"[I was] at the top of the mountain, and gradually it worked its way down. And then I looked up and life came back. I truly believe in looking up."

"You’re always in a better mood if you’re looking up. It’s one of those things you notice, walking around London, or it doesn’t matter where. They’re all looking down. There’s nothing down there."

Said Ringo Starr, quoted in "Ringo Starr: ‘I only want to be in a band. You can’t play Yesterday just on drums’/In a rare interview, the Beatle says Liverpool was always the capital of country music and reveals the lesson he learnt from Elton John’s mum" (London Times).

Don’t let anyone tell you that Starr is jumping on the country bandwagon....  he sang lead vocals on the Beatles’ version of Buck Owens’s Act Naturally on the Help! album nearly 60 years ago...“There was no plan to make a country record,” says Starr.... “[T-Bone Burnett] sent me this beautiful country track....” The song was Come Back, a splendidly old-fashioned lullaby in the style of “Singing Cowboy” Gene Autry, complete with Starr whistling.... 

The album was also a full-circle moment for an artist whose second solo album, Beaucoups of Blues in 1970, was an arch-traditional country record, cut in two days with the American producer and pedal steel player Pete Drake. 

“Pete realised I liked country music and said, ‘You should come to Nashville and make a record.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to go anywhere for two months.’ And he said, ‘What are you talking about? Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline was made in two days.’ I thought, ‘I can handle that.’”

You can play the new album at Spotify, here. (You can play the old one too, of course — here's "Beaucoups of Blues.")

And here's the "Look Up" video:

And, for the really great old times, here's "Act Naturally":

And here's Buck Owens in 1966:

BONUS: Here's Buck Owens doing "Lady Madonna."