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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-22
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REVIEW, Page 72MUSICIt's in His Blood
By RICHARD CORLISS
PERFORMER: Ringo Starr
ALBUM: Time Takes Time
LABEL: Private Music
THE BOTTOM LINE: The ex-Beatle is reborn in an album with
the verve and sound of the Fab Four's early hits.
If anybody paid tribute to Ringo Starr when he turned 50,
we missed it. Makes sense. Ringo was the Least Beatle, the
onstage mascot, the one who didn't write songs or sing well. He
was along for the amazing ride three pop geniuses took through
the '60s. Early on, his goofy smile and steady beat kept the
group grounded. Sometimes the other lads would throw him a tune
(With a Little Help from My Friends, Yellow Submarine) that
tapped the great good will he shared with his audience. But when
John, Paul and George swerved off into drugs, mysticism and more
complex music, the drummer lost the rhythm. Hitting the skins
wasn't so much fun when the Beatles were hitting the emotional
skids.
Ringo will be 52 next month, and now there's reason to
celebrate. After a fitful movie career and some of the marital
and chemical troubles mandatory for all aging rock stars, Ringo
is back -- clean, keen and on tour with an All-Starr band that
includes Todd Rundgren, Joe Walsh and Nils Lofgren. And as his
first album in nine years proves, he is back in the 1960s. The
songs for Time Takes Time, all new, sound beamed from some
long-ago Top 40 station that plays only early, previously
unheard Beatles songs.
Back Then is a nice place to visit; its anachronisms
beguile you. Ten cuts, 10 hit singles on the Bandstand chart.
Ten studiously simple tunes with instantly memorable hooks.
Brevity used to be the soul of rock; one of these songs runs
just 2 min. 45 sec., and most of the others are longer only
because they repeat their choruses exactly as many times as you
want to hear them. Best of all, no drum solos; the world's most
famous percussionist was always a modest gent. Here he jollies
things along with his tentative voice and 4/4 pummeling.
Time Takes Time occupied a notable team of four top
producers (Don Was, Jeff Lynne, Peter Asher and Phil Ramone),
14 songwriters (including Ringo) and such graybeard kibitzers
as Brian Wilson (who provides a Morse-code background vocal of
dit dit dit-dits on the Diane Warren tune In a Heart Beat).
Somehow it all coheres, perhaps because this musical militia
wanted to honor the group that shaped their pop tastes, and to
do it with the one Beatle who could take direction from them as
he did from Lennon and McCartney.
All the musicians here took these cues. Each song has
melodies, lyrics and guitar riffs inspired by early Beatle hits,
from the jaunty taunting of Golden Blunders ("You're gonna
suffer the guilts forever . . . You're gonna mess up things you
thought you would never") to the alley-caterwauling harmonies
on I Don't Believe You and Don't Know a Thing About Love. The
final song, What Goes Around, features Harrison-like guitars
gently weeping in harmony, an extended coda a la Hey Jude, and
at the end a cryptic spoken message. The phrase is either "All
the same" or "I buried Paul."
All the same will do just fine. Maybe the tunes are less
ersatz Beatles than up scale Archies: gourmet bubble gum. Maybe
some of the lyrics took less time to write than they do to
sing. Maybe the entire album marks Ringo's retreat to the simple
life. But to this battered ear, the stuff sounds like music. The
highlight is the mesmeric thumper After All These Years, Ringo's
anthem to "traveling the world in a rock 'n' roll band. It's in
my blood! It's in my blood!" Ours too. This is retro-rock to
stir any '60s survivor. Rise from your wheelchairs,
Beatlemaniacs, and shout, "Yeah, yeah, yeah!"