Ringo Starr – Bamboula: Track Premiere

RINGO STARR PREMIERES BAMBOULA, a standout track from his new album Postcards From Paradise, exclusively on MOJO. It’s an extrovert package, with accordion, Rhodes and brass conjuring a Pan-American street party vibe, and an exotic groove concocted in consort with another MOJO favourite, arranger lyricist Van Dyke Parks. Listen to the track now, and read more below...

Parks and Starr have collaborated before – on Samba on Ringo 2012 and Walk With You on 2010’s Y Not. The pair wrote Bamboula in a couple of days over spring 2014, as Ringo explains...

“We’re trying to create the impression of a marching band.”

Ringo Starr

“Van Dyke Parks is an old friend of mine. Harry Nilsson introduced us way back in the ’70s. This one started with my British version of New Orleans music. I just did this drum pattern, and Van Dyke mentioned the bamboula was the drum that Africans were playing 200 years ago, so that’s how we came to the title. When I heard the final song, the attitude seemed more street, like a marching band. We’re trying to create the impression of a marching band coming, so I played every drum that I have in the studio, including three huge, hundred-year-old drums Joe [Walsh] sent me from Africa.”

The album, Postcards From Paradise, features contributions from an extraordinary shifting cast including Steve Lukather, Todd Rundgren, Gregg Rolie, Richard Page, Warren Ham, Gregg Bissonette, Joe Walsh, Benmont Tench, Dave Stewart, Ann Marie Simpson, Richard Marx, Amy Keys, Peter Frampton, Nathan East, and Glen Ballard.

On April 18, 2015 Ringo will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, where he will receive the Award for Musical Excellence.

For more information please visit: www.ringostarr.com

Postcards From Paradise is available from March 30.

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PHOTO: Rob Shanahan