Time Takes Time (1992)
1. Weight of the World 2. Don't Know a Thing (About Love) 3. Don't Go Where the Road Don't Go 4. Golden Blunders 5. All in the Name of Love 6. After All These Years 7. I Don't Believe You 8. Runaways 9. In a Heartbeat 10.What Goes Around
A comeback album in many ways. First, this was one of the very best albums that Ringo ever put out (more on that later). Also, apart from a Joe Walsh produced album called Old Wave that wasn't even released in the U.S., he hadn't recorded nor released anything in over a decade. He did fill in some of the gaps touring around with various incarnations of what he would call his "All-Starr" band, but the personnel changed so frequently that it became nothing more to view as anything more than a passing novelty. Then, Ringo also confessed that he spent much of the eighties as an alcoholic. Fortunately, he now seemed to be conquering the disease.
The "magic formula", it seemed, for a successful Ringo album back in the day was to load up the album with guest stars that would help write and play on several tracks. This was always acceptable since Ringo was never ever expected to carry an album by himself. Usually his guest stars would include some, if not all of his former Beatle mates. The odd thing is that there are no ex-Beatles contributing to this record, yet this sounds very "Beatle-ish' indeed - which is probably why it resonates so strongly. He does have four different producers on the album and has members of Jellyfish and The Poises helping out instead. Those two groups may lead you to believe that he's trying for a "new" sound, but those artists always seemed to make their living by capturing more of the retro feel from the mid to late sixties, so maybe Ringo was consciously making a sly move here.
The record can come across as a bit jumpy when there are that many producers and different musicians. Had he kept this same idea and stayed with maybe one producer, the record may have possibly reached "legend" status. Take the two Jeff Lynne produced songs Don't Go Where the Road Don't Go and After All These Years for example. These have Jeff Lynne teeth marks all over the production, and since Lynne was helping extend and propel so many careers with his production (including band mates Harrison, McCartney, and even the new songs for The Beatles Anthology project), he's a great fit for the record. You almost wish Lynne would have produced the whole thing. To be fair, the songs sound maybe a tad too Jeff Lynne, meaning almost anyone could have performed the songs and they would have sounded the same, but Ringo is listed as a co-author on both tracks, so maybe it was truly a "partnership".
Most everything else here has that simple, innocent mid-sixties Beatle feel about it. So many of the tracks sound like they were written by Paul McCartney, that I would have bet money the first time I heard the songs that he was, in fact, involved (he wasn't). There are a couple of dry spots, but overall this is the record that you really wanted from Ringo Starr, and you had to be happy for the lovable guy that he was able to create something so new yet so nostalgic.