m thinking, ‘What am I going to give these people to eat?’ I said, ‘Should I put some lunch together?’ And Pete says, ‘That’s great, but Ringo’s a vegetarian.’ ’’

It was a quandary for Nelson, who says Mother Earth was “heavily into pork,” with a few steaks on hand in the freezer. So like any good Southern hostess, she rushed to the nearest rural quick market and, after searching for vegetarian fare, decided that the best thing she could offer was tuna fish.

“My memory’s colored by how I choose to remember it, but Ringo seemed very nice and very shy,” Nelson says. “He just sat there eating tuna fish and potato chips [laughs]. I was just a huge Beatles fan. It was completely cool.”

The album’s cover shot, as well as the inside photos, were taken by photographer Marshall Fallwell Jr. Now on a lengthy hiatus from photographing musicians, Fallwell happily describes that while taking Starr on a sightseeing drive around town, the famous drummer wanted to stop at a Hillsboro Village boutique called Sgt. Pepper’s.

“He went in and walked around,” Fallwell says. “There were several little girls in there, college and high school girls. Their eyes just bugged out of their heads. He was real nice to them.”

And Starr returned the hospitality he was shown by Nashvillians. “He’s one of the nicest guys in the business,” Fallwell says. “I did 300 record album jackets and millions of photos, but Ringo’s the only one who ever wrote me a letter, just thanking me for the cover.”