RSS
E-mail
Twitter
Facebook
Tumblr
MySpace
YouTube
Paul McCartney had best have on a pair of comfortable shoes. It’s going to be a busy week. His new standards album, Kisses on the Bottom, drops next Tuesday, of course. But that’s just the beginning.
McCartney will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at Thursday, February 9, in front of the Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood. McCartney’s star will be located adjacent to those honoring fellow Beatles John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
The next day, McCartney is set to be named the MusiCares Person of the Year at a gala dinner and concert featuring a veritable who’s who of musical stars — including Tony Bennett, Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Jerry Douglas, Duane Eddy, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys, James Taylor, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Sergio Mendes, Katy Perry and Diana Krall — who is featured along with her jazz band on Kisses on the Bottom. Young hasn’t performed in concert with Crazy Horse in eight years. McCartney will conclude this event with an on-stage performance.
Then, he’ll pack up and head out for a scheduled appearance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, February 12.
Here’s a look back at our recent thoughts on Paul McCartney, including our sneak peek at the forthcoming Kisses on the Bottom. Click through the titles for complete reviews …
PAUL McCARTNEY – BAND ON THE RUN (1973; 2010 reissue): A terrific reissue that reveals this anew as the most personal of McCartney recordings — though, even now, the album’s unifying theme of escape is more subtle (and thus more commercial) than the blunt confessional style of his former partner John Lennon. McCartney, instead, uses broader storytelling brushstrokes — skillfully weaving his own desire to break free of the Beatles with the age-old myths of ne’er-do-wells, hitchhikers and outsiders. No McCartney effort yet has taken so many chances, nor so successfully blended his interests in the melodic, the orchestral, the rocking and the episodic. In keeping, of the Beatles solo recordings, Band on the Run always sounded the most to me like something the old band might have put together.
PAUL McCARTNEY – McCARTNEY (1970)/McCARTNEY II (1980; 2011 reissues): Taken together, these albums show a willingness to strip down what had become a varnished sound. After all, Paul was coming off huge productions in the form of 1969′s Abbey Road with the Beatles and 1979′s Back to the Egg with Wings. But there is a broad disparity, more pronounced than ever, in how these recordings have aged. McCartney comes off as more organic, a simpler expression — like someone trying to work out his own sound. McCartney II was, truth be told, fatally hobbled from the first by Paul’s own poor mechanics with the synthesizers he chose to experiment with throughout.
SOMETHING ELSE! SNEAK PEEK: PAUL McCARTNEY – KISSES ON THE BOTTOM (2012): This is not just a love letter to a lost era of songmaking, but one of the most evocative, deeply ardent records that McCartney has ever issued. Working in a higher vocal range that remains largely untouched by age, or his rugged third-act touring schedule, the ex-Beatle stirs up a spectacular range of emotions: The hushed, crepuscular melancholy of Peter van Steeden’s “Home (When Shadows Fall)” is matched only by the stirring resolve found on Haywood Henry’s “Get Yourself Another Fool” from this now thrice-married soon-to-be-70-year-old. McCartney’s trembling rapture throughout Irving Berlin’s “Always” finds a balancing moment in his impish hat-tipping joy during Johnny Mercer’s “Ac-Cent-Thcu-Ate The Positive.”
Trackbacks