Ringo Starr Wins Bid to Block Album

Ex-Beatle Ringo Starr won a permanent injunction today, blocking the release of an album he recorded for a Georgia record producer while under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Clarence Cooper issued the injunction shortly before a trial on a suit over the album was to begin.

Starr was scheduled to be the first witness in the case. Dozens of fans crowded the second floor of the Fulton County Courthouse in the hope of catching a glimpse of the drummer and his wife, actress Barbara Bach.

There were to have been two questions to be resolved in the trial, one of which was how much money Starr will have to pay to keep the album from being marketed.

Starr’s attorney, Robert Fleming Jr., said attorneys for producer Chip Moman were asking for $146,000, the amount of money they claim to have spent to prepare the album for release. Fleming said Starr had wanted to pay no more than $80,000 in damages.

The trial also was to have resolved whether the producer can release two more albums recorded by Starr during sessions in Memphis, Tenn., in February and April, 1987.

Moman, the head of CRS Records in College Park, Ga., said he has enough material for two more albums, a claim disputed by Starr.

Starr does not want any material released from the recording sessions because he says the music is of poor quality. In depositions filed earlier, the ex-Beatle said he and Moman drank large quantities of alcohol and smoked marijuana during the recording sessions.

He said the alcohol and drugs had a negative effect on the quality of the recordings.

Starr said he spent five weeks at a clinic in Arizona in October, 1988, for treatment of