LOS ANGELES — The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, as is his custom, took the occasion of his 83rd birthday to lead local friends in a chant of "peace and love" in a Beverly Hills park, while a worldwide audience of streaming Beatles fans looked on, admiring his youthful looks and demeanour and wondering if there's any way to have what he's having.
Brother-in-law Joe Walsh joined him for the event, as did their respective wives, sisters Barbara and Marjorie Bach, reports Variety. By coincidence, both Starr and Walsh have been a part of headline news stories in recent days -- the former because of a forthcoming Beatles single, the latter because of the announcement of an Eagles farewell tour.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]The two stars talked with press about those headlines, among other things, before the late-morning party got underway in earnest.
As Paul McCartney recently did, Starr took time out to say that a final Beatles single that is due to come out this year -- based on a John Lennon demo that McCartney, Starr and George Harrison considered making into a Beatles track in the '90s -- is not an AI-driven project, despite the advanced technology now being used to make the Fabs fully four again.
"It's not down to AI," Starr said, quoted by Variety.
"It's not like we're pretending anything. That is actually John's voice, Paul's voice and bass playing, George on rhythm guitar and me on drums. And the two things that are new are Paul's bass and me on drums... I really worked at it just months ago here. And it works. It's a beautiful song. You know, for all the madness going on around it, it's still a beautiful track. And our last track."
The "new" song was a third one that the three surviving Beatles had attempted in the '90s based on Lennon song scraps, as they were doing 'Free as a Bird' and 'Real Love' with producer Jeff Lynne for the 'Anthology' project.
Why revive it now? "I don’t know. Paul must've had a slow day," Starr quipped. "He says, 'You know that track we did? Do you want to work on that?'" Starr did, so McCartney sent him the files, "I drummed on it and I sang on it," and then Giles Martin flew to L.A. with McCartney to put strings on it. "It is moving, because the four of us are there, and there won't be ever again."
As per Variety, Starr is on a pause from his 2023 tour with his All Starr Band before it picks up again September 15 in Stateline, Nevada. The tour will swing through SoCal again with a September 17 show in Ontario, but he admitted nothing, in his mind will top the show, will top their June show at the Greek.
"I love the Greek," he said. "I always play the Greek in L.A. I feel at home there and I always have a good time, and the sound is great."
Starr has been doing these annual peace-and-love moments on his birthday since 2008. Now, 15 years later, he's probably the celebrity whose birthday is most publicised each and every year.