By JUD COST

"Now here's Ringo, all nervous and out-of-tune, to sing for you," smirked John Lennon as he introduced a lead-vocal spot for the Beatles' drummer during a live show back in their moptop heyday. And that's pretty much what you still get—minus the nervous part and most of the hair. Looking like he's been doing this for well over 40 years, a supremely confident and wisecracking Ringo Starr, fronting the current version of his All-Starr Band, treated a sold-out crowd at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, Calif. to just enough Beatles magic—with just enough attention paid to vocal intonation—to send everyone home happy.

It would have been a real treat if Starr had cut loose with a few insider's Beatles anecdotes in between songs, a la Ray Davies' spellbinding Storyteller tour of several years ago. Oddly enough, Starr never mentioned the "B" word all night, although he did tease the crowd once with a reference to "the band I used to be in... Rory Storm & the Hurricanes" (his pre-Fab Four Liverpool combo).

More frantic than the original version by girl group the Shirelles, "Boys" was the first of a handful of Ringo-sung tunes cut by the Beatles sprinkled judiciously throughout the set tonight. Though serving well as Beatle surrogates for Starr's solo bits—both behind the drums and stage-front—the All-Starr Band were pretty underwhelming for their own spotlight numbers, more a commentary on the lack of exciting material than anything else. When Men At Work's Colin Hay and Texas blues-rock keyboard/sax player Edgar Winter are the best of the lot, we're down to seeds and stems.

Flailing about like he was auditioning to partner the Elaine Benes character from Seinfeld during her infamous thumbs-up dance routine, Hay gave a perfunctory reading of "Down Under" and "Who Can It Be Now?" the Australian group's only memorable tunes. Winter defiled the beautifully refurbished Mountain Winery by slinging a keyboard guitar, as ugly as it is clumsy, over his shoulder for a loosely-stitched run-through of "Frankenstein."

The remaining All-Starrs fared no better, with Gary Wright's soporific, post-Spooky Tooth double-play of "Dream Weaver" and "Love Is Alive" barely nosing out also-ran takes of "In the Dark" by guitarist Billy Squier and "Pick Up The Pieces," courtesy of Average White Band bassist Hamish Stuart.

Ringo Starr had no need for this tryptophan-laced, warm-up material to ignite the crowd for the rest of his Beatles repertoire. "I Wanna Be Your Man," a rollicking Lennon-McCartney tune that became the Rolling Stones' first top 20 U.K. hit in late 1963, sounded fine, as did a pair of sparkling 1965 honky tonk numbers that could tab the Beatles as the real headwaters of country-rock, if anyone cares. "Act Naturally" was also a C&W chart-topper by Buck Owens and His Buckaroos, while Starr claimed Lennon and McCartney forced him to co-write "What Goes On" for the Rubber Soul album. It was the only mention all night of his more heralded former bandmates. George Harrison, on the other hand, was showered with love on a Starr-penned tribute called "Never Without You."

Of course, everyone was really only there to bask in the warm glow of the loveable former Beatle leading heartfelt, sing-along versions of "Yellow Submarine" and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band landmark "A Little Help From My Friends," a song whose opening lyrics sum up the Ringo Starr oeuvre very nicely: "What would you think if I sang out of tune/Would you stand up and walk out on me?"

Well, stand up they did, but walk out before the last resounding chorus of "Give Peace A Chance" had reverberated from the surrounding hilltops? Never!