How Paul McCartney became the fourth Beatle on-board for Ringo Starr’s 1973 solo album
Coming just a few years after The Beatles’ dramatic demise, Ringo Starr’s third solo album, titled simply Ringo, caused a mini-sensation in 1973, not because the world was rejoicing at the lovable Richard Starkey’s return to pop music, necessarily, but rather that he’d managed to enlist the help of all three of his old Fab mates.
As should come as no surprise, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were never in the studio at the same time during the Ringo sessions, but each contributed original compositions to the record, and George Harrison was a regular presence, as well, writing or co-writing three of the album’s tracks, including its biggest hit, ‘Photograph’.
While Ringo had still been drumming plenty as a guest musician on other artists’ records over the previous few years, most of his personal focus had shifted to acting and directing, including some not-so-memorable appearances in a violent spaghetti western called Blindman and a rock ‘n’ roll horror film titled Son of Dracula. His prior two solo albums, both released in 1970, had covered old standards and country and western tunes, respectively, so this was also his first foray into a record of mostly new music.
All in all, the results were pretty good, and while Ringo is hardly remembered on the level of the other top-tier Beatle solo albums, it was a top ten seller in both the UK and the US and received solid reviews. In fact, the record was so pleasant and cohesive that it spurred many more months of rumours about The Beatles getting back together again.
McCartney’s contribution to Ringo was more of a favour to an old pal than a pure collaboration, though, such that the album’s producer, Richard Perry, happened to be involved in a TV special Macca was working on at the same time, and so used that gig as leverage to rope in the fourth and final Beatle for Ringo’s project.
“[Paul] knew we wanted him to write a song for the album,” Perry told the LA Times in 1974, “So he said, ‘Give me a time limit’. So I said, ‘Wednesday’, and he came up with his tune, ‘Six O’Clock’”.
Credited to both McCartney and his wife/Wings bandmate Linda, ‘Six O’Clock’ might seem like a marginal Wings B-side at first, which isn’t bad for a song written in a rush, but when Ringo heard it, he knew it was tailored to him, lyrically and stylistically, and that it wouldn’t have been a song Paul would have necessarily written for himself.
“See, they knew me so well,” Starr told Billboard in 2001 while listening back to ‘Six O’Clock’, and with all due respect to Linda McCartney, he was referring here specifically to all of the ex-Beatles, adding, “They would write songs that they felt I could get away with. A lot of the songs they wrote for me, they would not have thought of doing themselves.”
Both Paul and Linda sing backing vocals on ‘Six O’Clock’, and Paul can also be heard manning the piano and synthesiser; however, it doesn’t seem that Wings ever performed ‘Six O’Clock’ live themselves, nor did McCartney on any of his subsequent solo tours. It was, as promised, a gift to Ringo, and probably an olive branch of sorts after a rough few years of post-Beatle legal scuffles.
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