Lean, athletic, a full head of black hair and beard and the obligatory sunglasses. Ringo Start exudes a classic, timeless coolness like few others do. You just can't believe that the ex-Beatles drummer is 84 years old.

The legendary drummer has teamed up with country producer and songwriter T Bone Burnett for first LP in six years - and he is even heading to Nashville next week.

"We met Johnny Cash on the last gig the Beatles did, in San Francisco," Ringo Starr says today. "That was the last time we did gigs, and Johnny was there to see us off." Starr, 84, remembers it vividly,

Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings and Alison Krauss are among the guests on Starr's T Bone Burnett-produced country set.

Occasionally knock out an album using a relatively limited vocabulary and 3.5 of the best chords on god’s green earth? You and Ringo Starr both. That’s what’s abundantly clear from his 20th – yes, 20th – solo album,

The band’s former drummer is releasing a country album at the age of 84. ‘If a country act was going around England, they always went to Liverpool. Sister Rosetta Thorpe blew me away,’ he tells EL PAÍ

Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier,

When the Beatles fell apart in 1970, Ringo took refuge in his boyhood country dreams, for the underrated solo album Beaucoups of Blues. He flew out to Nashville to bang out a three-day quickie with pedal-steel master Pete Drake and a crew of Music Row session cats.

Ringo Starr seems to have been slowing down for decades. Yet, when he does push the boat out, he invariably sets sail for unchartered waters. Look Up finds him produced by hipster T.Bone Burnett, who wrote or co-wrote nine of these 11 songs.