New "Rewind Forward" EP Reunites Ringo Starr with Paul McCartney & a Lennon or Two!

The songs are pretty good, too! They should start a band.

It’s hard to believe (and even harder to imagine a time one could call “pre-Beatles”), but Ringo Starr (now 83) was actually a fan of The Beatles before he even was one! If it all could fit, his 1960 bass drum would have printed on it, “Rory Storm and the Hurricanes,” one of the top bands in Liverpool.

He first saw The Beatles that year as both were booked into the same cold, damp Hamburg basements for their frequent respective gigs.

According to Rob Tannenbaum in the December 2023/January 2024 AARP The Magazine, “when he was offered the drum chair in The Beatles, he accepted immediately, even though he was joining a less successful band”!

Being 1/4 of the band that single-handedly altered the musical landscape while also whelping the phrase (and the very notion of) “pop culture” has certainly turned out well for the one we call Ringo. One wonders how the seismic cultural earthquake would’ve diminished had he said “no.”

📸Peter Yang

The Birth of “Rewind Forward”

More from Ringo (and Tannenbaum’s interview): “One of my producers said, ‘We need a song with ‘rewind’ in it.’ ‘Rewind’ is a great word, but I don’t want to be in the past, so out of nowhere, I said “rewind forward.” My mouth is faster than my brain. All my life, strange things like that have come out, like the phrase, ‘hard day’s night.’

“There were rumors John Lennon used to follow me around with his pen and pencil, waiting to hear what I’d say next. I said, ‘This is all people will talk about. They’ll keep asking me what it means.’ And it means that you rewind to a space that was happy, and then you go forward. Which makes perfect sense now. [Laughs.]”

Also on the song, “Rewind Forward” (co-written by Ringo and producer/engineer, Bruce Sugar, who also plays keyboards), are Kipp Lennon and his cousin, Marky Lennon, making for an improbable and no less coincidental merging of consequential surnames. Kipp and Mark provide background vocals on the song, with Matt Bissonette handling bass. Joe Walsh and Steve Dudas play guitar.

In a bizarre mix of show biz connections, Kipp (born in 1960) is at once the youngest brother of The Lawrence Welk Show’s venerable Lennon Sisters warbling quartet, a current member of ‘70s prog/pop band, Ambrosia, as well as holding down the lead singing chores for folk rock band, Venice (named after the L.A. county beach city in which Kipp was born)!

Cousin Mark (born in ‘63) joins Kipp in Venice (the band, not so much the town). From 2010 to 2013, both Kipp and Mark provided backing vocals for the touring company of Roger Waters’ The Wall Live Tour.

The EP’s lead song, “Shadows on the Wall,” was written by Joseph Williams (Toto lead singer, 1986-’88, and since 2010, and film composer, John Williams’ son…he handles background vocals here), longtime Toto guitarist, Steve Lukather on guitar, and Ray Williams (“The man who handed me the envelope of Bernie Taupin’s lyrics that changed the course of my life forever.” – Elton John).

Paul McCartney has “Feeling the Sunlight” on the 4-song EP, a track he also produced. Ringo dishes: “Paul and I were in England, having dinner together [along with our wives]. I told him I was making an EP, and I said, ‘Why don’t you write me a song?’ He wrote the song and put bass on it, he put piano, he put the drums on — and I had to take the drums off. [Laughs.]”

Indeed, Ringo takes care of drums, percussion, and sings lead. Along with writing and producing the song, Paul also contributes guitar, zither, and backing vocals!

Tannenbaum: “Paul and John wrote ‘With a Little Help From My Friends,’ the song that always ends All Starr Band concerts, and they customized it for your voice and personality. You couldn’t have sung ‘Helter Skelter’ or ‘Blackbird.’

Ringo: “No, I couldn’t. John wrote several songs for me over the years, and George, too. I used to be a rock drummer, and then they ruined my whole career. [Laughs.] ‘With a Little Help’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’ are the reasons I’m onstage every night.”

Tannenbaum: “It’s a pretty big act of love to write someone a song.”

Ringo: “Yeah, they know me. Paul loves me as much as I love him. He’s the brother I never had. As an only child, suddenly I got three brothers. We looked out for each other. We all went mad at different times. You can’t imagine what it was like, being in the Beatles. It got bigger and crazier.

“We were playing clubs, and then we made a record, ‘Love Me Do.’ My God, there’s nothing bigger than that, our first vinyl. We found out the BBC was going to play ‘Love Me Do’ at 2:17, or whatever time it was, and we pulled the car over. ‘Wow! We’re on the radio, man!’”

“Miss Jean” caps off the EP (Ringo’s 4th in a series since the start of the 2020s), and it features Lance Morrison on bass, former Heartbreakers Mike Campbell (who wrote the song, and plays guitar with backing vocals) and Benmont Tench (piano). In 1964, an 11-year-old Tench first met Tom Petty at a Gainesville (FL) music store, with The Beatles as their shared musical appreciation!

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic.com calls “Miss Jean” “a jangly garage rocker that would’ve felt at home on a latter-day Tom Petty record. The rest of Rewind Forward is pleasant, but ‘Miss Jean’ is the best rocker Ringo has cooked up in quite a while.”

Tannenbaum: “February 9, 2024, will be the 60th anniversary of the Beatles’ momentous appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. What do you remember?”

Ringo: “Wow, 60 years. I can’t tell you how incredible it was. All the music I loved came from America: country, blues, probably half the records I bought were Motown. It was always American music, and 60 years later, I’m still here talking about it.

“Ed Sullivan was at the airport in London when we came back from a tour of Sweden. He didn’t know who we were, but when he saw the reaction of the crowd, he booked us. By the time we got to America, we had a single [“I Want to Hold Your Hand”] that was #1. Everything just worked out for the Beatles.

“I was 22 when I joined the Beatles in 1962, and I was 30 when it was all over. We did eight years, and look at how much we packed in. We loved to work — well, Paul loved to work more than all of us. John and I would be hanging out in the garden and the phone would ring. We were psychic — we knew it was him. ‘Hey, lads, should we go into the studio?’ Otherwise, we’d have put out three albums and then vanished.”