Portrait Label Drops Ringo Starr (1981)

 

I wondered what had happened in 1981 with Ringo's "Can't Fight Lightning" record.  During his press appearances for Caveman, he was also promoting this new album and then suddenly you stopped hearing him talk about it for a while.   What happened?   This article sort of clears that up -- and the album was released under the name "Stop and Smell the Roses" later in 1981.

Portrait Label Drops Ringo Starr; Album Distribution Plan Blamed

By Christopher Connelly (Rolling Stone affiliate)

May 13, 1981 

    Ringo Starr's latest album, Can't Fight Lightning, apparently, won't be thundering into record stores for some time to come. Starr's label, Portrait Records, has dropped the former Beatle from its roster after being unable to concoct an international distribution deal for the LP, according to Portrait vice president and general manager Lenny Petze. 

     "We let him go to make him happy," Petze said. "I'm very disappointed, because I think it's a tremendous album, but without a worldwide deal, the export problem would have been tremendous. In other words, people would only have been able to buy the album in Europe from U.S. dealers who would be exporting it. That would be disastrous for Ringo. He would lose a lot of sales over there without a label. We didn't want to cause him any problems, so we decided to let him go."

     Ringo Starr's lawyer Bruce Graykal would not comment, but a close associate of Ringo's, Peter Silbermann, disputes that assertion. "To my knowledge, that's absolutely not true," says Silbermann, who declined to say precisely what it was in Petze's account that he considered inaccurate. "It's such a sticky thing. I just can't go into it at this time."

     It would seem that the album's worldwide distribution could have been handled by CBS International, with which Portrait is affiliated, but Petze says that it wasn't. "They weren't interested at this time", says CBS International spokesman Julian Shapiro. "If he was offered here and we didn't sign him, it's got to be the same reason we don't sign anybody. It's a cost versus the expectation of sales basis." Indeed, whatever his personality, Starr's records have not sold especially well in the past. (With the exceptions of two gold albums, Ringo and Goodnight Vienna).

     Meanwhile, Ringo took a break from his busy schedule late last month to tie the knot with his longtime girlfriend, American actress Barbara Bach. The ceremony was performed on April 27 in London's Marylebone registry office, with hundreds of fans gathered outside hoping to catch a glimpse of the couple.