Category Archives: Paul McCartney

Best Buy Wings/McCartney Archive Series

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It’s taken a while to feature these latest Paul McCartney and Wings items because of the convoluted process involved in securing copies for the collection.

These are the Best Buy limited editions of the latest Paul McCartney Archive series of CDs. The CD’s themselves are the standard US triple gatefold two-disc sets consisting of the remastered album on one CD, plus a Bonus Audio CD of rare tracks. Here’s Venus and Mars:Venus BB coverVenus BB rearVenus BB disc1Venus BB disc2

And here’s Wings at the Speed of Sound:ATSOS BB coverATSOS BB rearATSOS BB disc1ATSOS BB disc2

But as you can see by the stickers on the front of each – these were sold with a voucher inside to receive a bonus, limited edition 7″ 45 single – one from each album. The difficult (and time consuming part) for collectors living outside the USA was that these singles (reportedly limited to 5,000 copies each) were only available to customers of the Best Buy chain who were US residents. The process is that you mail back the voucher with a small postage and handling fee included, and Best Buy then mails you a picture cover replica of an original vinyl single from either album. Residents outside the States had to find an accomodating Ebay seller who would do this – and then post the whole lot to you…..hence the delay in being able to show these items on this blog…..ours have finally arrived.

For Venus and Mars the vinyl single is ‘Letting Go’/’You Gave Me the Answer’ (not ‘Venus and Mars/’Rock Show’ as original advertised by Best Buy back in October last year):Letting Go coverLetting Go rearLetting Go labelAnd from Wings at the Speed of Sound its ‘Let ‘Em In’/’Beware My Love’: Let Em In SingleLet Em In rearLet Em In label

Both these vinyl singles have front covers which are replicas of the originals, but the rear covers are dedicated to promoting the 2014 reissues of the Archive Collection CDs. And as you can see in the photos (if you look closely) there’s a sticker on the rear of each saying “Made in Germany”. It appears that subsequent to the Best Buy deal these singles were also made available in limited numbers to some independent record stores in Europe and the UK.

As with previous releases in this series, inside both CDs is a small paper insert advertising what could be the next two releases in the Archive Series Tug of War and Pipes of Peace:Venus BB insert

The other thing to note is that both the Venus and Mars and the Wings at the Speed of Sound Best Buy CDs have stickers pasted over the originals with different barcode/UPC numbers to the usual releases. These are 88072 36382 3 and 88072 36383 0 respectively. The non-Best Buy discs are 88072 35650 4 and 888072 35671 9.

For a video of how Venus and Mars and Wings At the Speed of Sound are packaged, the booklets, etc. have look at these YouTube clips prepared by Jose Miguel Grey:

Hope for the Future – Behind the Scenes & Vinyl Release

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In case you missed this – just before Christmas Paul McCartney uploaded a “behind the scenes”, making-of video for his new single ‘Hope for the Future’:

And here’s the finished result:

paulmccartney.com has confirmed that the new single will be released in physical form on 180-gram, 12″ vinyl next week. Yay! Would much rather have this than just the download….

The song – taken from the video game Destiny – includes the original version of ‘Hope For The Future’ alongside four special mixes. The vinyl will also come with a download card featuring all five tracks. You can find full details here.

Amazing Tower Records Footage from 1970

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For those of us who remember the days of visiting good old “bricks and mortar” record stores to browse and buy the latest vinyl……this amazing footage of the legendary Tower Records on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood in 1970 will take you back (and possibly take your breath away if you’re a vinyl nut!)

In it we spotted literally hundreds of plastic sealed copies of George Harrison’s then new box set All Things Must Pass being put out on display……a fleeting glimpse of Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band in the arms of a female customer…..stacks of McCartney’s McCartney LP…..Badfinger’s  No Dice……a copy of the Beatles Yellow Submarine….and from footage taken outside, a big John Lennon billboard.

Scenes from this great archival film were used to illustrate this spoken word advertisement for Tower Records voiced by John Lennon himself (possibly from 1973) – then promoting his latest LP Mind Games:

Ringo’s ‘Beaucoups of Blues’ – German Pressing

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Another visit to Audiomania, the eclectic second-hand record store not far from our local area, and another Ringo Starr record find….

Audiomania is a quirky shop located in a run-down, semi-industrial area. It only opens two days a week (Thursdays and Saturdays), and then for only four hours at a time. One side of the premises contains blue crates full of good quality vinyl (pop, rock, and blues, as well as lots of jazz and reggae). On the other side they sell used hi-fi, restored motor cycles….and artworks made out of old motorcycle and hi fi parts.

Like we said, it’s an unusual place:Audiomania

After a thorough trawl here last Saturday we ended up with two items.

The first find was a nice clean German pressing of Ringo Starr’s 1970 solo release Beaucoups of Blues. This one is on the Hörzu/Apple label, making it quite interesting:beaucoups doublebeaucoups_shze_label aBeaucoups of Blues_LP_label_b

Starting in the 1960s Hörzu (principally a radio and TV listing magazine) began producing and releasing records as a subsidiary of the Electrola company. Electrola had the rights to release EMI product (including the Beatles) in Germany.

Like we said in the previous post, we seem to moving from not having much Ringo as a solo artist on vinyl to now having quite a few of his releases.

Vinyl is the specialty of Audiomania, but while at the store we found a couple of small crates with some CDs. In there we turned up an original 1986 UK copy of Paul McCartney’s Press to Play: Press to PlayPress to Play label

This is the disc without the bonus tracks (which were added for the 1993 re-issues called The Paul McCartney Collection). The lovely lady who runs the store gave this one to us for free!

Hope for the Future – Digital Single Out Now

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We just received an email from paulmccartney.com letting us know that the extended EP of Paul McCartney’s ‘Hope for the Future‘ is now available for download from iTunes.

There will also be a physical release in the form of a 12″ vinyl single. No track listings for that are available as yet, but it will come out on January 12 in the UK, and January 13 in the US.

Spincds.com in the UK and the Amazon US store have place-holders for the vinyl release and it can be pre-ordered now.

And there’s an official video to accompany the song where a holographic Paul McCartney sings the song in the world of Destiny:

Also check out this exclusive in Wired magazine.

McCartney’s ‘Hope for the Future’ – Release Confirmed

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Hope_Banner_NewsBodypaulmccartney.com has confirmed a December 8 global release for Paul McCartney’s song ‘Hope for the Future’.

It will be a digital download only, and the original version of the track (which is taken from the best-selling ‘Destiny’ video game credits) will be made available alongside four other special mixes of the song:

1) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Main)
2) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Thrash)
3) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Beatsession Mix)
4) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Jaded Mix)
5) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Mirwais Mix)Hope_Single Cover

McCartney on Writing Songs with Lennon

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Don’t know if there’s anything particularly new here – but Paul McCartney is in good form, open and relaxed in a video uploaded this week to YouTube. (It has subsequently been taken down).

McCartney was appearing at a small gathering in London, answering questions and being interviewed by British model, actor and activist Lily Cole for a global campaign called impossible.

paulmaccartney.com called for musicians to submit their wishes to Cole’s impossible website in order to win seats to the strictly limited-entry event. There are photos and info here. Their conversation event centred around Cole asking Sir Paul about his song ‘Hope For the Future’, part of the soundtrack to the new video game Destiny. You can read a transcript of what they talked about here. 

What is impossible? It’s described as a global community who help each other out. People share their time, skills and objects. Everything is always given or loaned for free.

For more on Cole see Lily Cole: From Vogue to the impossible

Cole is one of the many celebrity cameo’s in Paul’s ‘Queenie Eye’ video (you can see here and Johnny Depp pictured below):Lily Cole Queenie Eye

Some Beatles Car Boot Sale Booty

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There was a big car boot sale just around the corner from us this last weekend, and we were able to find quite a few nice additions to the collection. One vendor just had boxes and boxes of CD’s, 7″ vinyl 45’s and 12″ LP’s on their stall – and so quite a bit of our Saturday morning was spent trawling….

It was time well spent though as it turned up a few gems.

First up was a Australian vinyl single taken from the John Lennon and Yoko Ono album Double Fantasy. ‘Watching the Wheels’ was the third single from this LP (the first two were ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ and ‘Woman’). We didn’t have a copy of ‘Watching the Wheels” so this was a good find.Beatles books_0010

Next was another 7″ single we didn’t have – Badfinger’s ‘Come and Get It’ on the Apple label. It dates from 1969 and is a Paul McCartney composition written for the band, and it makes an appearance on the soundtrack for the film The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. This is an Australian pressing. There’s a lot of writing on the label – but still…..Beatles books_0014

Further hunting through the boxes revealed another Apple single – this time from George Harrison. It’s an Australian copy of ‘My Sweet Lord’ b/w ‘Isn’t It A Pity’. In Australia this was a double A side as both titles have green Apple labels:Beatles books_0016Beatles books_0015

Our good luck continued in the multiple boxes at this car boot sale. Next out were two singles – a US copy of McCartney’s ‘Coming Up’, and ‘Say Say Say’ with Michael Jackson – both on the Columbia label, then a division of CBS. In the late 70’s/early 80’s McCartney was briefly (six years) on the Columbia label for his releases in America. He’d temporarily turned his back on Capitol Records, enticed by one of the most lucrative recording contracts around at the time, a deal which included as a sweetener the ownership of Frank Music, a CBS owned publishing company consisting (amongst other things) of Frank Loesser’s songs (think of the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, etc.). Frank Music is now of course folded into McCartney’s highly successful MPL Music Publishing business.

The two singles we found came out on the Parlophone label in Australia, so it’s good to have these US versions:Beatles books_0012Beatles books_0011

The final 45 we discovered was Billy J. Kramer’s ‘From a Window’ – which sadly is kind of beat up, but worth having because it is a song from 1964 written specifically for Kramer (and his band the Dakotas) by John Lennon and Paul McCartney: Beatles books_0013

The last purchase of the day was a bit of a find. It’s Jools Holland’s 2001 CD Small World Big Band, which is an important one to have in the collection because it contains George Harrison singing and playing on his last ever recording. George passed away just two months after this recording. He does a song called ‘Horse to the Water’, co-composed with his son Dhani.

Holland’s CD is sub-titled “….his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and friends”, that’s because for each track he invites various stars to join him for a track each. These include the likes of Sting; Paul Weller; Dr John; Mark Knopfler; Van Morrison; Steve Winwood; and Eric Clapton, amongst many others.Beatles books_0017Beatles books_0020 To quote two of the poignant reviewers on Amazon:

“For me, the big reason to buy this CD was the George Harrison contribution, ‘Horse to the Water’. It is a GREAT song, and a brilliant Harrison song at that. George sounds weak, and I am not sure if Clapton has stepped in on some of the guitar parts, but what a brilliant and fun piece of music, worthy to be held in the highest esteem among its author’s ouvre. IT is reason enough to buy the CD.”

And this one:

“I purchased this CD for one reason. I had seen the DVD Concert for George and loved it. Among the best offerings on the DVD was the Sam Brown/Jools Holland rendition of ‘Horse to the Water’ by George. Except for the words, I would never have guessed that it was a Harrison song. It was too R&B. So I was curious to see how he handled it. Well, he does not have the powerhouse voice of Sam Brown, but I was in fact really surprised at how well he did, helped greatly by the superb backup band. I would not have recognised his voice. I am sure his throat cancer was behind that.”

There’s a small picture of George in the booklet:

Beatles books_0019Beatles books_0021

 

One More Wings Bonus Track – Free Download

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At paulmccartney.com there’s a further free, previously unreleased track which has been made available for download. That makes three so far….we’re heading towards the makings of an EP.

In November 1974 Paul and Wings were in the process of recording the album that came to be known as Venus and Mars. As with all recording sessions there are songs and different versions of tracks that don’t make the final release.RockShowAbsolute_MainNews

The exclusive Venus and Mars outtake track now available is a previously unreleased and unheard version of the song ‘Rock Show’. Listen to it below:

I think you can hear why this version was passed over in favour of the one that eventually made it to the LP, but it’s still great to hear how the song went through the process of being more finely crafted.

See also the exclusive versions of ‘Letting Go’ and ‘Love My Baby’ – both still available for download at paulmccartney.com

Another McCartney Bonus Track – Free Download

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As part of the continuing publicity push for the Archive Series re-issues this week of Venus and Mars and Wings At The Speed of Sound, Paul McCartney has made available another exclusive bonus track.

It’s a Wings track called ‘Love My Baby’ and is taken from the One Hand Clapping film:LoveMyBaby

Like the extended and remastered version of the song ‘Letting Go’ (released last week), ‘Love My Baby’ is not on the forthcoming re-issues of Venus and Mars or At the Speed of Sound, but is only being made available as a free download from paulmccartney.com

It’s short and cute. Sounds like Paul is playing a toy piano – long before that became fashionable!

One Hand Clapping was filmed in Studio 2 at Abbey Road in late summer of 1974. The documentary captures Paul playing numbers from Band on the Run with Wings.

He’s said of the film: “It’s nice to see that one re-surfacing. It was made by a friend of mine, David Litchfield; he produced a little magazine that was funky (Ritz, co-edited with David Bailey). We decided that he would shoot a very simple piece, on video. We would just go into Abbey Road and play basically what we had rehearsed. So we went in there and it was very simply filmed, absolute basic stuff, and I think its charm now is that there’s no pretence. It is what it is. We just called it One Hand Clapping, for absolutely no reason.”

Read more about the song on Buzzfeed.