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Today I'm here to prove that when he was in the mood, Paul McCartney could challenge Robert Plant, Freddie Mercury, Roger Daltrey, Ian Gillan, Mick Jagger, Bono and others as a championship caliber rock singer and composer. A few weeks back I posted a handful of tracks that McCartney haters often cite to convince themselves that he's really nothing more than a latter-day Lawrence Welk, so today I'm giving equal time to the composer's heavier side. If you've already read my defense of the hall-of-famer's granny music it's time to read Paul McCartney: Rock 'n Roll Animal. "I'm Down," the B-side to The Beatles' single "Help" (1965) McCartney did a great Little Richard impression when he covered "Long Tall Sally" in 1964, and he was just as good when he wrote and sang "I'm Down" a year later, another obvious tribute to one of his early idols and influences. Listen to hi...

Are you tired of Paul McCartney being treated as a musical wimp? The people who dislike his "granny music" - as John Lennon once called it - get stuck on an extremely small sample of the legend's tremendously huge catalog with The Beatles, Wings and as a solo artist. McCartney's granny songs didn't sound the least bit off-putting to me, possibly because - as I've mentioned here before - I grew up listening to my mother's big band records. I've always believed it was wrong that one of the most important men who helped shape rock music in the 60s was criticized for having broader tastes, and since when is writing melodies a crime? McCartney was greatly influenced by his father. Jim McCartney led his own jazz band and Paul liked what he heard. His first instrument was a trumpet given to him by his dad, but the future star traded it in for a guitar so he could sing while playing. It turned out to be a very smart move on his part. ...

Growing up listening to my Mom's 78s made it easy for me to like Paul McCartney's excursions into what John Lennon often referred to as his " granny music. " Despite his semi-frequent visits to the sounds of his father's generation anyone who believes that McCartney can't rock is flat out wrong, and  One Hand Clapping -  Wings' live, in the studio, double album - proves it. These sessions were recorded over four days at Abbey Road studios while Band on the Run was riding high on the charts. They were slated to be released as a documentary with an accompanying LP, but neither officially happened. Some tracks turned up later on bootlegs and a few others were included on repackaged McCartney records, but 2024 was the first time they were released together as a complete set. McCartney, his wife Linda, and Denny Laine were the only permanent members of Wings. The other seats were filled by an ever-changing cast, and for these sessions...

I was among the many visitors who went to see the now closed Paul McCartney photography exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum featuring 275 pictures the former Beatle took with his 35mm Pentax camera from late 1963 through early 1964. As it turns out I didn't have to take the train to Manhattan's Penn Station and then the subway to New York City's most populous borough because all of the photos shown at the exhibit can easily be found in 1964: Eyes Of The Storm , a perfectly executed, hard cover, coffee table book McCartney released in 2023. The star had a front row seat to everything that was happening to him and his newly world famous bandmates, so his photos were taken with an entirely personal perspective - one we rarely saw - as opposed to those with journalistic or business motives. It all began when the photos were discovered in the ex-Beatle's pe...

Much has been written about Paul McCartney (born June 18, 1942) and Brian Wilson (June 20, 1942) - two of the more important and enduring legends of the pop and rock world - so saluting them today may be redundant. But, even though I'm a little late to the party both icons have meant so much to me that I couldn't let their milestone 80th birthdays pass without acknowledging the occasion. Growing up, the lives of these two boys couldn't have been more different. One was raised in a suburban, middle class environment near a Pacific Ocean beach while the other one lived in government housing in Liverpool, England. One had two loving, devoted, parents and the other one barely survived a very troubled household with an abusive father. While both men often took part in the excesses of the 1960s one emerged from the decade relatively unscathed while the other one suffered long term health and mental problems that he is still fighting today. Despite those differences, McCartney and...

Paul McCartney has repeatedly turned down requests to write his autobiography. Instead, he said we can get a good accounting of his life through " my songs, hundreds of them, which I've learned serve much the same purpose. And these songs span my entire life."   In his own excellent foreword to his newly published, voluminous anthology the seventy-nine year old icon wrote , " Fans or readers, or even critics, who really want to learn more about my life should read my lyrics, which might reveal more than any single book about The Beatles could do."  The result is  The Lyrics , a huge, two volume book set that discusses 154 songs McCartney wrote throughout his life -  from 1956 to the present -  with The Beatles, Wings, and as a solo artist. There is also an introduction written by Irish poet, Paul Muldoon, who helped edit and assemble the book for McCartney. Muldoon is not his ghostwriter, the prose all belongs to the talented man listed as the author.  Song...

Yes, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" from Abbey Road (1969) is pure "granny music," as John Lennon called it, but that was part of Paul McCartney's intended joke. Here we have this silly sounding, almost kiddie-like arrangement, combined with the most perverted and darkest lyrics that a Beatle ever wrote for the group. As most people know, the track tells the tale of Maxwell Edison, a serial killer. I was 16 when the song came out and I immediately got the joke and the incongruity of it all.  Maybe the absurdity of marrying the goofy arrangement with the sinister lyrics is why McCartney mentions pataphysical science in the song's first verse. As it turns out - according to Oxford Reference - Pataphysics is   "the science of imaginary solutions"   invented by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907). Was "Maxwell" a parody as well, and does it really belong on a record inten...

Instead of writing a full post today I'm featuring a music related, Netflix comedy bit that is too good to pass up. Dana Carvey has always been one of my favorite Saturday Night Live comedians. I never tire of the Church Lady or his portrayal of Garth in the popular Wayne's World movie and skits. Here Carvey impersonates both Paul McCartney and John Lennon. While watching this hysterical bit it helps to remember that Lennon knew nothing about the technology we use today. He left us in December 1980, before the CD became the first major product of the digital age just a couple of years later. You'll laugh hard as Sir Paul clues his late songwriting partner in on our current celebrities, the Internet, the devices its invention has spawned, and how the last two affected our lives.

Holidays Rule, Volume 2 is the second unique compilation of Christmas music backed by MPL (McCartney Productions Limited), one of the World's largest music publishers. Volume 1 was released in 2012 and is discussed here . Both discs in this series are for people who love Christmas music but are tired of the same old thing and offer a mix of famous, all-star talent along with a host of up and coming artists. Kudos to the former Beatle and to everyone involved for having the foresight to understand that not everyone wants to hear Brenda Lee every single hour, every single day, for a whole month every year. The album opens with Paul McCartney, Jimmy Fallon, and The Roots performance of the classic rocker's "Wonderful Christmastime" that is more in the spirit of Christmas than his perennial standard. This take was originally performed on The Tonight Show in December 2016. Other heavy hitters include Norah Jones performing a non-Christmas tune, a live version of...

Holidays Rule is this year's Christmas compilation from Hear Music and, as usual, it's available at both Starbuck's and at Amazon . It's also one of the finer seasonal collections the mega-huge coffee empire has ever released and the seventeen song CD may just be their most eclectic ever. With just a couple of major exceptions Holidays Rule is loaded with a boatload of current pop and rock stars, many who arrived on the scene just in the last couple of years. Among the old timers and veterans are Irma Thomas and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Their "May Everyday Be Christmas" features a more modern arrangement than the famous New Orleans outfit is normally known for. Rufus Wainright and guest Sharon Van Etten acquit themselves well with a slightly new slant on the overplayed, "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Southwestern rockers Calexico check in with "Green Grows the Holly" while folk-rocker Andrew Bird's "Auld Lang Syne...

We all know that Paul McCartney has a taste for music that was written not long after the fictional Lord Grantham and his family were walking the giant halls of Downton Abbey so it may have been inevitable that the rock veteran would release a CD of (to use his own lyrics of many years ago) "relics from a different age." While I'm aware that standards and songs from the Great American Songbook may not be everyone's cup of tea those of us who appreciate the sound of those bygone days know McCartney always possessed a flair for writing, playing, and singing this kind of stuff quite well. He started recording tunes like these all the way back in 1963 during his early days with The Beatles. They include The Music Man's "Til There Was You," "When I’m Sixty-Four," "Honey Pie," "You Gave Me the Answer" and more. However, the ex-Beatle's latest CD, Kisses on the Bottom , is a questionable venture and not because of the e...

Paul McCartney's Good Evening New York City celebrates the opening of Citi Field, the brand new baseball stadium of the New York Mets, that was built right next door to old Shea Stadium. If you're a Beatles fan (and maybe even if you're not) then you know about the Fab Four's historic night at Shea in 1965. It was rock 'n roll's first outdoor stadium concert. It's easy to dismiss Good Evening as a clone of McCartney's last live album, Back in The U. S. Live 2002 , and that is because seventeen of it's thirty-five tracks appear on both of the double disc sets. The two releases even sound alike at times so the best way to get the full effect and most enjoyment out of Good Evening is to watch its accompanying DVD on your home theater system. The sound is amazing and you'll believe you're right there fighting the crowd for a place in the front row. Despite the repetition Good Evening does have a few surprises. "A Day In The Life...

The CD review below was written way back in 2000 which explains some of the dated statements you're about to read. Unfortunately it was never before published on Bloggerhythms. So, to keep the flow of articles moving while I'm away for a bit, here is a review of one of Paul McCartney's better CDs of the last ten years. It was recorded not long after the death of Linda McCartney. _____________________ Wow! Sir Paul of Liverpool really gets it rocking and rolling on his most recent CD, Run Devil Run , one of the best recordings of his solo career. There are two major surprises surrounding this disc. The first is that a musician owning a reputation as one of rock's most elite and innovative composers of the 1960's achieves this level of excellence covering twelve songs by other artists from the 1950's. The second surprise is that it comes from a man who has been in mourning, devastated by the loss of his beloved wife. Instead of the drippy tribute album we all ex...

After The Beatles broke up 60's musical god Paul McCartney formed the sometimes dreadful Wings with his late wife Linda who instantly and consistently proved to the world that she should have stuck to photographing musicians instead of performing with them. Then, after Wings ended, McCartney embarked on a very uneven solo career. Highly respectable albums such as Tug Of War were frequently followed by head scratching mediocrity such as Pipes Of Peace and Press To Play . The excellent Flowers In The Dirt was followed by the far less enjoyable Off The Ground . Fortunately, over the last decade McCartney has regained much of the muse he lost after the split with his famous Liverpool band mates but, while he remains very prolific, he still has never come close to writing songs as great as "Yesterday," "Here, There, and Everywhere," "Eleanor Rigby," "Penny Lane," and many more. He can still write good songs but the memorable melodies and humm...