Ringo Starr—Inside the Making of “Look Up,” Part 4

Don’t Pass Up Parts 1 , 2 and 3!

Once basic overdubs and edits were completed, the session files were sent back to Bruce to record Ringo’s vocals. As Bruce notes, “Ringo is usually hesitant about doing vocals. His confidence is on the other side of the spectrum, compared to how he is about his drumming.”

So the two utilize a process they’ve been using together for two decades. Ringo will start by listening to the reference/guide vocal provided by Daniel or T Bone. “I’ll play him, say, one verse, and we’ll just do a verse at a time. I’ll do four takes in a row, more if I don’t think I have it—just so he’s zoned in on that one part of the song.” The two will go through the whole track, usually not spending more than an hour on a song. Bruce then takes the day’s work home and creates a comp, picking the best bits from each take. “Then I’ll come back, the next day, and we’ll listen to it. I might have a suggestion—‘These two or three lines, we can do better’—or he might hear something he wants to redo. We usually redo three or four lines, and I’ll go back and edit it. And then, once we’re happy, we’ll send it to T Bone, who might suggest a line or two, or a word or two they might decide to change for some reason, and we’ll redo those. But that was usually very little—they were pretty happy, whatever we sent them.”

In early April, at the start of those vocal overdubs, T Bone returned to L.A., to watch and offer any guidance, but, as with the drumming sessions, soon realized it was best left up to this dynamic duo, who’d done this for 20+ years. “He’s the past master, and he and Bruce have such a deep relationship. So when he started singing,” the producer recalls, “I said, ‘Ringo, I know I don’t like people looking over my shoulder when I’m working. I don’t need to be here. You guys just do this, and just send them to me, and I’ll overdub back home and finish them up.’ I just removed myself from that process. And that’s why Bruce is a co-producer on the record, because he produced those vocals.”

What he got, after the two were done, gave T Bone everything he was hoping for. “I’ve always loved his tone. I listen for tone, and his tone is very clear to me. Ringo is a great storyteller—that’s why Lennon and McCartney used him that way frequently. It’s a beautiful, comforting tone. That’s why John and Paul used him for ‘Good Night.’ He’s able to convey that comfort in a way that neither of them were able to do. And Daniel, Billy and I were all writing into his tone.”

That’s not something that’s lost even on current country artists, such as Molly Tuttle, who appears on the album. “There’s never a moment where I’m not listening to the lyrics when Ringo’s singing,” she says. “He really portrays what the song is about, with his emotion. In a lot of great country music, people just want that authenticity, to hear people singing real stories about their lives. And you can tell, his voice is just coming from his heart. When we did a show together at the Ryman, when he sang “Thankful,” I teared up when he was singing it. He’s so genuine.”

Ringo recorded his vocal for “Look Up” during his drumming session for “Breathless” on March 19, the day after tracking his drum part for that song, similarly vocalizing “I Live For Your Love” on March 20, after doing his drum track for “Never Let Me Go,” singing “Breathless” on March 25. “Can You Hear Me Call” arrived on April 2, so he tracked his drum part, and added a vocal to “Never Let Me Go” a week later, on April 9.

After the drum editing break, they attempted a vocal for “Rosetta,” but found the key wasn’t right for Ringo. “He didn’t want to do it, so they sent ‘Time On My Hands,’” onto which a drum part was recorded on April 25, “and I adjusted the key a little bit on some of the instruments on ‘Rosetta,’ and sent it back to T Bone, and they re-recorded the parts and sent it back us.” Ringo, in the meantime, sang his vocal for “Can You Hear Me Call” on April 28, “You Want Some” two days later, on April 30, and “Time On My Hands,” the next day, May 1. And with the arrival of the revamped “Rosetta” on May 17, he sung his vocal part for that, as well, before finally recording his drum part onto the tune two days later, on May 19.

FINISHING THE SONGS WITH NEW FRIENDS

Once Ringo had recorded his vocals, the files were sent back to Piersante for any final edits, who then passed them on to Stankiewicz in Nashville, and then the process of overdubbing could begin. “We didn’t dig into Ringo’s album for overdubs until mid-2024, after we finished T Bone’s record,” notes Piersante. “Once we had the tracks, T Bone could replace any of his temporary tracks, adjusting the parts and the arrangements for what Ringo did on drums and vocals. He might replace things or omit things. He wants to hear what the singer’s doing before he decides if his production is right or not.”

Unlike many modern Top-40 country records, loaded with complex production, T Bone’s approach was much simpler. “It really comes back to just how great these melodies are and how well-written the songs are,” says Stankiewicz. “When you have songs like that, you don’t need a bunch of flash.”

“If it’s a good song, and the singer’s singing well,” says the producer, “if he’s telling the story, you can drop a bag of rocks behind him, and it’ll still be a good record. Everything in the arrangement has to serve the song and the singer. It’s all about telling the story, and how the story gets told.”

Most of the overdubs were done at a small handful of studios in town, including East Iris’s Studio A, Sound Emporium and Daniel’s own Royal Plum Studio. Regarding East Iris, located in Berry Hill, Molly Tuttle notes, “They have a lot of different rooms there. I did a lot of my vocal parts for one of my own records there, and it’s where I did a majority of my vocal and guitar parts for Ringo’s record,” mostly from May 21 to May 24, starting with her vocal for “Can You Hear Me Call.”. “There are so many different studios there, all really cool, and all have their own unique feel—some small, some bigger.”

Of Sound Emporium, the musician notes, “We used the bigger room of the two, Studio A, where I’ve made two of my records. It’s one of my favorite studios in town. It’s a great sounding room, and just a really nice space to get to go hang out for a day and make music.” Daniel’s Royal Plum, which he converted from a garage, Stankiewicz notes, “Is an absolutely beautiful studio, with lots of great gear available.” Adds Tuttle, “I’ve written with Daniel over there. You can do anything in his studio, he has so many different instruments.” Recording there is made without a console, recording directly to Pro Tools, using a Burl Audio B2 Bomber analog-to-digital converter, and using an Apogee Electronics Symphony audio interface.

Her acoustic guitar parts, recorded with Stankiewicz by Daniel (who tracked so many of the album’s overdubs that T Bone also provided him a co-producer credit), using a Microtech Gefell MT71 condenser mic. The signal was fed through a Shadow Hills Mono GAMA preamp, into a Chandler Limited RS124 compressor, which he felt appropriate for the project.

Among the instruments T Bone and Daniel would add, besides acoustic and electric guitars, is the 6-string bass, something both utilized (and even both, sometimes, on the same song, such as on “Look Up”), supplementing the core upright bass parts from Dennis Crouch. “The 6-string parts are different from Dennis’s,” says Daniel. “They’re more of a melodic line of some kind.” While Daniel plays a Fender Vintera II 60s Bass VI, with La Bella flatwound strings, played through a small Strymon pedalboard and Chase Bliss Preamp MKII, T Bone utilizes a Gretsch Duane Eddy model, as well as a classic Gretsch Falcon hollowbody, played through a Fender Tweed Bassman.

There are a handful of guests that appear on the record, most notably Tuttle, Billy Strings, Larkin Poe and others, though they are not brought in to create some sort of flash or draw attention to the record—they’re just great musicians that are part of the band. And it’s still a Ringo record.

“There’s a temptation, these days, to knit audiences together,” explains T Bone. “People do records with 12 different features, 12 different guests, one on each song. Because that guest will bring his audience, and this other guest will bring theirs, and they’ll each bring their audience with them. But that’s really a marketing consideration, not a musical one. In the case of Ringo, you don’t want or need to throw celebrity at him. He’s the one at the center of the recording, and. . . he’s Ringo!”

The choice to use young artists like Tuttle, Strings and Larkin Poe, he says, “I wanted to bring some young artists in, too. This wasn’t going to be a record just for septuagenarians,” he laughs. “It’s a record for everybody. So I wanted to bring some young artists in, with their energy. Billy and Molly are two of the very best young American music artists. I wanted to bring them in, and just weave them through the record. Everything they do blended with Ringo. And they were both happy to be in the band. It’s freeing for them. And it’s more real. It’s just art and music.” Tuttle agrees. “We’re just supporting what’s best for the song. It wasn’t like we’re doing a ‘duets’ record, in the classic sense. It’s pretty much Ringo, and we’re all supporting players, singing harmonies and taking solos here and there. But really, as T Bone says, just weaving in and out, more than being spotlighted. And that was a cool way to approach it. It keeps the focus on Ringo and these great songs.”

To figure out who would do what, Stankiewicz explains, “T Bone and Daniel would sit and listen. I think we got together one day, and really just listened through all of it, and decided, ‘Hey, on this song, we’re gonna get Molly, hopefully, to play here. Maybe some backgrounds. And Billy Strings could really kill it on this song.’ And we created a list.’” There was never something added that wasn’t needed. “That’s another great thing about T Bone is that he’s very intentional We’d just add what was really necessary. So a lot of them were, perhaps, a couple of acoustics, a Paul Franklin pedal steel overdub or a Dennis Crouch bass part. And then maybe add a guest artist like Molly or Billy. And that was really the final step, who to put on what, to really lift Ringo. And it was just so much fun to see the transformation from the demos we made to the final record.”

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The producer doesn’t usually give specific direction for musicians to perform. “That’s one of the brilliant things about T Bone. His way of doing things is just putting the right people in the room, and letting them do what they do,” as Tuttle found.

“I had been a fan of T Bone’s for a long time,” the artist says. The two had met in the spring of 2024, at the “Conversations at OZ” roundtable, on February 21, benefiting OZ Arts Nashville, a performing arts center. And not long after, she says, “He talked about the Ringo album he was working on, and said, ‘Maybe you’d like to come by and hear it, or maybe try singing on a song?’ I’d loved ‘Octopus’s Garden’ since I was a child, so, of course, I was thrilled at the idea.”

For her guitar part for “Can You Hear Me Call,” she explains, “He sent me the song, and I went over his house, and he showed me what he was thinking for the guitar lines, telling me it was based around the Carter Family style of picking. I worked on it with the demo for a while, and then came in to East Iris and tracked it.” Notes T Bone, “I had written a guitar line, and I was thinking, ‘Ringo needs a Carter Family type song,’ a deep, old-fashioned song. So I wrote a sort of Maybelle Carter type low guitar melody, and I gave it to Molly. I said, ‘Here, this is the essence of the thing. Now, take it and play with it. And she played that beautiful guitar part.”

Notes Tuttle, “The great thing about T Bone is, he just keeps it very positive and doesn’t give too much direction. That’s part of his genius as a producer. If he’s asking you to play on the record, it’s because he’s familiar with your playing, and just lets you do it, which is really nice, instead of trying to force something out of someone. It gives people the freedom to just try things out,” a process she enjoys. “I never know how much to do or how little to do. So my approach, usually, is to do some takes that are really simple, more understated, and then do a few where I’m playing a lot more lead lines and fills. And then just let the producer decide where to sprinkle stuff in, which is exactly what T Bone did. He has such a great ear and really knows how to balance out different instruments with the rest of the performance.”

The only true duet on the album is actually hers, on that same song. “That was Bruce’s idea,” T Bone explains. “Ringo had sung his vocal, and when Bruce sent it back, he said, ‘Why don’t we do a duet on this?’ He sang Molly’s parts and said, ‘Let Molly sing these lines.’ So Bruce laid that out for us.” As with the guitar part, Tuttle took the guidance from Bruce’s demo and then made it her own, making a wonderful call-and-response.

“After that, they offered to have me sing on some more songs, going back, over a period of weeks, each day, bopping around to different studios in town. They’d get a new song from Ringo, and we would try out different harmony parts. And sometimes, I’d pick up a guitar, and play on that same track.” For instance, she provided a nice harmony on “String Theory” at East Iris, as well as, on the same day, adding an electric 12-string part, playing an Eastwood Classic 12, belonging to Colin Linden. (It is her rhythmic part heard on the left in the mix, with Daniel’s heard center-right, playing more lead bits).

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR THE CONCLUSION!