Ringo Starr is preparing to extend his late career love affair with country music, confirming that a new studio album is in development and pencilled in for release sometime in early 2026. The untitled project will again explore country and Americana territory and reunites the former Beatle with producer T Bone Burnett, the creative partnership that reshaped Starr’s recording direction with 2025’s Look Up.
Starr has completed his core recording work and is now navigating schedules around final production and label timelines. While no release date has been locked, February or March remains the most likely window, positioning the album as a direct continuation of the creative momentum that began last year.
The new record will once again see Starr working closely with Burnett, a producer whose résumé spans roots music, film soundtracks and heritage American songwriting. Burnett’s influence on Look Up was widely credited with giving Starr a grounded, authentic sound that aligned naturally with his long-standing affection for country music. That same sensibility is expected to guide the 2026 album.
Starr has also returned to songwriting with longtime collaborator Bruce Sugar, co-writing two new tracks for the project. Sugar has been a key behind-the-scenes figure in Starr’s studio output for more than a decade, helping translate ideas into finished recordings while preserving Starr’s unmistakable voice and rhythmic instincts.
One of the album’s most notable inclusions will be a cover of a lesser-known Carl Perkins song, described as more reflective and emotionally weighted than Perkins’ best-known hits. The choice is a deliberate nod to Starr’s earliest recorded work with The Beatles. During the band’s formative years, Starr took lead vocals on Perkins compositions including Matchbox and Honey Don’t, performances that highlighted both his affection for American roots music and his natural fit within it.
That connection stretches back even further. Long before country became fashionable within British rock, Starr was quietly championing the genre. His influence was felt on The Beatles’ Beatles For Sale era and in his own compositions such as Don’t Pass Me By and What Goes On, songs that carried unmistakable country inflections.
Starr’s first full immersion into the genre came in 1970 with Beaucoups Of Blues, recorded in Nashville with producer Pete Drake and an ensemble of local session musicians. Cut over just three days, the album marked a dramatic stylistic shift from his standards-based solo debut and placed him squarely inside the country tradition. While it puzzled some fans at the time, the album has since been reassessed as one of the most authentic solo statements by any former Beatle.
More than five decades later, Look Up functioned as both a return to that musical language and a modern recontextualisation of it. Released in January 2025, the album became Starr’s first full-length studio release since 2019 and his most cohesive genre statement in years. It demonstrated that his voice, phrasing and musical instincts still sit comfortably within country frameworks, particularly when paired with sympathetic production.
The forthcoming 2026 album is expected to build on that foundation rather than reinvent it. Fans can anticipate a collection of songs rooted in storytelling, melody and understated emotion, delivered with the warmth and clarity that have defined Starr’s recent work. Burnett’s production is likely to again favour organic instrumentation and restrained arrangements, allowing the material to breathe.
At this stage, no album title, artwork or tracklisting has been announced, and no touring plans have been confirmed in support of the release. Starr continues to balance studio work with commitments to his All Starr Band, making flexibility a key factor in final scheduling.
What is clear is that this project is not a novelty detour but a continuation of a musical conversation Starr began decades ago and has now fully embraced. As one of rock music’s most recognisable figures, he remains less interested in rewriting his past than in following instincts that have guided him since the earliest days of his career.
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