RINGO STARR ~ "LOOK UP"

Original released on CD Lost Highway / 00602475201083 (2025, January 10)

THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD!

"The Last Waltz" was a concert by the Canadian rock group, the Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. "The Last Waltz" was advertised as the end of the Band's illustrious touring career, and the concert saw the Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood and Neil Young. The event was filmed by director Martin Scorsese and made into a documentary of the same name, released in 1978. The film features concert performances, scenes shot on a studio soundstage and interviews by Scorsese with members of the Band.

Beginning with a title card saying "This film should be played loud!" the concert documentary is an essay on the Band's influences and their career. The group – Rick Danko (died 1999, December 10) on bass, violin and vocals, Levon Helm on drums, mandolin and vocals, Garth Hudson on keyboards and saxophone, Richard Manuel (died 1986, March 4) on keyboards, percussion and vocals, and guitarist-songwriter Robbie Robertson – started out in the late 1950s as a rock and roll band led by Ronnie Hawkins, and Hawkins himself appears as the first guest. The group backed Bob Dylan in the 1960s, and Dylan performs with the Band towards the end of the concert.

The idea for a farewell concert came about early in 1976 after Richard Manuel was seriously injured in a boating accident. Robbie Robertson then began giving thought to leaving the road, envisioning the Band becoming a studio-only band, similar to the Beatles' decision to stop playing live shows in 1966. Though the other band members did not agree with Robertson's decision, the concert was set at Bill Graham's Winterland Ballroom, where the Band had made its debut as a group in 1969. Originally, the Band was to perform on its own, but then the notion of inviting Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan was hatched and the guest list grew to include other performers.

Promoted and organized by Bill Graham, who had a long association with the Band, the concert was an elaborate affair. Starting at 5:00 p.m., the audience of 5,000 was served turkey dinners. There was ballroom dancing with music by the Berkeley Promenade Orchestra. Poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure gave readings. The concert began with the Band performing its more popular songs an lasted more than 9 hours with all those special guests playing with the group. At around 2:15 a.m. the Band came to perform an encore, "Don't Do It". It was the last time the group performed with its classic lineup.

The original soundtrack album was a three-LP album released on April 16, 1978 (later as a two-disc CD). It has many songs not in the film, including "Down South in New Orleans" with Bobby Charles and Dr. John on guitar, "Tura Lura Lural (That's an Irish Lullaby)" by Van Morrison, "Life is a Carnival" by the Band, and "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" by Bob Dylan. In 2002, this four-CD box set was released, as was a DVD-Audio edition. Robbie Robertson produced the album, remastering all the songs. The set includes 16 previously unreleased songs from the concert, as well as takes from rehearsals.

THE CONCERT FOR BANGLADESH

Original released on Triple LP Apple STCX 3385

(US 1971, December 20)

Hands down, this epochal concert at New York's Madison Square Garden - first issued on three LPs in a handsome orange-colored box - was the crowning event of George Harrison's public life, a gesture of great goodwill that captured the moment in history and, not incidentally, produced some rousing music as a permanent legacy. Having been moved by his friend Ravi Shankar's appeal to help the homeless Bengali refugees of the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Harrison leaped into action, organizing on short notice what became a bellwether for the spectacular rock & roll benefits of the 1980s and beyond. The large, almost unwieldy band was loaded with rock luminaries - including Beatles alumnus Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Badfinger, and two who became stars as a result of their electric performances here, Leon Russell ("Jumpin' Jack Flash"/"Youngblood") and Billy Preston ("That's the Way God Planned It"). Yet Harrison is in confident command, running through highlights from his recent triumphant "All Things Must Pass" album in fine voice, secure enough to revisit his Beatles legacy from Abbey Road and the White Album. 

Though overlooked at the time by impatient rock fans eager to hear the hits, Shankar's opening raga, "Bangla Dhun," is a masterwork on its own terms; the sitar virtuoso is in dazzling form even by his standards and, in retrospect, Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, and Alla Rakha amount to an Indian supergroup themselves. The high point of the concert is the surprise appearance of Bob Dylan - at this reclusive time in his life, every Dylan sighting made headlines - and he read the tea leaves perfectly by performing five of his most powerful, meaningful songs from the '60s. Controversy swirled when the record was released; then-manager Alan Klein imposed a no-discount policy on this expensive set and there were questions as to whether all of the intended receipts reached the refugees. Also, in a deal to allow Dylan's participation, the set was released by Capitol on LP while Dylan's label Columbia handled the tape versions. Yet, in hindsight, the avarice pales beside the concert's magnanimous intentions, at a time when rock musicians truly thought they could help save the world. (Richard Ginell in AllMusic)

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

(LER ARTIGO SOBRE O FILME AQUI)

The Sentimental Journey Of RINGO

Original released on LP Apple PCS 7101

(UK 1970, March 27)

This is technically the first pop solo album by a Beatle. John and George had done some experimental albums and Paul had done a classical soundtrack, so Ringo can say he was the first Beatle to release a traditional solo album. I am in the minority of the loving this album. No really. I love this album. It's one of my favorite pieces of music (Beatle or non-Beatle) period! It's a concept album of Tin Pan Alley era songs. Ringo ever so sweetly told the press that he did it to please his parents. Guess he was still a wholesome mop-top after all. Foreshadowing Ringo's later habits of having numerous celebrities on his albums and tours, this album has a different producer for each track. His future favorite Richard Perry is on here, as well as Paul McCartney, Quincy Jones, Maurice Gibb, George Martin and others. I am a sucker for period pieces and Ringo's comes out really well. Rod Stewart in recent years has made a fortune doing a series of concept albums like this. I suppose it's just another thing on a long list of stuff the Beatles did first. (in RateYourMusic)

Cut as the Beatles were disintegrating and released shortly before the group's final album, "Let It Be", Ringo Starr's debut solo album was a collection of pre-rock standards dating from the 1920s to the '50s, sung over orchestral tracks arranged by everyone from fellow Beatle Paul McCartney and Bee Gee Maurice Gibb to jazz veterans Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson. Starr brought a good-natured, nearly humorous tone to his vocals, perhaps because he wasn't trying to compete with the classic pop stylists most identified with these songs, but only to express his nostalgic affection for the material. Coming more than a decade before the fad for standards albums by rock-era pop stars like Linda Ronstadt, the album was taken not as a career move, but as a highly eccentric and expensive novelty of a kind only Beatles could afford to indulge. In retrospect, it remains harmlessly charming, if unexceptional. (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

RINGO STARR: "Beaucoups Of Blues"

Original released on LP Apple PAS 10002

(UK 1970, September 25)

Ringo Starr had a demonstrated affinity for country music, as heard on such Beatles recordings as "Act Naturally," and he sounded as modestly comfortable on this Nashville-recorded session as in any other musical context. The cream of the city's session players backed up the former Beatle on a set of newly written songs, and the result was a typical country effort, pleasant as long as you didn't expect too much. Of course, this was the second straight genre exercise for Starr, following his pop standards album "Sentimental Journey", and now he had tackled two styles that depend on vocal stylists for much of their appeal. On both, Ringo was Ringo. But with the Beatles fading into history, his suddenly front-burner solo career was starting to look like a series of dabblings rather than a coherent follow-up to the group's success. What could be next, an album of Motown songs? Wisely, he returned to Beatles-style pop/rock in subsequent releases. ["Beaucoups of Blues" was reissued on August 1, 1995, by Captiol with two bonus tracks, "Coochy Coochy," which had been released as the B-side of the single "Beaucoups of Blues," and the six-and-a-half-minute impromptu instrumental "Nashville Jam," which was previously unreleased.] (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)