Ringo, the "lovable" Beatle, rocks on

As he embarks on his 10th and latest tour with his "All Starr" band, former Beatle Ringo Starr is well rehearsed and ready to rock.

At 68, the world's most famous drummer is hitting 31 cities in the United States and Canada, including Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville on Saturday. As he typically does on tour, he is filling the shows with hits, many of them songs that he originally sang with the Beatles, as well as his solo smashes, while sharing the spotlight with other members of the All Starrs including Edgar Winter, Billy Squier, Colin Hay and others.

During a candid interview, he talked about the tour, his music, his computer artwork and the never-ending issues pertaining to delays in the audio restoration of the Beatles' back catalog.

Starr is charming, amiable and forever "the lovable one" from the Fab Four, but he did get into some hot water earlier this year with remarks pertaining to his native city of Liverpool, England. It was especially ironic because he named his new album "Liverpool 8," and sang about his love for the city of his birth on the title song.

But in January, on a televised British interview show on the BBC with Jonathan Ross, Starr was asked if he missed Liverpool. He answered, "No" (although his full answer was much more detailed), infuriating a small but vocal group of the city's inhabitants.

"There's family there that I love, you miss that. But I've been away a long time, so it's not like I want to go back and live in the neighborhood. So that's what I was sort of saying. That was my 'no' answer to his question."

In further saluting Liverpool, Starr plans to do the song "Liverpool 8" on the new tour along with more familiar hits such as "Yellow Submarine," "With a Little Help From My Friends," "Photograph" and his tribute to the late Beatles' guitarist George Harrison, "Never Without You."

Besides the tour and the new album, Starr is also releasing a DVD, "Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band," which, according to Starr's representatives, was filmed in 2006 at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut.

Like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Starr has dabbled in art. Since the late 1990s, he's worked on some distinctive computer-art projects. He's just released a limited edition of his book "Painting Is My Madness," a play off his old song "Drumming Is My Madness." The book features 40 reproductions of his artwork as well as personal photos courtesy of his wife, actress Barbara Bach.

Despite all his activities, Starr's biggest project remains running one of the entertainment industry's biggest companies, the Beatles. They may have broken up in 1970, but the band still rakes in millions of dollars each year and is constantly engaged in new endeavors like the highly successful collaboration with Cirque du Soleil on the Las Vegas production of "Love," and the reissue of the Fab Four's 1965 film "Help!" (which airs at 10 tonight on the Sundance Channel).

Still, some of the band's most devoted followers have found fault with the way the group's revered back catalog has been handled. With only a few exceptions (such as the stunning "Love" soundtrack), the Beatles' classic catalog of albums has not been upgraded in terms of audio quality, packaging, bonus tracks or liner notes since they were issued on CDs in the late 1980s.

"We're talking to people and we're hoping that it will all soon be downloadable, but business is business," Starr said. "The only thing stopping us now from downloading the Beatles' catalog is the deal."

Deal or no deal, Starr remains the real deal, and his summer tour offers a relatively rare chance to hear one of the two surviving members of the Beatles, on stage, performing the songs that defined a generation. As McCartney and Starr grow older, those opportunities are growing rarer, and this is a fun family show not to be missed.