Ringo Starr – ‘Long Long Road’ album review: Peace, love, and the Americana way
The year is 2026, and through some miracle of science, two members of The Beatles have brand-spanking-new albums coming out within a month of each other.
The Skinny: Getting the majority of the attention, unsurprisingly, is Paul McCartney’s The Boys of Dungeon Lane, carefully advertised as his “most introspective album to date,” filled with tear-jerking recollections of those old Penny Lane days. First out of the chute, though, is Ringo Starr’s Long Long Road, which, despite its title, keeps its nostalgia pleasantly contained to a few impersonal platitudes and just one cringey line of Beatle references: “The long and winding road is more than a song / Tomorrow never knows what goes on.”
In the 30 years since Johnny Cash’s first American Recordings album, grizzled old rock stars have no longer been granted the right to waste away their golden years re-recording their old hits and lazily touring the oldies circuit. Something more grand and meaningful is now expected of them, perhaps unfairly, and it usually involves getting in the studio with a much younger producer to try and mine something out of their past and/or out of their soul.
Of course, Johnny Cash was a mere 62 when he first worked with a 31-year-old Rick Rubin. Ringo Starr is 85, and his “much younger producer” on both Long Long Road and its quite recent precursor, 2025’s Look Up, is a 78-year-old T Bone Burnett.
That being said, not every elderly singer is optimally suited for connecting with young hipsters or getting raw about their feelings on death and regrets. Burnett, as the ultimate pro’s pro producer, immediately understood that Ringo Starr was never going to make that kind of record; nor would anyone necessarily want him to. Instead, as a songwriting partnership, Burnett and Starr have continued on Long Long Road right where they left off on Look Up, going back to the roots of Ringo’s musicality rather than trying to unearth his ‘Hurt’ moment.
In the album’s press materials, Ringo explains that he called this one Long Long Road “because I’ve been on a long, long road,” and honestly, that’s about the right amount of depth we want from a pleasant country-tinged Ringo record, which mainly serves as a chance to hear an artist everyone loves clearly playing the type of music he genuinely enjoys; including a fresh Carl Perkins cover (‘I Don’t See Me In Your Eyes Anymore’) an Everly Brothers-esque acoustic number (‘Why’), and a proper broken-hearted Hank Williams-ish ballad (‘She’s Gone’).
Burnett’s restraint is very important, as he prevents the record from leaning into the limitless bells-and-whistles budget of a Beatle. Ringo’s backing band, which is informally known as the Texans as a callback to one of his pre-Beatles Liverpool bands, feels like they’re jamming live in a cosy, low-stakes midnight session, happily following Ringo’s whims.
And then there’s the voice of Molly Tuttle, a rising bluegrass star who is perfectly cast as an Emmylou to Ringo’s geriatric Gram Parsons on very lovely tracks like the opener ‘Returning Without Tears’ (on which Tuttle also plays acoustic guitar) and the first single, ‘It’s Been Too Long’, which also includes the harmonies of Sarah Jarosz.
The most recognisably All-Star Band sort of moment is ‘Choose Love’, on which you can find that aforementioned Beatle lyric, a skittering psych organ part right out of ‘Baby You’re a Rich Man’, and a nice but not entirely necessary harmony cameo from St Vincent.
Standout Track: ‘Returning Without Tears’
The Verdict: Contrary to popular belief, Ringo isn’t exclusively a human peace-sign meme at this stage of his life. It has indeed been a “long, long road,” and the thing worth celebrating is that an 85-year-old man with all the money in the world still enjoys that old-timey Americana music enough to make more of it. This album is a nice window into that joy. It probably won’t tug at the heartstrings as much as McCartney’s new one, but as a nice compromise, it also isn’t likely to make you ponder your own mortality as much.
Release Date: April 24th, 2026 | Producer: T Bone Burnett | Label: Universal
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