BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?

Subject: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Sergio Alguim
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 12:17 PM

I think his solo-carrier is hopeless. He was good with The Beatles, but everything he made after I think is terrible. I get the feeling he is writing and singing only for money.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: paddymac
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 12:36 PM

Well, Sergio, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but not everybody shares your view.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Sergio Alguim
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 12:45 PM

PaddyMac:

Pleas give me examples of good songs he has written after the Beatles ?

a) Mull of Kentire ? b) This with Stevie Wonder ? c) Or the song where they on the video stay outside and sing ?

Sorry I have to describe the songs like this, but my memory is not so good.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Zebedee
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 12:51 PM

Maybe I'm Amazed

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Zebedee
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 12:54 PM

Wanderlust

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Zebedee
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 12:55 PM

Here Today - need I go on?

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 01:49 PM

(a) The idea that Paul McCartney needs to write for the money is about the funniest thing I have heard in a long time. The man practically owns counties in Britain.

I wish he had't written all the dreck he has, but that he is doing it for the money is absurd. He is just driven. He has some nice little things sprinkled here and there -- His Russian album is good. All covers of course, but still good. But overall it is pretty depressing. John Lennon would probably also be generating his own version of dreck -- all those dreary 70's albums with Yoko, and except for the occasional "Working Class Hero", not a pretty sight either.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: MK
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 02:19 PM

I thought "Flowers In the Attic" was his best solo effort. There's some fine stuff on that album. (ie: "My Brave Face", "Motor of Love", and others.)

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Gary T
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 02:55 PM

With a handful exceptions, I didn't find either Paul's or John's solo efforts to be as rich and engaging as the songs they wrote together (that is really wrote together, not the later Beatles songs that were individually written even though both names were on the credits). And though I'm not particularly a fan of John Lennon, I found his songs to have more to them than Paul's.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Barbara
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 02:57 PM

One of the biographers of the Beatles pointed out that Paul was a total whiz at cranking out tunes and fluffy lyrics, and that John was sharp and odd and wandered off into the intellectual swamps of wierd image and bad pun pretty easily.
It was that combo; Paul's lovely tunes and light, and John's cranky edge driven art -- that together made those amazing songs.
Whoever it was that wrote the bio I'm remembering said that Paul wrote both great tunes and total crap really easily, and couldn't tell them apart himself. It took the other band members to sift it.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Doctor John
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 03:10 PM

The Mudcat is "A Magazine Dedicated To Blues and Folk Music" , why do we have to sink to the banalities of pop? Dr John

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Harry Whitcher
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 04:56 PM

I am sure that having sifted this wonderful, active, and interesting site that the Mudcatters themselves spend countless hours discussing what is and what is not folk. IMHO most of the Beatles and susequent solo is banality and pop, but even I am prepared to sy that for example "Eleanor Rigby" must be one of the most poignant 20th century folk songs written. Does it cease to be folk beacause a very popular artist or group wrote it? or just because it's electric? or written within living memory? I know that these themes roll round and round, but, Dr John, even the sea shanties we now take as folk without question were "pop songs" once.

I know I must join soon and stop "guesting"

Harry

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: john c
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 01:25 AM

Band on the Run -brilliant!
The stuff with Elvis Costello.
Mull of Kintyre (wee joke :-))
J.

P.S. Hey, Sergio - how about telling us about the music you like!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Sergio Alguim
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 05:41 AM

"P.S. Hey, Sergio - how about telling us about the music you like!!!!! "

I have, in the topic "Top 12 melodies ever " (15.oct), but it didnt create too much enthusiasm on this forum.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 06:05 AM

Although my interest in popular music waned when the Beatles & their ilk came on the scene, I have to admit liking "Run Devil Run" which is a throwback to '50s R&R (as I am, I suppose!) and especially his version of "No other baby", written by Chris Barber's one-time banjo player Dickie Bishop, is better than the original by Wally Whyton and the Vipers c 1958 (too fast). IMHO.
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: mousethief
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 11:37 AM

Eleanor Rigby is electric? Sounds like violins to me.

But seriously, folks. Band on the Run is a fine album. "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is as good as anything he wrote for the Beatles after 1966. "Live and Let Die" is an amazing piece for a pop songster. And I simply adore "Another Day."

But there is no doubt that the team of McCartney and Lennon, when they were actually working together, was greater than either were working alone.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Doctor John
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 02:52 PM

Roger the Skiffler, Now I remember Dick "Cisco" (yes, really) Bishop too. The UK's biggest Guthrie fan before the rest of us even heard him. Can you refresh my memory as these EP's are now long gone. With Lonnie Donegan I think he recorded "Jesse James", "Stagolee" and one or two others. He did a EP with Donegan look-alike American over here Johnny Duncan but I can't remember what was on it. He sang one tile - a spiritual - on a Chris Barber LP. Can you jog my memory. And...where are they now. Dr John

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 03:16 PM

Interesting. I would pick on "Live and Let Die," Admiral Halsey", "Another Day" and "Band on the Run" as my examples of McCartney songs that needed serious George Martin and John Lennon knife work. ("And in this ever-changing world in which we live in." I mean, really).

The grandiose things are way overdone, and it is as if he gave up caring about words. It is the little fragments that (like the second side of Abbey Road) still reveal the craftsman. I think it is on Red Rose Speedway that he has a little song "Dragonfly" that sticks in the head, and there are others (like Michael's references to Flowers in the Attic) where you get nice moments. Drives a fan (of which I am one) crazy??!!! Shows how we all need an editor.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 04:15 AM

Dr J. I'll have a rummage thro' the old ganderbag (ie the LP collection!)and the Chilton Who's Who in British Jazz books and see what I can turn up. No use trying to rely on memory!
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 08:57 AM

Flaming Pie is an awesome album (and not just because Jeff Lynne produced it)..."Little Willow" is one of the only songs I can take comfort in these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Sergio Alguim
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 09:10 AM

"From: Peter T. Date: 15-Oct-00 - 01:49 PM (a) The idea that Paul McCartney needs to write for the money is about the funniest thing I have heard in a long time. The man practically owns counties in Britain. I wish he had't written all the dreck he has, but that he is doing it for the money is absurd. "

Love for money has no limits. A rich person wants often more and more and more and ..., it sometimes becomes a kind of drug. I didnt say that he NEEDS to write for money, but I get a feeling thats why he is doing it anyway. Didnt he have an economical dispute with the group he song Mull of Kentire with, The Wings, a long time ago ? I read somewhere many years ago that The Wings (or somebody else) wanted a percent of the future incomes from an album or some songs they had made with McCartney, but Paul McCartney wanted to pay them out with a one-time-amount. And the co-operation collapsed. Is this more or less correct ?

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Peter T.
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 09:42 AM

You could be partly right, Sergio. I was objecting to the "only for money" phrase. He obviously doesn't need the money; but it could be a substitute for other stuff (as we descend into cheap psychology). And he obviously just wants to be out there playing in a band. Maybe in Hamburg in 1961. I have never had the stomach to read any of the later biographies, but he is obviously a difficult person to work with. At least he continues to give it a go -- the Oratorio and Standing Stones and other stuff (can't stand it myself). What I can't figure out is why he got so wasteful and careless, as if none of it mattered. Maybe the Beatles mattered too much, and he decided to turn his back on that pressurized writing.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 03:09 PM

OK, Doc.J. I'm still at work but did a quick surf in my meal break: there's a bit on Dickie B in the .on Johnny Duncan in the Guardian Online for 20th July this year ( I think I posted it at the time). There's also a reference to him playing with Monty Sunshine. The New Musical Express of Sep 13 1957 features him and the usual suspects, apparently(I was a Melody maker: "for the best in jazz" man myself in those days)and a piece on Johnny Duncan at http://www.brightguy.demon.co.,uk/duncan1.htm
Click Here mentions him singing on 3 Duncan tracks at least: Blowin' down this old dirty road; Can't you line 'em and Gypsy Davey.
More later, perhaps!
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 03:24 PM

Delete the rogue comma in the URL to get to it!. Add "obit" to the reference to the Guardian piece,to make sense! Gotta dash, sorry can't fix 'em.
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 18 Oct 00 - 03:49 AM

(Apologies to others for thread creep!)
DrJ: According to John Chilton's book, Dickie B. was as late as 1996 working with a German band in Ulm, having moved there about mid-70s. Before that he played with most of the Brit trad bands (Lightfoot, Rod Mason etc). He guested on the Barber 40th anniversary tour in 1994 (not when I saw it in Reading).
Most of my Barber records that have personnel listed are from the Eddie Smith/Stu Morrison period (and more recently the single string specialist Paul Sealey)but Dickie was on the 1954-56 cuts recorded live in Holland and Germany which were reissued in 1994 for the anniversary. He only does backing vocals on the skiffle tracks on these. He doesn't sing lead on any of the other cuts I have.
There's probably a Barber discography around with full details but I havn't come across it.
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 18 Oct 00 - 03:59 AM

PS (then I better start work)
Getting back to Paul McC: (sort of) my researches into Dickie B revealed that Chad and Jeremy (now Jeremy Clyde the "toff" actor)also recorded No other Baby.
(bad Michael Caine impression: "Not many people know that" -or want to, I susect!),br>RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Doctor John
Date: 18 Oct 00 - 02:26 PM

Thanks RtS; will start a new thread on Dick Bishop. Dr John

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Doctor John
Date: 18 Oct 00 - 03:35 PM

Does anyone take Mull of Kintyre seriously? It sounds computer generated to me - start with acoustic guitar strummed, on come the pipes, children's choir (or was that a Cliff Richard number?) Mawkish sentiment and all. Very smug too. I hear Paul McCartney is non too popular in Argyll and not for his music either. Dr John

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Matt_R
Date: 18 Oct 00 - 03:38 PM

I LOVE Mull of Kintyre. Of course, I've never heard Paul sing it. I learned it from a Scottish singer named Andy Stewart (NOT Andy M. Stewart). I though it was an actual folksong as was thoroughly shocked to find it was by Sir Paul and my old bud Denny Laine (from The Move). Still love it.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Amel,Beatles' girl.
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 07:19 AM

Dears,let me tell you something!I LOVE Sir Paul, and all what he did. He is simply great! I think that he is a gifted and a talented MAN, that is genuine! Iam sorry, but while Ringo & Georges were losing their fans, HE was trying to make a great effort, in order to keep his image & the one of the BEATLES, admired in the sixties:WONDERFUL & MAGICAL. So, to say that "he is doing it only for money" is really absurd! George MARTIN said once that everybody wanted to work with Paul,but it was too difficult to work with him, because Paul liked a perfect work, he disliked mistakes. That's why he might struggle with the people he works with, sometimes! YOURS, AMEL from ALGERIA. E-MAIL: [e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Amel,Beatles' girl.
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 07:21 AM

Dears,let me tell you something!I LOVE Sir Paul, and all what he did. He is simply great! I think that he is a gifted and a talented MAN, that is genuine! Iam sorry, but while Ringo & Georges were losing their fans, HE was trying to make a great effort, in order to keep his image & the one of the BEATLES, admired in the sixties:WONDERFUL & MAGICAL. So, to say that "he is doing it only for money" is really absurd! George MARTIN said once that everybody wanted to work with Paul,but it was too difficult to work with him, because Paul liked a perfect work, he disliked mistakes. That's why he might struggle with the people he works with, sometimes! YOURS, AMEL from ALGERIA. E-MAIL: [e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Brakn
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 08:50 PM

Matt_R

When was Denny Laine in The Move?

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Lonesome Gillette
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 09:06 PM

He's a great guitar player, nobody ever mentions that.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: The Lighthouse
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 05:55 PM

A guy writes a great song about his home (Mull of Kintyre) and it's mawkish sentiment? Just how many "folk" songs are out there doing the same thing? Oh yeah - an awful lot!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Matt_R
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 06:03 PM

OK Brakn, my mistake. Denny was in Denny Laine & The Diplomats with Bev Bevan, the drummer from The Move & The Electric Light Orchestra. Always get him mixed up with Carl Wayne. Laine, Wayne...similar.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: Kim C
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 05:49 PM

I am a HUGE Beatles fan from the word Go. I have to say, though, that I think what makes the Beatles great is the combination of the contributions of each member. Apart, they're okay, not bad, there are a few things that stand out... but together, well, they were really something, the likes of which we have not seen before or since and probably never will again. I don't care if Girth Brooks has sold more records than anyone, he can't touch the Beatles.

And as for the blues & folk music thing, that was where they got a lot of their influences.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: L R Mole
Date: 31 Oct 00 - 12:00 PM

And the message from the country rises higher...

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 31 Oct 00 - 04:29 PM

WOO HOO!! Mole, Jeff Lynne, the Lynnemeister himself, penned that little gem!

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: mousethief
Date: 31 Oct 00 - 04:36 PM

I was always of the opinion that John Lennon was ghost-writing for ELO. Look at the songs. Especially "Can't Get It Out of My Head" and "Hold On Tight To Your Dreams." The former could have been off "Imagine" or "Plastic Ono Band" and the latter off "Double Fantasy."

Then when Lennon died and ELO immediately broke up and had no further hits, my suspicions were confirmed.

No wonder they got Jeff Lynne to produce "Free as a Bird."

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 31 Oct 00 - 04:42 PM

Oh, don't you go near ELO! Them's MY boys. I never got this "John Lennon" thing. Jeff sounds NOTHING like him. As for "Hold On Tight"...it's influenced by rockabilly, as is "Rock & Rock Is King", etc. Lennon did not create rockabilly. And I wouldn't call 6 years "immediately". ELO's last hit was "Calling America", in 1986, off their final album "Balance of Power" a very sad and very beautiful work. Listen to "Boogie No.2: In Old England Town" and tell me if that sounds like John Lennon. More like Bob Dylan on acid. The last thing I need after today is people slagging off on ELO. Go back to your folk music, and try to figure out why Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, and Iris Dement all sound exactly the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Paul Mc Cartney ?
From: mousethief
Date: 31 Oct 00 - 05:33 PM

I'll slag off on whomever I darned well please, you young whippersnapper. This is a free country and if I feel like slagging I'll damned well slag.

I don't think I've ever even heard Nanci Griffith or Emmylou Harris or Iris Dement. What kind of a tom-fool name is Dement? Sounds like an idjit.

You mean John Lennon doesn't sound like Bob Dylan on acid? Except for the fact that Lennon can sing, I'd say that's a pretty good description of his early-to-mid-70s stuff.

I fail to hear anything even remotely rockabilly in "Hold On Tight." As for rockabilly, which of the Beatles do you think did the lead vocal on "Rock and Roll Music?" Ringo? Lennon loved rockabilly.

"Go back to your folk music." You're very funny. If you don't like folk music you picked a strange place to hang out. As it so happens I also enjoy rock, blues, classical, jazz, even country. You don't think I learned what "Hold on Tight" sounds like by listening to Emmylou Harris, do you?

Matt, maybe you need a nap.

Alex
O..O
=o=