Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 16, 1995 TAG: 9507120001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He's got a flock of hitmakers in his latest traveling band: John Entwistle of The Who, Felix Cavaliere of the Young Rascals, Billy Preston, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad and Randy Bachman of the Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive.
``It's a great vehicle for me,'' said Starr. ``I can get down on the front of the stage, hang out with the audience and do `Yellow Submarine.' Then I can also play within the band.''
Starr's maverick band is one of his hardest-rocking yet, he said by phone from a Vancouver rehearsal site. ``With the addition of Mark Farner and Randy Bachman on guitars, it really rocks. It's pretty powerful,'' added Starr, whose past summer bands have included such players as Joe Walsh, Nils Lofgren, Clarence Clemons, Todd Rundgren and Rick Danko.
This year's addition of Entwistle might be the biggest coup yet.
``Well, I needed a bass player,'' Starr said with a chuckle. ``John and I have bumped into each other for 25 years. He's a good friend. And he works well with Zak.'' (Meaning Zak Starkey, Starr's son. Both father and son play drums in the show.)
``There will be a block of songs from me, then one from each member, then a couple more from me. I'm doing 13 songs and they're doing 12,'' said Starr, whose Beatles hits include ``Act Naturally,'' ``It Don't Come Easy'' and the signature ``With a Little Help from My Friends.''
Speaking of the Beatles, Starr has just finished working with Paul McCartney and George Harrison on two previously unreleased John Lennon songs, ``Free as a Bird'' and ``Real Love.'' (There was to be a third, but they didn't complete it.) They're from Lennon's late-'70s, post-Beatles period and feature the remaining Beatles weaving music around Lennon's vocals.
``We worked hard to clean up the music. We had to work around cassette versions. But I'm pleased the way they came out. I love the technology that enables you to do these things,'' Starr said, noting how Natalie Cole added her voice to one of her father's songs a few years ago.
George, Paul and Ringo finished the songs for a 12-hour Beatles documentary.
``It will be on your TV screen in November,'' said Starr. ``But you're only going to get four to five hours of it on ABC-TV. You'll have to go buy the darned home videos for the rest.''
What was it like working with the other Beatles again?
``It was great to get back with Paul and George, though we needed a couple of days to ease into it. But all the b.s. goes right out the window when you're working together again.''
The group also worked on six anthology discs that will come out gradually starting this fall. ``They show how we started to get the songs together,'' said Starr. ``Everything we did at the start was singles, but the anthologies show different takes of those singles. It was interesting to go back. We spent several days at Abbey Road [studio] going through this stuff. We'd find an alternate version of `Love Me Do' and go, `Wow, did we do it like that? Why didn't we put that version out?' We didn't because we were looking for singles and some were more like album versions. We'd do four or five takes and a lot of times just three or four takes. And they were all live.''
Starr was likewise pleased with last fall's release of the double-CD, ``Live at the BBC,'' taken from Beatles radio appearances in the early '60s.
``Back then, we were like a lot of bands starting out today,'' he said. ``We were mainly a cover band. Then the whole Lennon-McCartney thing evolved.''
by CNB