30 - Wednesday, June 17, 1992

- North Shore News

Ringo with a lot of |
help from his friends

TARR TAKES time to

make new music;
Mellow Man Ace is
back as the Babalu Bad Boy;
Stompin’ Tom saves the
country.

Ringo Starr — Time Takes
Time, Private Music/BMG
1992

The lovable old Beatlesque
substance abuser has seemingly
vanquished his demons. The first
Ringo studio product in clase toa
decade rings true with much good
feeling, autobiographical sharing
and is thick with catchy choruses.

Starr, as much as any Beatle, has
released more than his fair share
of unadutterated crap over the
past two decades. That much of it
has even been recorded and
released by major labels has
everything to do with his safe
place in pop’s pantheon.

Ringo, released in 1974, was his
best post-Beatles work. With a
simple drumming style and a
dodgy voice, Ringo falis or flies on
the strength of those he can pull
into the project.

Time Takes Time is arguably the
friendliest recording he’s put out
since 1974. Starr draws on the
sharp production talents of Don
Was, Phil Ramone, Jeff Lynne and
Peter Asher.

. All-Starr. musicians include Jeff
“Skunk’’ Baxter, Waddy

Wachtel, Harry Nilsson (yes he’s
still with us), Jellyfish and Benmont
Tench.

Ringo co-writes three tunes. The
Posies, a band that has taken some

Michael Becker
RECORD REVIEW

of the Beatles sound for itself, con-
tribute Golden Blunders, a great
song about how each and every
one of us eventually screws up
somewhere along the road.

In A Heartbeat is propelled by a
wonderfully sun-struck Beach
Boys-style five-part harmony ar-
ranged and ‘sung by Brian Wilson.

Ringo gets by with a lot of help
from his friends.

Mellow Man Ace — The
Brother With Two Tongues,
Capitol Records 1992

The Cubano B-Boy follows
1989's Escape From Havana with a
recording designed far the boom
car kids. Ultra-low frequency
metal-dissolving bass with a bit of
quick-tongued nasty language and
chest-inflating braggadocio is the
hip-hop formula the Mellow Man
has chosen to retreat to.

' Escape From Havana broke new
round for North American ears
¥ incorporating Latin rhythm and
L.A. Spanglish — Hispanic bilin-
gual rap.

The nimble tongue twists the
lingo, but the hip-hop grooves are
far less adventurous this time out.

“It was a Jover and his lass... .
Sweet lovers love the spring.”

&

. “.. Summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.”

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Stompin’ Tom — Believe in
Your Country, Capitel Records
1992

Oh Canada, the deep voice of
the people hath spoken and the
message is thus in this the 125th
year of our timorous nationhood:
“If you don’t believe your coun-
try should come before yourself,
you can better serve your country
by living somewhere else.”

Tom is stompin’ mad about
Canucks heading south, about
jobs being free-traded away and
about politicians dividing the land.

The title song says as much, and
in a country short on patriotism
and long on circuitous debate
Believe In Your Country simply

_ suggests that if we take the time to

look around us we just might find
something worth holding on to.
But the latest from craggy Tom is

* not all jingoism by any means.

It is a storied quilt of particulars.
There’s the song for his wife.
There is a song written in tribute to
his furnace man.

The opening track, fohnny
Maple, proposes a wedding be-
tween Anglo johnny and his
“lovely Fleur De Lis.”

RINGO GETS production help from Don Was, Phil Remone, Jeff
Lynne and Peter Asher on Time Takes Time. :

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