The recording for Sentimental Journey was initially sporadic, as Starr was involved in other musical activities through to the end of 1969. He thought the variety would add an element of interest to the project. They were the first musical influences on me." He decided to have each song arranged by a different musician – ranging from his London associates Martin, Paul McCartney, Klaus Voormann and Maurice Gibb, to American arrangers and producers such as Richard Perry, Quincy Jones and Elmer Bernstein. Starr explained their appeal in a 1990 interview: "I was brought up with all those songs, you know, my family used to sing those songs, my mother and my dad, my aunties and uncles. The material Starr selected included works from the big band era and songs well known through recordings by Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Fats Waller and Matt Munro. Starr compiled a list of the songs he wished to record, and Martin and Beatles aide Neil Aspinall contacted the musical arrangers. It was quite a dramatic period for me – or traumatic, actually." He asked Beatles producer George Martin to produce the album. Starr described his mindset at the time: "I sat in the garden for a while wondering what the hell to do with my life. Starr committed to the project in order to keep active following John Lennon's unpublicised decision in September 1969 to leave the Beatles, signalling that the group were effectively no more. The tapes from the Beatles' January 1969 Get Back film project captured Starr expressing a wish to make an album of standards. He first considered making a country music album, but then decided to record a collection of old standards that would reflect his mother's favourite songs. His mother Elsie Starkey and stepfather Harry Graves also supported the idea when Starr visited them at their Liverpool home. So I called George Martin and said, "Why don't we take a sentimental journey?" ĭespite his limited songwriting experience, Ringo Starr was encouraged to make a solo album by his Beatles bandmates. And I just thought of all those songs that I was brought up with, all the parties we'd had in Liverpool at our house and all the neighbours' houses. The album was a forerunner to standards collections by artists such as Harry Nilsson and Linda Ronstadt, and to the vogue from the late 1990s onwards for rock artists such as Bryan Ferry, Rod Stewart and Boz Scaggs to embrace big band music. Despite receiving mixed reviews from music critics and confusing Beatles fans through its choice of music, Sentimental Journey charted inside the top ten in the United Kingdom and peaked at number 22 on the Billboard Top LPs chart in the United States. The album's impact was compromised by Paul McCartney's refusal to delay the release of his solo debut, McCartney, and by McCartney then publicly announcing the group's break-up. The cover of the album shows Starr in front of a pub in the Dingle area of Liverpool, where he grew up. Starr made a promotional film for the song " Sentimental Journey", in which he performed with an orchestra and dancers at the Talk of the Town nightclub. He recruited George Martin to produce the sessions and used different musical arrangers for each song. Starr began recording Sentimental Journey in London in October 1969, in response to Lennon's private announcement that he was leaving the Beatles. As a departure from the experimental quality that had characterised solo LPs by George Harrison and John Lennon since 1968, it was the first studio album by an individual Beatle to embrace a popular music form. The album is a collection of pre-rock 'n' roll standards that Starr recalled from his childhood in Liverpool. It was released by Apple Records in March 1970 as the Beatles were breaking up. ![]() Sentimental Journey is the debut solo album by English rock musician Ringo Starr. EMI, Olympic, Wessex Sound, De Lane Lea, Trident and Morgan, London A&M, Los Angeles
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