LOS ANGELES (AP) — Country comes naturally to Ringo Starr.
It's been a low-key part of his of his career since his Beatle beginnings, so it was not a serious swerve for him to make a whole country album, the forthcoming “Look Up,” a collaboration with the modern maestro of classic country and Americana, T Bone Burnett.
“I’ve done 20 albums and there’s always a track that's country-ish on each one,” the 84-year-old Starr told The Associated Press recently.
His love of the music — Hank Williams and Kitty Wells are favorites — began in childhood, alongside his acquisition of affection for blues, swing and whatever else came to his hometown.
“Liverpool, it’s the capital of country music in England,” Starr said, “because a lot of I think it stems from it being a port, and why we got rock ‘n’ roll music physically, was because the lads on the boats would be going to America, they’d be going to Egypt, would be going all over. But they were bringing music in.”
Starr — even his stage name has cowboy vibes — had a star turn with the Beatles in 1965 when he sang the Buck Owens' honky-tonk classic, “Act Naturally." Many of the Beatle originals the drummer sang, including “What Goes On” and “Don't Pass Me By," had country undertones.
It would culminate with his second solo album, 1971's “Beaucoups of Blues," going full country.
He kept dabbling — he recorded an “Act Naturally” duet with Owens in 1989 — but he didn't make a full country album again for decades.
Enter Burnett, the culture's chief curator of classic country for the last 25 years, the man behind the soundtracks to “O Brother Where Art Thou” and “Inside Llewyn Davis," and the unlikely pairing of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
Starr had known Burnett for decades, but had never collaborated on an entire project with him.
“In the '70s I used to throw a lot of parties and, and he was always there and I never invited him once," Starr said. “We often laugh about that.”
The two were both at the Sunset Marquis last year for a poetry reading from Olivia Harrison, widow of Starr's former bandmate George Harrison.
Starr had been doing a series of EPs with different writers and producers, including a recent release with Linda Perry, and suggested Burnett give him a song for the next one.
Burnett quickly came back with a country tune.
“It was beautiful. The most beautiful song I’ve heard in a long time,” Starr said. He began to think, "I’m going to do a country piece.”
An inspired Burnett would write nine songs that along with two more, one of them written by Starr with his friend Bruce Sugar, turning the EP into an LP.
Starr played the drums and sang in Los Angeles, while Burnett recorded parts of the record in Nashville, bringing on young neo-classical country artists Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle for several tracks apiece.
And Krauss sings with Starr on the song he co-wrote, “Thankful,” released Friday as the album's second single, in which he managed to smuggle his catchphrase, “peace and love,” into a genre that's usually about anything but.
“Yeah, I put it in the song,” he said with a smile.
“Look Up,” to be released in January, comes at a major country moment across music, with everyone from Beyoncé to Post Malone pulling on cowboy boots and breaking out out the twang.
“Mine just came together. I mean, I didn’t think of any of that,” Starr said. “I just thought, I’m going to do it.”
Beyoncé did come up at one point in Burnett and Starr's work.
“He asked, ‘what are you going to call the album?’" Starr said. “I thought, ‘BE-ON-SAY.’ But nobody laughed.”
In January, he'll get to play one of his favorite places, Nashville's Ryman auditorium, former longtime home of the Grand Ole Opry, for a pair of concerts and a TV special.
“I’m excited because we’re going to be doing like some of the other songs and some of the country songs,” he said. “We’ll be doing ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ in a country fashion, country style. So let’s see.”
Ringo Starr poses for a portrait in West Hollywood, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Ringo Starr poses for a portrait in West Hollywood, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Ringo Starr poses for a portrait in West Hollywood, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are falling Friday toward their worst loss since Election Day as the big bump Wall Street got from last week's victory for Donald Trump and cut to interest rates by the Federal Reserve keeps fading.
The S&P 500 sank 1.1% and was heading for a losing week and its worst day since October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 250 points, or 0.6%, as of 11:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.9% lower.
Makers of vaccines helped drag the market down after President-elect Donald Trump said he wants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist, to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. Moderna tumbled 7.4%, and Pfizer fell 3.6% amid concerns about a possible hit to profits.
Kennedy still needs confirmation from the Senate to get the job, and some analysts are skeptical about his chances because of his views on vaccines and criticism of the pharmaceutical industry.
“However, if Kennedy is confirmed, it is hard to bookend risks for investors as his views are so outside the traditional Republican health policy orthodoxy,” Raymond James analyst Chris Meekins wrote in a research note. Meekins is a former deputy assistant secretary at the department known as HHS.
“Investors may need to forget everything they thought they knew about Republicans and healthcare," he said. "Kennedy’s appointment may make it less likely traditional qualified experienced (Republican) staff will agree to join HHS, creating more uncertainty.”
The only stock in the S&P 500 to fall more than Moderna was Applied Materials, which dropped 8.5% even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The provider of manufacturing equipment and services to the semiconductor industry gave a forecasted range for upcoming revenue whose midpoint was short of analysts’ expectations.
The pressure is on companies to deliver big growth, in part because their stock prices have been rising so much faster than their earnings. That’s made the broad stock market look more expensive by a range of measures, which has critics calling for at least a fade. The S&P 500 is still up more than 23% for the year and near its all-time high set a few days ago, despite this week’s weakness.
Stocks had been broadly roaring since Election Day, when Trump’s victory sent a jolt through financial markets worldwide. Investors immediately began sending up stocks of banks, smaller U.S. companies and cryptocurrencies as they laid bets on the winners coming out of Trump’s preference for higher tariffs, lower tax rates and lighter regulation.
But investors are also taking into account some of the potential downsides from Trump’s return to the White House.
Besides Friday’s hit to vaccine makers, Treasury yields have also been climbing in the bond market on both the economy’s surprising resilience and worries that Trump’s policies could spur bigger U.S. government deficits and faster inflation.
That's forced traders to recalibrate how much relief the Federal Reserve could provide for the economy next year through cuts to interest rates. The Fed earlier this month lowered its main interest rate for the second time this year, and past forecasts published by Fed officials indicated more cuts were likely to come through 2025.
Lower interest rates can act as fuel for the economy and stock market, particularly after the Fed had kept rates at a two-decade high, but they can also put upward pressure on inflation.
On Thursday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggested the U.S. central bank will be cautious about future decisions on interest rates. “The economy is not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates,” he said, though he declined to discuss how Trump’s policies could alter things.
Traders have since ratcheted back forecasts for whether the Fed will cut rates again at its meeting next month, but they still see better than a coin flip’s chance of it, according to data from CME Group.
On Friday, Treasury yields were mixed in the bond market following several reports on the economy.
One showed shoppers spent more at U.S. retailers last month than expected, another signal that the most influential force on the economy remains solid.
“Many consumers were reporting that they were putting off trips and big ticket item purchases until after the election,” according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Many businesses reported they were putting off capital investment due to the election. Now that the uncertainty of the outcome is behind us, we could see some decent ‘relief spending.’”
Friday’s data on retail sales, though, may not be quite as strong as it appeared. After taking away purchases of automobiles, sales at retailers were weaker last month than economists expected.
A separate report, meanwhile, showed manufacturing activity in New York state is growing strongly. That soundly beat expectations for zero growth, and it comes off October’s contraction. Some of the survey’s responses were collected after Election Day.
In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.46% from 4.44% late Thursday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, slipped to 4.32% from 4.36% late Thursday.
In stock markets abroad, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.1% after data from the Office for National Statistics showed economic growth slowed to 0.1% in the July-September quarter from the 0.5% in the previous quarter. It was weaker than expected.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.3% after data showed growth for Japan’s economy accelerated in the latest quarter, even as the Bank of Japan raised interest rates in July.
AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.
Trader Robert Charmak works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Nov. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
People pass the New York Stock Exchange, right, on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
FILE - Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
FILE - A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
