Today, Local Spins spotlights Ringo’s new album featuring Michigan guitarist Billy Strings, kicking off its radio podcast with a key track while also showcasing new music by other Great Lakes State artists.

Enduring Legend Meets Emerging Star: Beatles drummer Ringo called on Billy Strings for his new album. (Billy Strings Photo/Steve Baran)
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Billy Strings has obviously come a long, long way since playing open-mic nights and weekly shows at intimate Traverse City venues a dozen years ago.
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Anyone needing evidence of that – beyond the virtuosic guitarist’s current status as the award-winning international face of bluegrass music – should look no further than the superstars with whom he’s collaborated in recent years.
The latest? Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, who called on the Ionia County native to sing and play guitar on his much-anticipated new studio album, “Look Up.”
Give Ringo credit. He knows how to stack his album lineup with superstar guests — some of them with devoted youthful audiences — thus turning a collection of mostly pedestrian songs into an endearing and often entertaining listen. (And yes, and exposing these guests’ fans to an 84-year-old artist they otherwise might have ignored.)
Touted as Ringo’s “country” album, most of “Look Up” actually comes off as pop/rock project with country accents — virtuosic accents supplied by the likes of Michigan’s own Billy Strings and fellow award-winning bluegrass powerhouses Molly Tuttle and Alison Krauss — not to mention pedal steel whiz Paul Franklin, fiddler Stuart Duncan, slide guitarist Joe Walsh and multi-instrumentalist/producer T Bone Burnett.
LISTEN: “Never Let Me Go,” Ringo Starr, Billy Strings
Indeed, parts of “Look Up” actually hearken back to the early days of The Beatles more than the influence of Hank Williams or Merle Haggard. “Never Let Me Go,” with Billy Strings chipping in on vocals and guitar, could easily have been an early ’60s hit for the Fab Four, thanks in part to the harmonica accents supplied by Willie Nelson harp whiz Mickey Raphael.
The purest vintage country tracks — “Time on My Hands” and “Can You Hear Me Call” (with Tuttle) — benefit from Burnett’s deft production and arrangements. Actually, so does most of “Look Up” because after all, Ringo’s strengths have never revolved around brilliant songcraft or anything but a fairly simplistic lyrical delivery.
What makes Ringo lovable — and “Look Up” so engaging at times — is the former Beatle’s infectious charm and his penchant for surrounding himself with monumentally talented musicians, whether he’s touring with an “All-Starr Band” or recording with all-star players.
This week’s edition of Local Spins on WYCE — which focuses attention on music by Michigan artists at 11 a.m. Fridays on WYCE (88.1 FM) and online at wyce.org — featured the Ringo track, “Rosetta,” with guest appearances by Billy Strings and Larkin Poe.
The Jan. 24 episode also showcased new music by a bevy of Michigan artists: Jack White, The War and Treaty, The Crane Wives, Michigander, In the Valley Below, The Rebel Eves, The Nathan Moore Affair, Nick Veine, Bekka Madeleine, Cody Lee Madison, Nathan Walton & The Remedy and Kylee Phillips. Listen to the full radio show here.
PODCAST: Local Spins on WYCE (1/24/25)
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