| Old Wave | ||||
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| Studio album by Ringo Starr | ||||
| Released | 16 June 1983 | |||
| Recorded | March - August 1982 | |||
| Genre | Rock and roll | |||
| Length | 36:56 | |||
| Label | Bellaphon/RCA | |||
| Producer | Joe Walsh | |||
| Ringo Starr chronology | ||||
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Old Wave is the ninth studio album by Ringo Starr, released in 1983 as the follow-up to 1981's Stop and Smell the Roses.
In early 1982, Starr was eager to move on to his next project. Deciding that he needed more consistency this time around, he would work with only one producer, Joe Walsh, a former member of the recently disbanded Eagles. Walsh and Starr had known each other since the mid-1970s, having met and befriended each other in Los Angeles. Walsh immediately agreed to work with Starr and they met in February to begin writing material.
After John Lennon's murder, Starr no longer felt safe in the US and returned home to England to live at Tittenhurst Park, which Starr purchased from Lennon in 1973. Having converted Lennon's recording studio into Startling Studios, Starr would record his new album there.
Beginning in March, Starr was joined not only by Walsh, but Gary Brooker (formerly of Procol Harum), The Who's John Entwistle, Ray Cooper and Eric Clapton on one track. With none of his usual celebrity mates helping out, this was largely a Starr/Walsh album and the spotlight would be mostly on them. The album's titling of Old Wave is a play on New Wave. The cover of the album features a (colorized) black-and-white photo of Starr in his pre-Beatles days.
Recording of the album went smoothly and was completed by summer. As Starr's RCA Records contract had been cancelled, he needed to find a new label for Old Wave. Though it was just over a decade after The Beatles' dissolution, no major UK or US record company was interested in signing him. Starr would not accept that and was determined to have Old Wave released any way he could. RCA Records ended up distributing the album in June 1983 in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Holland (which imported German copies and attached a Dutch sticker), Mexico, and Brazil; while in Germany, the album and lone single pulled from it appeared on the Bellaphon label. In Mexico, "She's About a Mover" b/w "I Keep Forgettin'" was released as a single. However, Old Wave failed to achieve success in any of these territories, and would be Starr's last studio album until 1992's Time Takes Time.
The only 45 pulled from the LP was in Germany: "In My Car/As Far As We Can Go". Walsh's 1987 album Got Any Gum? included a cover of "In My Car", which was released as a single and became a moderate hit.
Old Wave was reissued on CD in the US by Capitol Records in 1994 with the original 1978 recording of "As Far As We Can Go" as a bonus track, but was deleted some years later.
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| Allmusic | link |
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