ARTIST: Ringo Starr
TITLE: Choose Love
LABEL: Koch
GENRE: Rock
BITRATE: 230kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 44min total
RELEASE DATE: 2005-06-07
RIP DATE: 2005-06-06

Track List

01. Fading In Fading Out            3:57
02. Give Me Back The Beat           3:54
03. Oh My Lord                      5:32
04. Hard To Be True                 3:27
05. Some People                     3:18
06. Wrong All The Time              3:39
07. Don't Hang Up                   3:27
08. Choose Love                     3:07
09. Me And You                      2:15
10. Satisfied                       3:19
11. The Turnaround                  3:54
12. Free Drinks                     4:47

Release Notes:

"'The Long And Winding Road' is more than a song," Ringo Starr sings
on the title track of his latest album "Choose Love." And one of the
most remarkable things about "Choose Love" is that this far down that
long and winding road, Ringo Starr has never sounded more excited and
engaged by the music he's making and the message of love that it spreads.

"Choose Love" is full of inspired songs of innocence and experience --
the heartfelt and heartening work of someone who's lived a little and
learned a lot. This is rousing, rough and ready rock & roll that lovingly
embraces the past, but has its eye very much on our shared future. And it's
an album first and foremost about the best choice any of us have -- Love.

"What other choice is there?" Starr asks as he sits at home with Mark Hudson.
Hudson is one of his key fellow travelers in the journey of the Roundheads,
the loose but tight combo of collaborators -- Hudson, Steve Dudas, Gary Burr
and auxiliary Roundhead Jim Cox -- who have worked with Ringo on his recent
run of winning albums. For Starr, love is a theme of profound and enduring
importance. "From the beginning, the Beatles were saying 'I Wanna Hold Your
Hand' and 'Love Me Do.' It was all about love and that's still the most
powerful message. If you look at the overall picture, the Beatles were about
love and what better subject is there really?"

Having lost his way somewhere in the first half of the Seventies, Ringo Starr
eventually found love with his wife Barbara and found his way back to his
love of music at the start of the Nineties. And now with the Roundheads,
he has rediscovered his rightful place in the world. "I am a band member,"
he declares. "That's who I am. That's who I want to be. It takes a band --
even more than it takes a village -- to make music like this. By now, we feel
like we know each other's minds, we know where we're going. It takes time --
time takes time. The good news is that we've been making records together a
while now, and I'm proud if this album shows growth and progress in terms of
playing like a band."

"That's what we are -- a well-to-do garage band," says Ringo Starr with a grin.

"Speak for yourself," Mark Hudson says with a laugh.

Though the new album features a few guests, notably Chrissie Hynde on "Don't
Hang Up," roots guitarist Robert Randolph on "Fading In, Fading Out" and "Oh My
Lord," and Billy Preston on "Oh My Lord," Ringo and the Roundheads are once again
at the beating heart of "Choose Love."

"Every time before we start a new album we sit down and think, okay what do we do
now? On the last album, 'RingoRama,' we decided to feature the drums -- the drumming
on that album is unbelievable. Ringo was literally the driving force on that album.
This time Ringo wanted to go the other way. He said, 'I want it to sound like a band,
a little more down and dirty and guitar-driven.' And as soon as we got on that page,
we started writing that way as well."

"This has been a joy in my life working with the guys," Ringo Starr says. "You can
have fun and you can even have that bad day with each other and it's not held against
you. So you have the freedom to be who you are and still be together. It's been a
remarkable run already, but ten years from now it will be all blues because that will
be the only speed I'll be able to play."

Until then, Ringo Starr is proud to spread his own good word. "You have to get a lot
of experience to get to the point where you can say 'Choose Love' in an honest way,"
he says. "Life is filled with ups and downs, but in the end it's best filled with
love -- that's my conclusion. That it's the best choice any of us have."