like to live normal lives. Everybody wanted a piece of
us really, so getting out was a big day.” In the end, Starr
deferred, McCartney was given the release date he
wanted, and Sentimental Journey was pushed back.
The vehicle for the launch of his solo music career found
him crooning pre-rock pop standards popular when
most Beatles fans were toddlers. Sentimental Journey,
judged by critic Robert Christgau “for over-50s and
Ringomaniacs” only, was followed a year later by “It
Don’t Come Easy,” a bona fide hit written by Ringo and
George Harrison. Starr’s post-Beatles career hit a high-
water mark in 1973 when his album Ringo scored two
No. 1 singles, and he orchestrated a mini-Beatles reunion,
with John, George and Ringo together in a recording
studio and playing together for the one and only time
since the breakup. All three are heard on Lennon’s tune
“I’m the Greatest,” a send-up of the Beatles themselves,
complete with crowd noises and Ringo reprising his “one
and only Billy Shears” routine from Sgt. Pepper.
Within a few years Ringo was divorced from Mau-
reen and living as a tax exile splitting his time be-
tween homes in Monte Carlo and Los Angeles. In the
mid-’70s, when John was separated from Yoko for a
year and a half, they both partied in L.A. with friends
Keith Moon and Harry Nilsson. (The former would
overdose in 1978 in England; years later Ringo’s
oldest son, Zak, would become the Who’s drummer.)
When Paul and Linda McCartney dropped in during
RINGO
48
OUT IN FRONT
The 1989 version of Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band (at a concert on Long Island) included musical
luminaries (from left) Nils Lofgren, Rick Danko, Joe Walsh, Clarence Clemons and Billy Preston.
