| Sentimental Journey | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Ringo Starr | ||||
| Released | 27 March 1970 | |||
| Recorded | 27 October 1969 - 13 March 1970 | |||
| Genre | Rock and roll, pop standards | |||
| Length | 34:03 | |||
| Label | Apple/EMI | |||
| Producer | George Martin | |||
| Ringo Starr chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Rolling Stone | (not rated)[2] |
| This table needs to be expanded using prose. See the guideline for more information. | |
Sentimental Journey is the first solo album by former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, released in 1970, as the band was splintering apart. Although Starr was the third member of the group to issue solo work (after George Harrison and John Lennon), Sentimental Journey is notable for being the first non-avant-garde studio album by a member of the band, in light of the experimental, soundtrack or live releases his aforementioned bandmates had already released. Paul McCartney's debut, McCartney, would follow three weeks after Sentimental Journey's release.
Sentimental Journey received fair reviews upon its release, although many critics found the idea of Starr covering standards a bit odd considering his musical background. His fame in the Beatles was all that was required, however, to get it all the way to #7 in the UK - with no single release to promote it - and #22 in the US. Although the style of the album took many by surprise, Starr's swift follow-up, Beaucoups of Blues, would be just as radical a stylistic shift.
The pub on the cover of the album is The Empress in Dingle, Liverpool, which is one of the nearest pubs to Ringo's place of birth. The superimposed figures in the windows of the pub are Ringo's relatives.
Sentimental Journey was remastered and reissued on CD in 1995.
Contents |
Beginning in October 1969, Starr engaged the services of Beatles producer George Martin to helm his solo debut. The idea was to create an album of standards that would reflect his parents' favourite songs, even asking them and other members of his family to choose the tracks. Starr had one song each arranged by different musicians, ranging from Martin himself, Paul McCartney, Maurice Gibb, Quincy Jones and old friend of the Beatles from Hamburg (and bassist with Manfred Mann) Klaus Voormann, as well as Elmer Bernstein among others. Although begun during the sessions, George Harrison's composition, "It Don't Come Easy", would appear as a single in 1971. Recording of the album was completed in March 1970, with Sentimental Journey being rushed out merely two weeks later in order to avoid clashing in the shops with the Beatles' impending final album Let It Be in May and McCartney, whose 17 April release date its maker flatly refused to delay after being asked to by the other members of the band.
Although it was extremely secret at the time of its release there were several important rock friends of the Beatles who worked on the album. Both Maurice Gibb and Klaus Voorman not only arranged a track each for the album but conducted those tracks as well. To date it is unknown who played the banjo on what is called 'Maurice Gibb's banjo-driven' "Bye Bye Blackbird", it might have been a session player but both Lennon and McCartney could play the banjo well (and Starr's song "Early 1970" makes a point that Lennon did play with him early in the year 1970). Additionally Beatle-friend Billy Preston played on Voorman's "I'm a Fool to Care", and either Voorman himself or George Harrison overdubbed a guitar onto the song a few hours after the main session (late at night), though the guitar is hard to detect due to a subsequent string overdub. Much easier to detect is a electric-bass overdub placed prominently on Elmer Bernstein's lighthearted American recording of "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?". This is the album's one concession to a song with a rock background as it had not only been recorded by country and big bands but also by the young Elvis Presley, as well as by Jerry Lee Lewis, Ricky Nelson, Eddy Cochran and apparently had been part of the early Quarrymen/Beatles repertoire. Ringo recorded vocal overdubs on this song on both Feb. 9 and 18, 1970 so it is quite likely that the bass overdub was done by Klaus Voorman (though it sounds much like McCartney's bass-playing). McCartney's credited contribution on the album is for the arrangement for "Stardust", but studio records clearly indicate that Martin wrote that song's arrangement (he invoiced and was paid for it by the studio). That suggests that McCartney's arrangement was on the previous day's recording of the (unreleased) song "Stormy Weather" for which the studio documentation clearly shows no credited arranger, but indicates a four man band (bass, guitar, drums and piano) plus a 14 man horn section (which drowns out the guitar and much of the bass guitar). It would be likely that McCartney would have played bass on the unreleased "Stormy Weather" just as he had done for the material released by Mary Hopkin and Jackie Lomax, and that George Harrison would've played guitar as well, but at present it remains unresolved).
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