You’re probably thinking that there have been many, many books about the Beatles: biographies, lyric compilations, trivia, children’s books, coloring books. Do we need another one? And if so, why focus on Paul McCartney after the dissolution of the group? Where are John and the others?
The McCartney Legacy, Volume 2 (McCartney’s Legacy, Volume 2), of Allan Kozinn y Adrian Sinclairis a compelling argument not only for publishing another book on los Beatlesbut also about what is possibly its best composer. The authors point out that almost all stories about the Beatles end when the group disbanded in 1970.
John, George y Ringo They continued recording and playing in public, of course, but Paul (partly due to his longevity) has surpassed them all in his output: more than two dozen studio albums and multiple live sets, classic albums, compilations and collections, not to mention countless live performances, as well as visual art, poetry, film works and much more. further.
The co-authors, a music critic and a documentary editor, are extremely detail-oriented. For example, when Linda McCartneyPaul’s wife and bandmate in Wingstakes the rest of the family on a taxi trip, informs you of the departure and arrival times, the duration of the journey, the cost and the method of payment. This helps explain the mountainous size of this book. And don’t forget that it is the second volume: The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969-73published in 2022, is just a few pages shorter.
Most of the pop music biographies They focus less on music than on sex, drugs, gossip, and the like, partly because that’s what attracts readers and partly because the complexities of chord progressions and studio engineering sound are almost impossible to explain to a lay audience, much less maintain their interest.
But despite the occasional taxi trip, the series The McCartney Legacy focuses almost exclusively on music. During the period covered in this book, Paul’s wild days as a Beatle were over, and if he and Linda smoked marihuanathey did it together and without setbacks, at least to a certain extent. (Stay tuned.)
This voluminous book is devoted for the most part to how music is made. Here we learn that when a cellist had trouble with the short obbligato of “Live and Let Die,” Paul took the conductor’s baton and sang the cello line using chord names instead of letters (when he finished, the entire orchestra gave a standing ovation).
Paul McCartney. Always Beatle
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In another song, he wanted a calliope sound, so bottles of Scotch were passed around for the musicians to blow on after they had carefully consumed enough contents to get the right tone. At all times, Paul was in what the authors call absorption mode“taking advantage of every opportunity to listen to new music and extracting from what I heard any nugget that might be useful.” McCartney was not interviewed for the book, but other members of his circle were. In turn, the authors also relied on printed, audio and video files. In your husband and father facetMcCartney was dedicated to make music all the timeand the ins and outs of that process are meticulously described.
The chapters are completed with annotated notes from recording sessions. On February 13, 1979, for example, Paul finished the master mix of “Spin It On” and was so elated that he took his guitar and a microphone out to Soho Square for a brief busking session. A sound engineer monitoring the performance in the studio remembers hearing a couple walk by while Paul was playing and singing on a freezing London street: “You could hear them approaching and a guy said, ‘That’s Paul McCartney.’ And his girlfriend said, ‘What? And he answered: ‘It’s Paul McCartney.’ Don’t be stupid. He said, ‘Seriously, it’s Paul McCartney.’ She continued, ‘If you’re going to continue like this, I’ll leave you.’ And we were absolutely howling.”
It is true that a certain uniformity begins to take over the central narrative, and the questions that arise in the middle and the end of this volume are ones that have been there from the beginning. Will there be a Beatles reunion? (No.) Did Linda play and sing at a professional level? (Would Wings have been so successful if its leader hadn’t been a former Beatle? (Oh, please.) That makes the details surrounding these predictable passages even more welcome, which after a while, I found positively addictive.
Ultimately, every band biography is about one thing: personnel management. In this case, much of it focuses on Jimmy McCullocha brilliant guitarist who likes to go to the pub before, during and after studio sessions and to be “legless”, as the English say.
According to his bandmate Denny Laine: “We’ve all had our moments, but Jimmy seemed to have more moments than anyone.” Sober or not, McCulloch spoke openly about Linda’s musical shortcomings, and more than once made her cry. For her part, Linda didn’t want other women in the studio: she may have forgiven Paul’s wild times, but she hasn’t forgotten them.
But Paul’s greatest triumph as a manager is his fight with himself. “I’m very good at forgetting who I am,” he once said. “Because as far as I’m concerned Paul McCartney is a name I was given at birth and at the beginning of the Beatles he separated into a celebrity, and I remained (me). …I’m just a Liverpool boy. “I didn’t do all that.” His normal-guy act worked: when he paused during an impromptu jam session with the soloist Harry Nilsson and the drummer Who, Keith Moonin the rented house of John Lennon in Malibu, Mary McCartney4, said, “Dad, are you some kind of pop star or something?” As a musician, Paul McCartney is incomparable. But he may be even better as a boss.
But even good bosses make mistakes. On January 16, 1980, Paul was arrested in Japan when officials found a bag of marijuana in a suitcase, and volume 2 of The McCartney Legacy it ends with him arrested, but before the situation is resolved. Will there be a volume 3? I hope so; the heavier the better.
Fuente: The Washington Post
