Just in time for some holiday listening The Beatles have quietly launched a new official 6-part podcast celebrating the legacy of the band.
Written, produced and presented by someone close to the band, music historian Kevin Howlett, it features interviews with John, Paul, George and Ringo, as well as many other musicians and producers including George and Giles Martin, Dave Grohl and Mark Ronson,
The podcast documentary ties in with the 50th anniversary reissues of the ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ compilations and also unpacks the story behind the band’s final single, ‘Now And Then’.
Part 1 of The Beatles’ Legacy is divided into three chapters and deals with The Beatles 1962-1966. You can find it here.
Back in 2016 the knowledgeable hosts, Ryan Brady and Chris Mercer, set themselves the task of discussing, in detail, every single solo McCartney release. And they succeeded!
Understandably, the podcast went into a hiatus. How do you go on when one very talented half of the team has been taken away?
Well, the podcast is now re-emerging – as Take It Away: The Complete Solo Beatles Archive Podcast. Chris Mercer is joined by a new co-host and fellow Beatle nut, Paul Kaminski. Together they plan to expand the original brief to take in the solo careers of all four Beatles.
If you’re interested in The Beatles, Wings, or Paul McCartney the solo artist, then this could be the podcast for you.
The all-new Take It Away begins with a dive into the music of George Harrison. The first episode, ‘Beatle George’ (part one of two) is out now at your favourite podcast aggregator.
Chris and Paul write: “In this preamble to the next phase of the podcast, we’ll explore the origins of Harrison’s songwriting, musicianship and legacy, as the “quiet one” fights for his place amongst both his band mates and his musical contemporaries alike. We’ll chronicle every single (official) George Harrison Beatles songwriting contribution from the band’s beginnings up through 1967 in this first installment — an extensive deep dive you will not want to miss! Now, without further ado: take it away, George…”
Worth checking out.
Oh, and while we’re talking podcasts, just a reminder that the first two episodes in the brand new Paul McCartney and Paul Muldoon outing, A Life In Lyrics, will now be available for download from October 4. (Seems they missed the originally advertised September 20 release date for some unknown reason).
The podcast, which is called McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, starts on September 20. It promises listeners a fly-on-the-wall opportunity to sit in on recordings of conversations made over many years between Paul McCartney and poet Paul Muldoon as they dissected the people, experiences, and art that inspired his songwriting.
The conversations between the two were a central part of their process in compiling the book The Lyrics: 1965 to the Present, released in hardback in 2021, and just about to be re-published in paperback form – with added chapters.
Over two seasons and 24 episodes the podcast will let us in on how that book came together. We’ll be able to hear what is described as “a combination master class, memoir, and an improvised journey with one of the most beloved figures in popular music”.
Each episode will focus on one song from McCartney’s catalog and will span early Beatles through to his solo work.
You can listen to a promo for the new podcast here:
For more background on how it all came about there’s also an interview in The Verge with Justin Richmond, Executive Producer of the podcast. It’s really interesting. “The idea for the podcast came through McCartney’s production team, from the person in charge of special projects. The sort of system that [McCartney and Muldoon] came up with to write [The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present] is that Muldoon turns up to McCartney’s house, turns on his phone, and records a conversation between the two of them. Eventually, the pandemic happened, lockdown, etc., and some stuff was delivered over Zoom.”
“My read on it is that after the stress of getting the book together was relieved, they were sort of realizing that they have hours of Paul McCartney being candid in a really special way. It’s not like this was expertly recorded in the studio. It’s not as if he was sitting down to be Paul McCartney of The Beatles to give an official interview about the band. These [recordings] really have the tenor of someone sitting down with a friend and having a leisurely chat about times past. And McCartney’s “times past” happens to be, for him, The Beatles and Wings and a litany of incredible solo work.”
Season One drops weekly starting September 20. It will feature twelve episodes examining ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Back in the USSR’, ‘Let It Be’, ‘When Winter Comes’, ‘Penny Lane’, ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’, ‘Here Today’, ‘Live and Let Die’, ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, ‘Jenny Wren’, ‘Too Many People’ and ‘Helter Skelter’.
Season Two will follow with an additional 12 episodes in February, 2024.
(If you don’t want to wait for each weekly episode and need to binge the whole series all at once you can subscribe to Pushkin+ to get access to all of Season One on September 20).
How does Paul McCartney write a song? What goes through his mind when he’s at the piano? What’s an “oobley” chord? And where do the lyrics come from when he’s noodling away?
Those were some of the questions Alan Alda asked Sir Paul when they sat down together for a lengthy chat recently on Alda’s regular podcast called Clear+Vivid:
McCartney has been interviewed more times than most people have had hot breakfasts, and so he can at times resort to re-telling the same, oft-told stories from his past. Frequently when you hear him interviewed there’s very little new or interesting on offer.
But, for the most part, that’s not the case here. In this podcast its more of a discussion, a meeting of the minds and Alda puts McCartney at ease. He sounds relaxed and at times unguarded. As the PR blurb says, we “…learn some of the never before heard secrets behind this legendary musician’s magic.”
Since the terrifc Something About The Beatles podcast became Robert Rodriguez presenting solo (with frequent guest co-hosts), we’ve been wondering what happened to his original partner, Richard Buskin – who mysteriously disappeared from the show a while back.
Well, it turns out he’s struck out in the new direction with a new co-host and has launched an equally clever and entertaining Beatle-related podcast called Swinging Through the Sixties.
Swinging Through the Sixties sees the knowledgable and funny Buskin joined by Beatle fanatic and collector Eric Taros. Together they present a quirky romp through the music of the 1960s. Some episodes are purely about the Fab Four while others range more widely, but always with an ever-present undercurrent of how The Beatles fitted into whatever topic they have chosen to cover.
If you need any convincing to make this a regular download, have a listen to Episode 11.
It’s a great example of how interesting this podcast is. The two look into the instruments that the Beatles used on stage and in the studio – and how these directly impacted the sound and their creative push to always try new ways of making music. Buskin interviews Andy Babiuk, author of Beatles Gear (and the newly-published Rolling Stones Gear), but also talks with his co-host Rodriguez, delving into their own extensive knowledge and understanding of the music. Great stuff.
It is episodes like this that make it well worth subscribing to this podcast – which comes out roughly once a month:See also our post on Beatles 101, Richard Buskin’s latest book.
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