My Amazon Reviews: The Beatles "On Air - Live at the BBC Vol 2"

Hungry and Young Beatles Mount Their Plan for World Domination 2 1/2 Minutes at a Time
4 Out Of 5 Stars

The second edition of The Beatles "On Air - Live at the BBC" is a collection of songs to remind you just how young and hungry The Beatles were in their early days. With a couple of exceptions, you've heard the studio versions of these a million times over, and the most rabid of fans likely have the bootlegs. But it's fascinating to hear how they sink their teeth into "I Saw Her Standing There" (complete with a 1-2-3-Fooour! count-off) or the already precise interlocking harmonies on the likes of "Chains" and "And I Love Her."

The intros and interview profiles also show how the Beatles were already establishing their individual personalities in the band format. George can be heard clowning around in the "Absolutely Fab" segment and Paul has fun with his old school house on "5E." The between songs banter is often as interesting as the songs themselves, but still, this was the height of Beatlemania, and each little 2 minute firecracker was a shout heard everywhere. "On Air - Live At The BBC Vol 2" still has a raw sound to it, and shows that George Martin was a main component to The Beatles' sound, but there's no escaping the amount of energy on display here.

What this disc also does is make me wonder why "Live At The Hollywood Bowl" has yet to see a reissue, or for that matter the compilations "Love Songs" and "Rock and Roll." There's obviously still an audience for all of these, so why are they still in the tape vaults? In the meantime, enjoy this, and Volume One, of The Beatles as they take over the world, one sonic boom after another.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Paul McCartney "New"

You've got something that will save us now.
4 Out Of 5 Stars
 

Like the modernistic neon bars used to indicate the "New" title, Paul McCartney steps up to the new world of modern-ish music and applies a sheen and glow to his newest collection of pop-tunes. While "Memory Almost Full" seemed like a coda to a long career and well lived life and "Kisses From The Bottom" had a wiff of the old-fogy about it, "New" tosses that aside and finds McCartney still willing to challenge his younger contemporaries, down to having hot-shot Mark Ronson produce a few selections, in particular, the buoyant title track.

The lead-off, "Save Us," is a rocker in the Wings mold, without the annoyance of "Nod Your Head" (from "Memory") or the screaming mania of "Cut Me Some Slack," the song Paul recorded with the surviving members of Nirvana. Yes, despite the willingness to go out on the occasional limb, "New" is an album that is eager to please, even if it doesn't play its hand as a totally safe one. In that aspect, it's reminiscent of "Flaming Pie," one of Paul's best from the 90's. Which also means that there's a shout out to his days as a Liverpool youngster on "Early Days," where he tells those who have romanticized The Beatles too much for his tastes by stating "I don't see how they can remember/When they weren't where it was at."

McCartney certainly isn't above a little cheekiness, as "Early Days" and the buzzy "Queenie Eye" show. And who would have thought Paul still had time for a little lyrical nonsense like the clever "Alligator?" It's also a pleasant surprise to hear the keyboard driven "Road," which is the haunting final song before the uncredited song "Scared." "I'm still too scared to tell you...the simplest of words won't come out of my mouth, though I'm dying to set them free," he croons in the way only McCartney can in "Scared." That McCartney can still be so emotionally naked and willing to try and challenge himslef in the way "New" does is a pretty remarkable feat for a man making music for over 50 years.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Paul McCartney and Wings "Wings Over America"

Paul McCartney Embraces his Legacy
5 Out Of 5 Stars

When Paul McCartney and The Beatles dissolved their partnerships, McCartney was bound and determined to go his own way. He made a few solo albums, like the masterpiece "Ram," but then decided he wanted a full fledged rock band behind him. Hence were Wings born. The corresponding Wings albums, like "At The Speed Of Sound" and "Venus and Mars" had McCartney insisting, over and over, that Wings was a band. To the point where Linda McCartney and Denny Laine were singing. The Beatles were dead and gone. Wings were here and now.

Until 1976 and the tour where McCartney shocked everyone. "Wings Over America," the then triple album, featured Wings and Paul digging into The Beatles' catalog, which also meant that he was performing some of these songs for the first time in their existence to a live audience. (As a reminder, The Beatles turned their back on touring in 1966.) The crowds, understandably, went nuts. With that kind of energy, Paul leans into "Lady Madonna," "Blackbird," "Yesterday" and a few others with an obvious glee; he may have been trying to erase his past before, but there's no way to deny he was reinvigorated to be on the road without dragging around the invisible elephant in the room.

It also shows off Wings as a more capable band than most critics gave them credit for. The opening "Venus and Mars/Rock Show" opens the concert with some serious electricity, and "Live and Let Die" rivals "Helter Skelter" for McCartney's all time rockingest tune. As an added feature, the song "Soily," which was a regular on McCartney tours, has never been released except for "Wings Over America." It's among the McCartney and Wings songs that take up the bulk of the album, with highlights being "Hi Hi Hi," "Band On The Run," and the single from the album, "Maybe I'm Amazed."

Now condensed to a double CD, the remastered sound is terrific. (I had the older CD, and a one on one comparison reveals a crisper sound, less muffled.) If you want to spend a couple extra bucks, the triple version contains an eight song bonus disc from San Fransisco's Cow Palace and adds "Let Me Roll It" and a differently arranged "Bluebird" as the main attractions. (Although the fade on "Picasso's Last Words" is annoying.) All together, this is one of the more important documents of Paul McCartney's recorded legacy, the moment in time where he let his past catch up with him and he didn't turn it away.

     

Passings: Tony Sheridan, one time Beatle

Tony Sheridan, the British singer, songwriter and guitarist who once fronted the Beatles, died Saturday (Feb. 16) in Hamburg, Germany. He was 72.

The news of his death was made public by his daughter Wendy Clare Sheridan-McGinnity, according to the New York Times.

Although he wasn't a part of the Beatles for long, Sheridan's involvement with the band was pivotal. He met the group -- which then included John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison on guitars, Stuart Sutcliffe on bass and Pete Best on drums -- when they arrived in Hamburg to work as a club band in 1960. Sheridan was already an accomplished singer, but took a liking to the Beatles. When Sutcliffe and Best left the band, McCartney took over on bass and Ringo Starr officially became the new drummer in 1962. (In recent years, Sheridan claims he helped arrange Starr's first few performances with the Beatles).

In the spring of 1961, German producer Bert Kaempfert offered recording contracts to both Sheridan and the Beatles, with the intention of the Beatles acting as Sheridan's backup band. Still, the option was open for the Beatles to record on their own.

During studio sessions in Hamburg in 1961 and 1962, Sheridan and the Beatles recorded nine songs together under the name Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers. Sheridan sang seven of them -- “My Bonnie,” “The Saints,” “Why (Can’t You Love Me Again),” “Nobody’s Child,” “Take Out Some Insurance On Me, Baby,” “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Swanee River.” The other two tracks were Beatles performances -- “Cry for a Shadow,” an instrumental by Lennon and Harrison, and “Ain’t She Sweet,” sung by Lennon.

When the group's first single, "My Bonnie," was released in Germany on the Polydor label in Oct. 1961, Beatles’ fans in Liverpool took over local record shops, requesting the disc. One store manager, Brian Epstein, wanted to see what all the fuss was about and caught a performance by the group at the Cavern. He obviously liked it, as he persuaded the Beatles to hire him as their manager, and within a year, got them a recording contract of their own with EMI.

McCartney called larger-than-life Sheridan "The Teacher." His most recent recordings include “Vagabond” (2002) and a DVD, “Chantal Meets Tony Sheridan” (2005), which includes the only recording of “Tell Me If You Can,” a song Sheridan wrote with McCartney in 1962.

Sheridan is survived by his three sons, Tony Jr., Bennet and Felim, and daughters, Wendy Clare and Amber.

My Amazon Reviews: Paul & Linda McCartney "Ram"

McCartney's Solo Masterpiece
5 Out Of 5 Stars

Finally. In the slow trickle of Paul McCartney reissues, we get the second of his masterstrokes as a solo artist. "Band On The Run" marked his finest work under the Wings banner, but it was "Ram" that set the bar so very high for his work after the demise of the Beatles. Since 1971, "Ram" has only gained in stature, remaining the most Beatles-like of his solo albums, and is the lone album Paul and Linda McCartney are credited on as artists together.

"Ram" is something of a wedding album, with Linda's presence as songwriter and prominent back-up vocalist. It's also a continuation of McCartney's one-man-show albums, with guest players credited but not attributed to any particular songs. The songs themselves are freewheeling odes to love ("Backseat of My Car"), life ("Heart of the Country") and proving to those who doubted that he could both rock ("Monkberry Moon Delight") or knock-off an appropriately Beatles-sounding single without any help from his former teammates ("Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey").

Something else the re-issue does is prove McCartney's ear for good sound; the remastering makes you wish more of the current flock of producers/engineers gave a whit about the spaces between the notes and the atmosphere of your recording. Just the strummed opening and Paul's "hey hey hey" opening are enough to give you goosebumps. The whole album does what not many can do in this day and age, and that's make an album that holds together as a full piece. Even if the album before this (McCartney) seemed ramshackle and rambling, "Ram" erased all doubts that Paul was capable of delivering an album that both lived up to his prior work and would establish him as an artist on his own.

     

My Amazon Blu-Ray Reviews: The Beatles' Yellow Submarine

We All Live On
5 Out of 5 Stars

Lovingly restored and recolored, the Blu-Ray of The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" is an opening of a time capsule, with the dust of years wiped clean. The mix of traditional animation and the Peter Maxian designs still holds a fascination to this day, with the sound quality now absolutely stunning. Granted, the imaginations behind much of the movie was lysergically enhanced, but it adds to the time-charm of the movie. I can't recommend this enough to Beatles Fans, who already know the songs and probably many of the scenes by heart.

Extra Credit due Dept: I really dig the 'cell' reproductions included in the Blu-Ray package. The bonus interviews with surviving members of the cast and crew are brief but delightful, but the VH1 Interview with the surviving Beatles from the '99 DVD release might have been a nice addition. You can choose between mono and 5:1 surround, depending on your purist nature, and the sequence for "Hey Bulldog" has been reintegrated into the film seamlessly. It's a must own, and I now anxiously await future Beatles' Blu-Rays.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Paul McCartney "Kisses On The Bottom"

The Return of Percy Thrillington
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Hardcore McCartney Buffs will remember Paul's practical joke on the world when an album called "Thrillington" appeared; a lounge-ish instrumental recreation of "Ram" credited to one Percy "Thrills" Thrillington. The album, once McCartney let on to the joke years later, became a collectors' item. But the whole thing of McCartney as socialite muzak maker is part of Paul's lore.

Once I started listening to "Kisses On The Bottom" (a line from the opening song "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter"), I was wondering if McCartney was serious or playing up his audience for a laugh. He's played around with expectations before (the three albums as The Fireman with producer Youth, his ventures into classical music, movies, etc,), and he's pulled standards out for albums since the beginning of The Beatles. Nor is he the first performer to decide a shot at the great songbook of the 30's, 40's and 50's would be an artistic challenge. Think Linda Ronstadt's Nelson Riddle phase or Rod Stewart's ongoing "Great American Songbook" series. To McCartney's credit, he uses Diana Krall's ace band and producer Tommy LiPuma, who could do these arrangements in their sleep. Plus, they went to one of the best old studios in the world, Capitol A, where the likes of Nat King Cole and Fran Sinatra fashioned the kind of sound McCartney strives for here.

"Kisses On The Bottom" succeeds for the most part because of the professionalism. Every note is perfect, every brushed drum stroke sounds bristle-soft, McCartney sings in a register that emphasizes every breath. Even McCartney's two ringers, "My Valentine" and "Only Our Hearts" hitch right into line like a jigsaw puzzle. It's - to quote U2 - even better than the real thing. Which is another reason why I'm having such a tough time warming up to more than a C Grade for "Kisses On The Bottom." When McCartney and John Lennon teamed up to start The Beatles, these were exactly the kind of songs they were writing against. There's a strange sort of irony the man who buried the kind of standardized pop songs in the 60's simply by shaking his mop-top and singing "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah" is resurrecting the music he helped to sweep aside for a new big thing. Somewhere, Percy Thrillington is smiling.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Paul McCartney "McCartney II"

Probably better than you remember  
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Sometime Paul McCartney doesn't get the credit he deserves for separating himself from his past. As a Beatle, he all but defined what popular music is to this date. As a solo artist and Wings-man, he reinvented himself as the leader of a band and made a lot of substantial music under that name. And sometimes, he just wanted to do something that was in the way-out-o-sphere. Thirty years later, when you put "McCartney II" in sequence with albums he's done as "Thrillington" or "The Fireman," there's an experimental streak that becomes clear. "McCartney II," originally released in 1980, I remember a Rolling Stone review that was titled "McCartney Hits a New Low Again."

Granted, this is no "Ram" or "Band On The Run," it's not even "Pipes of Peace." However, with the burgeoning new wave movement surrounding him, Paul made the effort to see if he could rein things back and go minimalist. He did the one man band bit, and recorded the whole thing by plugging his mic right into the tape deck. He then proceeded to ape Devo on "Temporary Secretary," while "Coming Up" sounds like he was trying to write a Beatles song for Orchestral Maneuvers in The Dark. "One The Way" and "Nobody Knows" tilted towards blues and rockabilly, while the lovely "Waterfalls" and "One Of These Days" are the kind of earnest ballads it seems Paul can toss off in an afternoon.

What is telling is how much of "McCartney II" is devoted to electronic instrumentals. "Front Parlour," "Summer's Day Song" and "Frozen Jap" could easily be from his Fireman persona that he debuted in 1994. I don't think that these are the songs any McCartney fan would have in a heavy rotation, but they did show that, after years of being a rock idol, he was willing to go way outside his comfort zone. That still doesn't excuse "Bogey Music" and "Darkroom" or the album's overall this sound. The remaster does help a bit with that issue, though.

The bonus disc is a worthy addition, as it includes the USA hit version of "Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)" the considerably improves the song's qualities. Both "Blue Sway" and "Secret Friend" could have easily been a part of the original album without affecting its sound. The Christmas tune "Wonderful Chritsmastime" makes another appearance on CD, which is OK for those that haven't heard it enough already. The rest are experiments and songs that were left off for good reason. All together, not worth the scorn heaped on it when originally released. Makes me eager for coming reissues.