Sunday, June 18, 2017

Father's Day Tripper: Macca 75

I'm gonna put this up before I go crazy, as my phone has just passed away (it seems for good) and they might shut off the internet in a few hours, leaving me cast adrift with no connection to the outside world possible. Wait, he says that last part like it's a bad thing.
But before I vanish into the digital abyss, I'd be remiss if I didn't do this: commemorate one of the all-timers, born this day in 1942 and turning the milestone 75 today.
It would be stupid for me to try to explain what his life's work has meant to the continuum of music in our world since he showed up at the start of the Sixties, as part of what is widely considered the most important group of the last 60 years.
If you don't know the significance.... well, honestly no one currently alive and over the age of 18 doesn't know who he is, so that point is probably moot. Suffice to say there is popular music prior to him, and popular music after him, and those two places are a good few galaxies apart.
I know I say that about just about everyone I write about on here, but this time I mean it. No, really. Is there a more influential, more melodically formative, more central figure to the music of our lifetimes than Paul McCartney? The only other comparable figure that comes to mind is James Brown. I'll be right here when you think of someone else.
There isn't a whole lot else to say, is there? My phone (may it rest in eternal peace) has (OK, had) this mondo killer compilation in it of his golden Seventies period, solo and in full flight with Wings, which thankfully I have archived elsewhere.
In fact, if you can stand to keep reading this sad excuse for a tribute to the bottom of the page, a little bird might tell you where to get all 2 1/2 hours of it. I have to keep you interested in my drivel somehow, so forgive me for forcing you to stick with this post until its merciful end.
Now, back to Macca and his maximal role in the firmament of stellar sounds and their authors. To pay proper homage to the man I have placed into the cloud the complete final concert of Wings, recorded and mixed for a live record that never came out, due to the band breaking up and Paul beginning the Eighties in jail in Japan for a pot bust.
This was taped in the Glasgow Apollo in Scotland at the very end of the 1970s, and a single culled from the never-issued live LP of it was Paul's first big hit of the 1980s, Coming Up. It was recorded with a mobile truck and shelved, only to be bootlegged extensively until the masters were released on an unauthorized double CD on the (in)famous Vigatone label.
Paul McCartney & Wings
Apollo
Glasgow, UK
12.17.1979

01 Got to Get You Into My Life
02 Getting Closer
03 Every Night
04 Again and Again and Again
05 I've Had Enough
06 No Words
07 Cook of the House
08 Old Siam, Sir
09 Maybe I'm Amazed
10 The Fool On the Hill
11 Let It Be
12 Hot As Sun
13 Spin It On
14 Twenty Flight Rock
15 Go Now
16 Arrow Through Me
17 Wonderful Christmastime
18 Coming Up
19 Goodnight Tonight
20 Yesterday
21 Mull of Kintyre
22 Band On the Run

Total time: 1:36:25

Paul McCartney - vocals, bass, guitars, piano
Linda McCartney - keyboards, vocals
Denny Laine - vocals, bass, guitars
Laurence Juber - guitars
Steve Holly - drums
Tony Dorsey - trombone
Howie Casey - saxophones
Thaddeus Richard - saxophones
Steve Howard - trumpet

master tape of a mobile multitrack recording of an unreleased live LP, sourced from the 1998 unauthorized Vigatone CD "Last Flight"
disc break goes after Track 11
I love this show because he has the nerve to play almost the whole, then-current Back to the Egg album in the hour-and-a-half-plus set, and also because there's no silly medleys to cover the Beatles tunes... he rocks the whole songs. It also contains the best version I've ever heard of my personal favorite solo cut of his, Every Night.
In fact, I dig that take of that song so much, the remixed ideation of it from this concert --- released as a bonus track on the 2011 reissue of his first solo record, the cleverly-titled and still brilliant McCartney -- appears on that mysterious 2CD mega Macca mix I keep bragging about, hoping to get you to keep reading. Well, it is titled Backwards Traveller, and it too is in the cloud and can be accessed right here.
OK, that about does it... if I'm never heard from again, at least you have this massive Macca stash to remember me by. And also to remember to send of a bow of appreciation to Mr. McCartney on his very big day today, an appropriate one for one of the indisputable fathers of modern songwriting and music. Ram on, birthday Paul! I know you're gonna have a good time.--J.