For some reason or other our Ringo Starr collection has grown exponentially over the last couple of weeks….

For a long time we’ve had an Australian pressing of his 1976 outing, Ringo’s Rotogravure: 

Below is the rear cover of the Australian pressing. US readers will note that the track listing for Side Two is five tracks instead of six. That’s because it is missing the short song, ‘Spooky Weirdness’: ‘Spooky Weirdness’ is however listed on the inner bag liner notes:

Like the rest of the world, this album came out housed in a gatefold sleeve. Here’s how it looks:

And here are the Australian labels. Note no ‘Spooky Weirdness’ listed on Side Two here either, and that the record company is different to the US release. The LP was issued Down Under on Polydor:

So anyway, we were picking around the bins at a favourite local second hand store when we randomly came across some variations of this LP.

First up was the aforementioned US pressing. It has the exact same front cover image, but there are few details on the rear cover that differ to the Australian: Note the Atlantic logo bottom left (above); a pink box at the bottom for the record company details/place of manufacture; and ‘Spooky Weirdness’ is listed on the track list for Side Two. The label is the famous green and red Atlantic Records too: Then, further into the bin, we noticed two more distinctly different pressings of this same title. First was a fairly rare budget edition that only ever came out in Australia. It was in really good condition and is on the now defunct Rainbow label. (You can find it listed on page 27 of this document):

The gatefold sleeve inside is printed in a much lighter blue to the original Australian and US releases:Because it’s a budget release there is no inner bag with the lyrics, but it is on a Rainbow Records label:Sitting just behind the Rainbow re-issue was an original New Zealand pressing of Rotogravure. Again, it has the exact same front cover image to the Australian and US pressings. Only the rear is a little different: And the labels (also on Polydor) mention “Made in New Zealand” – its in the small print at top left:

Lastly, a Canadian pressing of Ringo’s Bad Boy LP (from 1978) popped up in the bins as well.

As you can see, it’s a little beat up (writing on the cover; ‘cut out’ hole bottom left; foxing to the rear cover and inner bag from age, etc.), but worth grabbing at $5.00: 

So, not one – but four additions from the Ringo Starr back catalogue end up in our collection.

As usual, click on any of the images above to see larger versions.

More adventures in collecting Beatle records soon.