• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 10, 2025

The headliner is an 84-year-old 1960s rock star, but a new music special Monday night is not a PBS pledge drive special aimed at old fogies.

How could it be when the star of the show is Ringo Starr, forever-young Beatle and solo recording artist and concert performer for more than 50 years?

This two-hour concert special, title “Ringo & Friends at the Ryman,” is on CBS starting at 8 p.m. Eastern. All efforts seem to have been made to include younger artists in collaboration with Ringo at two nights of performances at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in January.

The concerts have been shaped and edited for the special, which will also feature veteran music stars Emmylou Harris, 77, Brenda Lee, one-time Little Miss Dynamite, 80, Dolly Parton, 79, and of course, Paul McCartney, 82.

The Nashville setting reflects Ringo’s recent return to country music with a new country album, “Look Up.” 

Released in January, the album features new country songs written principally by T Bone Burnett with Ringo in mind.

Starr, the one-time drummer for the Beatles, has long had special affection for country music. 

With the Beatles, he covered two Carl Perkins rockabilly hits, “Honey Don’t” and “Matchbox,” and the Buck Owens country hit, “Act Naturally.” He previously released a country album in 1970 after the Beatles broke up -- “Beaucoups of Blues.”

A CBS press release did not list any of the songs included in the two-hour concert special, but online coverage of the concerts by music journalists who were there provides various set lists. Please note that some of the songs cited might not be in the special.

The concerts were styled as a tribute to Ringo. For many of the tribute performances, Ringo was offstage.

For example, Ringo joined Jack White onstage to sing “Matchbox,” but White soloed on the Beatles song “Don’t Pass Me By,” which was sung by Ringo on the Beatles’ White Album.

Bluegrass star Billy Strings performed “Honey Don’t” without Ringo. Also performing without Ringo was bluegrass banjo player Molly Tuttle on “Octopus’s Garden.”

Other Beatles songs covered in the Ryman concert, according to an online set list, were “I Wanna Be Your Man,” “What Goes On,” “Yellow Submarine” and “With a Little Help From My Friends,” which featured all of the concert participants onstage to sing the song from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” that was originally sung by Ringo.

The performance of the song was aimed at Los Angeles residents still recovering from the catastrophic wildfires. Proceeds from the concerts and the TV special are going to the American Red Cross.

Two Ringo solo hits are on the set lists -- “It Don’t Come Easy” and “Photograph.” Also of interest: Ringo joining Sheryl Crow, country rock duo Larkin Poe and Molly Tuttle to sing the old Shirelles song “Boys,” covered by the Beatles in 1963 and sung by Ringo.

Sounds like a great night. There will be commercials, of course, but no pledge breaks. Plus, who doesn’t love Ringo Starr?