Ringo Starr will release his latest album called Y Not on January 12th, with the obvious highlight being his first-ever duet with Paul McCartney on the track "Walk With You." Among the other notable guests on the album are Ringo's brother-in-law Joe Walsh, Gary Wright, Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Van Dyke Parks, Don Was, Joss Stone, Richard Marx, Ben Harper, Glen Ballard, and Roundheads guitarist Gary Burr, among others.

Starr wrote about teaming up with McCartney on his official website (ringostarr.com) saying, "Paul was doing the Grammys, so he came over to the house and was playing bass on 'Peace Dream.' So I played him this other track and Paul said, 'Give me the headphones. Give me a pair of cans.' And he went to the mike and he just invented that part where he follows on my vocal. That was all Paul McCartney, and there could be nothing better. He makes it bigger and he makes it fuller. It makes the song like a conversation between us, and that was Paul's idea to do his part one beat behind me. That's why he's a gen-i-us and an incredible bass player."

The McCartney-Starr collaboration "Walk With You" was written with Brian Wilson's legendary Smile collaborator Van Dyke Parks.

He went on to explain that from here on out, it will be him that makes the final decisions on his future albums: "I was the least involved in the production of the Beatles records. And then with my solo records, I worked with some other great producers like Richard Perry, Arif Mardin, and Don Was. So it just seemed like that's the way that it goes. Then suddenly, it's another point in your life, and you say, 'I'm going do this now.' So I'll be producing anything I make from now on. That's the good news. It's a confidence thing, I suppose. And Y Not is really another way of me saying, 'Yes, I can.'

The album's opening number called "Fill In The Blanks" is written, played and sung by only Starr and Walsh.

He'll once again touch upon his Liverpool roots with "The Other Side Of Liverpool," which is being described as "a revealing autobiographical song that explores Starr's earliest and darkest days."

Starr explained: "People believe I was born, was a Beatle and lived in a big house. And where I come from was a very dark, damp, violent neighborhood. I wanted to write another little snapshot of my life, and I'm going to do this every album. It's better for me than doing it in a book. In two lines I can say what would take five pages. Like the song says, 'The other side of Liverpool is cold and damp/Only way out of there/drums, guitar and amp.'"

He says that he'll always have a hometown tradition to thank for giving him his legendary stage name: "Where I come from, in Liverpool, people get nicknames. And I was wearing a lot of rings. And first of all, they started calling me 'Rings.' And then when we went to Butlins Holiday Camp, we changed our names, we all took cowboy names, and I thought 'Ringo Starkey' wasn't quite cowboy enough, so I started calling myself 'Ringo Starr.' And I've been Ringo ever since."

Starr says he got an unexpected vote of confidence when he played the album for oldest son and Who drummer Zak Starkey: "I just played it for my son Zak. And Zak was so great. He said, 'Dad, it's great. This rocks! You should have been doing this forever.' It's nice coming from your boy, especially since he's a really good drummer."

Ringo Starr's Y Not is his album first on the Hip-O Records/UMe label.