Ringo Starr, ‘Long Long Road’: Review

When Ringo Starr released Look Up in early 2025, it marked his return after a 55-year hiatus to the country music genre he first navigated during the Beatles‘ inaugural years. From Carl Perkins covers to his affable take on Buck Owens’ «Act Naturally» to his second solo album from 1970, Beaucoups of Blues, a collection of country songs written specifically for Starr and recorded in Nashville, his draw to the music has been natural.

Look Up was recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles with producer T Bone Burnett, who wrote or cowrote all but two of the songs, and featured guest appearances from Alison Krauss, Larkin Poe and Billy Strings. The result was Starr’s best album in more than half a century.

No wonder the pair has teamed up again for Starr’s 22nd album, Long Long Road, which once again features assists from Strings and Molly Tuttle, as well as Sheryl Crow and St. Vincent this time around. If some of the immediate appeal isn’t as noticeable in the follow-up, Starr remains amiable as ever.

READ MORE: 2026 Album Reviews

Happily removed from country music’s 2026 standards, Long Long Road is rooted in the past — more valentine to the genre than an authentic facsimile of it. And that suits Starr, who has always given his all to a limited vocal range, just fine. The album opener, «Returning Without Tears,» sets the tone, with pedal steel and strings pushing an undercurrent of sentimentality that runs throughout the LP, best illustrated on the trotting «It’s Been Too Long.»

Starr and Burnett get more traditional on «I Don’t See Me in Your Eyes Anymore,» first recorded in 1949 and later made a No. 1 country hit by Charlie Rich in 1974. But Starr draws inspiration from Carl Perkins’ 1959 version of the song. It’s a nice callback to his early love of country music and a full-circle moment for the 85-year-old Starr, comfortably in his element on Long Long Road.