The Smiley Smile Message Board

I haven't seen much talk on Beach Boys' boards about Ringo Starr which kind of surprises me.  I think his couple of 90's and 00's albums are very good albums which are always in heavy rotation in my life.  His last three, "Choose Love", "Ringorama", and "Vertical Man" are easily the best of his career and have so many hooks packed into each song its crazy and GREAT!!  Very similiar to Beach Boys and Beatles great tunes and the records sound tight and raw.  Try to track down his Ringorama CD with the bonus DVD.  Its a BLAST to see behind the scenes of recording the album and how much fun they have.  You can see clips of Van Dyke Parks recording  his layered accordion sound for one of the tunes.  As much as people were pleased with Brian Wilson's contribution to Neil Diamonds latest single, I thought people would really like Ringo's tunes recently which feature Brian's backup.  One is from the early ninties album, "Time Takes Time" and the song is "In A Heartbeat".  The other is from 1998's, "Vertical Man", and its called, "Without understanding".   These tunes are greatly complimented by Brian's Beach Boys style harmonies.  My favorite of his LP's is Ringorama, though, because songs like "I think, therefore, I rock 'n' roll" will never get out of your head!!! 

You're so true about this! I've always wondered the same thing; why has there never been talk on this tracks and collaboration on general? I truly love the harmonies Brian provides on said songs. Especially In A Heartbeat is a song that is taken to a higher level because of his singing. Brian didn't do the arrangement though, according to the cd liner notes.

There seems to be quite a bit of Beatle-Beach Boy-collaboration, beginning with "Vegetables" in '67. Ringo also played on the groups "California Calling" (see other thread). "A friend like you" is the last collaboration at this point I think. Am I wrong?