Interview: McCartney Recording Sessions author Luca Perasi
"Groundbreaking and definitive" Here's a welcome sign that Paul McCartney's solo work is being looked at with new and appreciative eyes: Luca Perasi's Paul McCartney: Recording Sessions (1969-2013) catalogs all Paul's solo recording sessions in detail. Well, the first 44 years of his post-Beatles career, anyway. Among the book's revelations is just how often McCartney recorded songs he didn't release for years, or in some cases didn't release at all. [...]
McCartney in Dallas: A World-Class Balancing Act
NANCY CARR • My favorite moment of Paul McCartney's October 13 show in Dallas was a visual grace note. At the end of a song, as a stagehand came forward to take McCartney's Hofner bass and give him a guitar, McCartney held the vintage instrument up and balanced it one-handed, headstock down, body up. He looked at it, and the audience, teasingly, [...]
George Harrison and Krishna: Devotional Display in Dallas
NANCY CARR * While looking at the jade collection in the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas earlier this week, I was surprised to hear "My Sweet Lord" playing faintly in the distance. A museum worker was moving pedestals around in a nearby gallery, preparing for a new exhibit: was she listening to the radio quietly? Or did I just have [...]
McCartney at Candlestick Park
NANCY CARR • Who can open a sold-out arena show with two songs he worked on that were released nearly 50 years apart? That would be Paul McCartney, who started his August 14 Candlestick Park concert with “Eight Days A Week” (1964) and “Save Us” (2013). McCartney closed down Candlestick in a rain of firework sparks and confetti, after playing 40 songs that [...]
Joshua Wolf Shenk on Lennon and McCartney (Take 1)
[Beloved HD readers: We're trying something a little new here, a call-and-response. This is my take on a recent piece in The Atlantic by Joshua Wolf Shenk on Lennon and McCartney. Soon Mike and/or Devin will chime in with posts of their own. -- Nancy Carr] What hath Malcolm Gladwell wrought? Thith. Hi Mike and Devin, I just finished reading [...]
Jude Southerland Kessler’s Lennon books: not nonfiction
Jude Southerland Kessler, author of series of books on the life of John Lennon. NANCY CARR • As the Beatles’ story is told and retold, the line between fact and fiction can grow vanishingly thin, and that’s why this interview with author Jude Southerland Kessler alarms me. She’s currently promoting volume three of a projected nine-book Lennon project she hopes will [...]
Beatles in Austin
"We're coming to take you away -- FOREVER!" "Yoko, I've a feeling we're not in Manhattan anymore." NANCY CARR * My recent stroll down South Congress in Austin proved again that the Beatles are everywhere. I especially liked Sgt. Pepper's Day of the Dead Club Band at the Mi Casa folk art shop. The prize for sheer oddness [...]
Those McCartney e-tickets may be stolen
NANCY CARR * Paul McCartney's "Farewell to Candlestick Park" show, on August 14, is generating some crazy reselling action—tickets for the sold-out show are being hawked for up to 20 times face value. If you're looking for tickets, take a tip from my recent experience and do everything possible to ensure you're not buying stolen tickets that have been cancelled and will be [...]
Kiss as the Anti- Beatles
NANCY CARR * Easily recognizable iconography is one thing the Beatles and Kiss share. The Beatles have sometimes been represented by just their hair, and Kiss’ comic-book costumes and makeup are certainly distinctive. But there the resemblance ends. Reading Brian Hiatt’s excellent article “Kiss Forever: 40 Years of Feuds and Fury” in last month’s Rolling Stone got me thinking about all the [...]
Imagine Beatles chocolates
Linda, I need another chocolate stat! NANCY CARR * Spring is finally here, and the holy people are out smelling the grass in the meadow. It’s the perfect time to have a Monkberry Moon Delight chocolate, courtesy of the folks at Imagine Chocolate. Appropriately, it has plenty of nuts. And it's part of the "Sir Paul" assortment, of course. [...]