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Krall does Paul: McCartney cover on “Wallflower”
NANCY CARR * On her new album “Wallflower,” Diana Krall covers “If I Take You Home Tonight,” a song Paul McCartney wrote while working on “Kisses on the Bottom” but didn’t release. (Not clear if he recorded a version.) I think the romantic ballad blends in seamlessly with the late 1960s to 1970s songs that make […]
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Apple Jam: Off the Beatle Track
In the process of refurbishing Nancy Carr’s earlier post on the Seattle-based Beatle-tribute band Apple Jam, I discovered these videos and had to pass them on. 2009’s “Off the Beatle Track” is Apple Jam doing an LP’s worth Lennon/McCartney songs never released by the Beatles (a recent obsession of mine) in the style of the […]
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McCartney’s DJ Chris Holmes
Rolling Stone comes in for a lot of licks here on Dullblog, mostly from me, mostly for its role in canonizing Lennon and demonizing McCartney in the early 70s. But they’ve gotten their act together since then, and the Stone‘s relentless Boomer-focus means that they do get into some interesting Beatle-related nooks and crannies. This […]
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Blackbird by Beautiful Noize
Woefully behind on posting — working on several new ones — in addition to a roundtable discussion of John/Paul fan fiction (watch this space). In the meantime, please to enjoy this video sent in by reader Raffael Holzhauser. Raffael wrote: Here’s a little music video of my band’s cover (or let’s say reinterpretation) of Paul’s […]
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Collector’s Edition by Stuart Tolley
In the run-up to the holiday, I’m going to begin posting on some of the Beatle books that have been hurled over our e-transom in the last several months. This morning author Stuart Talley wrote to tell me about his book Collector’s Edition, a roundup of the graphic and product design employed in limited-run collectibles. […]
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“Art of McCartney” tribute album mostly meh
NANCY CARR * The recently released “Art of McCartney” tribute album could have been–should have been–so much better. Lots of songs and lots of artists, many of them big names. But the album suffers from two major problems: the track list is weighted toward songs that have been covered a lot (often better than here), […]
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Flaming Lips’ “With a Little Help from My Fwends”: Sgt. Pepper’s through a 21st century blender
NANCY CARR * With a Little Help from My Fwends, the Sgt. Pepper’s tribute album from the Flaming Lips and a bunch of their buddies, is a frequently painful listening experience that is also revelatory. It’s just that much of what it reveals leads to depressing conclusions about how the 21st century is shaping up. […]
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Liv Warfield got “Blackbird” wrong: Ten covers that get it right
NANCY CARR * Last Friday Liv Warfield, best known for her stint in Prince’s New Power Generation, performed her new song “Blackbird” on The Late Show With David Letterman, declaring “Paul McCartney got it wrong / I ain’t never want no song / I ain’t special, I ain’t strong / Black . . . bird.” It’s […]
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Admiral “Recovers” The Beatles; or, A Genre Waiting to Be Named
DEVIN McKINNEY • You have your cover versions of Beatles songs, and then you have your “recovers”—songs rendered as The Beatles would have done them, had they done them completely differently, or, in some cases, at all. One of the earliest and best entries in this imaginative and as-yet unnamed subgenre was It’s Four You […]
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The Beatle Brothers at Fitzgerald’s: four hours of passion
NANCY CARR * Last night I saw the Beatle Brothers at Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn, IL, giving the crowd the ultimate Christmas gift for Beatles fans—four hours of covers played with expertise and passion, featuring the best Lennon and McCartney vocals I’ve heard outside the real thing. Far more than any dress-up-like-the-Beatles-band, Phil Angotti and Jay Goepnner, […]