Ringo Starr Uncovers His Past in Two New Projects

Even though he turned 73 in July, Ringo Starr is showing no signs of slowing down. In addition to a recently published photo book titled 'Photograph,' the onetime Beatles drummer wrapped a tour with his band, became the focus of a Grammy Museum exhibit and has a special cartoon appearance on the way.

Starr recently told  Rock Cellar Magazine that he's never had much interest in penning a typical autobiography, which is why he assembled the photo book from childhood photos, as well as pics from his Beatles days.

"I’ve been asked to do the autobiography, but I have no real interest, and I haven’t had an interest in doing that for 20 years now," he said. "Then last year when we started looking at what I have and we started archiving, surprise surprise, I did find all these old photographs, and I also found two books of negatives, which just blew me away. So I thought, I’m gonna do a book this way. I’ll put a selection of the photographs from when I was 1 years old, which is the first picture in the book, up through my early days growing up in Liverpool and through the Beatles and my solo career, all the way up to the All-Starr Band."

The Grammy Museum exhibition focuses on more concrete items from Starr's career. As he told Rock Cellar, "We decided we would archive my stuff, then out of the blue, [the curator at the museum] asked to put together a meeting and said, 'Let’s have a Grammy Museum exhibit of Ringo.' So we did have to work a lot harder and a lot faster after he said that, because he had a date."

Starr said that both projects helped uncover his past. The exhibit, in particular, revealed things he had forgotten all about. "[Once] we stated looking, what we found was incredible," he said. "I’d had these two boxes from my mother. My mother died in ’86, and I put these two boxes away, and I did not open them until last year. It was like Aladdin’s cave."

His next project is voicing a character in a 'Powerpuff Girls' cartoon special airing on Cartoon Network on Jan. 20. He plays a "flamboyant mathematician."