Paul McCartney: Good Evening New York City

When I heard that McCartney was releasing a CD/DVD of his NYC run of shows last summer I thought that this was probably one too many live releases. After all, Paul’s pattern lately has been tour after releasing a studio album (or, as he’s started doing lately, do a mini-tour) and then release a DVD of the show. He has been using the same band since the 2001 tour to support Driving Rain, his first album after his wife Linda passed away and he’s released four DVDs with this band (not even counting the shorter things like the Memory Almost Full Deluxe Edition or the third disc of the McCartney Years.) So I did not rush right out to buy this one. However, a friend told me that Meijer had Good Evening New York City for $10.99 – that’s for 2 CDs and a DVD – and I couldn’t resist it so I asked Laura to get it for me for Christmas and that’s what happened – it sat waiting for me for as a present along with other DVDs this Christmas.

So I’ve been watching it over the past few days about a half hour at a time and I’ve come to believe that this is perhaps the best live McCartney DVD yet. Here are my reasons:

• Paul’s in great form – he and the band are playing and singing great. (There has been some Internet complaining about his use of auto-tune but, frankly, I don’t hear it.) They’ve been playing together for nearly a decade and it shows. They’re tight and playful in their playing. I’ve never noticed that Brian Ray is a fine bassist before – a nice bonus for when Paul plays guitar or piano.
• He does excellent versions of songs he’s done before with some nice twists like jams at the end of “I’ve Got a Feeling” and in the middle of “Paperback Writer.” The version of “Something” is like the one on the Concert for George, where Paul starts with the ukulele but then the band comes in part way through – very nicely done.
• The set list is very good. Lot so Beatles, of course – nearly the entire second half of the concert is Beatles – but also a very nice selection of solo stuff taken from a large number of his albums. Band on the Run is, of course, well represented with four selections but one of those is the seldom-played “Mrs Vanderbilt.” There are also a few songs from McCartney’s recent Fireman album Electric Arguments as well as Memory Almost Full. Even the Beatles songs have some surprises like “I’m Down” and “A Day in the Life” ended with Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” (Credited just to Lennon, by the way, even though the original was officially listed as a Lennon/McCartney song.)
• This is one of the first DVDs of Paul’s shows that actually just shows the concert rather than having lots of intercut interviews, etc. And this time the focus is on the band rather than showing how much the fans are loving it, unlike some of his other videos. Another annoyance in some of the early videos is the frenetic editing – you never get more than a few seconds on any one band member. This time the pace is about right.

In nearly every way this video is superior to others that he has released lately. Even if, like me, you have many of his videos in your collection, this one is worth getting and if you don’t have any then this is the one you should consider getting, especially considering the price.

2009 - albums of the year.

This has been a strange year of listening for me – not many new albums have really grabbed my attention. Plus, for a couple of reasons, I spent time rediscovering old albums. The Beatles remasters of course were released in September and, while I’m getting the stereo remasters for Christmas, the mono remasters have been in my rotation for a couple of months and they’re spectacular. I can’t wait for the stereo ones. U2 came out with a remastered Unforgettable Fire which was a great thing to listen to. Between old U2 and the Beatles there isn't a whole lot of room for new music to creep in.

On top of that I spent part of the summer deliberately going back and listening to old classic albums that I had somehow missed the first time around, albums like Blue by Joni Mitchell and Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix. They are clearly on my best listening of the year list. I also continue to enjoy Electric Arguments by the Fireman (Paul McCartney) which was on my list last year.

But none of those are new albums – there actually are only a handful of new ones that got me excited, two of the are live albums of bands playing old stuff. One that surprised me is Over the Rhine’s Live from Nowhere, Vol. 4. I had low expectations for this album since it was all songs from my least favorite OtR period, their earliest days. But the playing and singing on LfN4 is just wonderful – it’s a reunion concert of the early band and Ric Hordinski’s playing is great. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood (who made up half of Blind Faith in the 60's) released Live from Madison Square Garden which is a very good live album with both Clapton and Winwood at the top of their game. I got to see their tour last summer and Clapton was clearly playing very very well. I never dreamed that I'd actually ever see the two of them playing Blind Faith songs together live. It was great (although they were playing even better when I saw them than they did on the album!)

Three new bands caught my ear this year. Owl City’s album Ocean Eyes is a lot of fun. The song “Fireflies” grabbed me right away and the rest of the album followed suit. It might sound too much alike over all but I'm not sick of it yet. I discovered another new band, the Rescues – I think they’re great and their album Crazy Ever After got a lot of play last summer too. The Rescues is a collection of four solo artists who together have catchy tunes, lush harmonies and interesting arrangements. Dhani Harrison’s band thenewno2 (the new number 2) released You Are Here, an album that has glimpses of his father George’s melodic style but cast in a fresh way. This is not just a son cashing in on his father’s name – I think Dhani might have a real future ahead of him. Even though I got it early in the year I keep going back to it.

Finally, my number one album of the year has to be U2’s No Line on the Horizon. This album is adventurous and risky but there are moments of sheer brilliance like “Magnificent” and “White as Snow.” I even like the lead single “Get on Your Boots.” Whenever I don’t hear the album for a few weeks and listen again I get excited because it’s just so good. I remember when I first got it I listened with my ipod in a hotel in Troy, MI and was just blown away. That was when I realized what a very special record this was. I got to see U2 in Chicago this fall and I will again in East Lansing next summer. The clear high point to my musical year!

The Concert for George

I watched some of The Concert for George this morning again, the George Harrison tribute concert. Especially with the recent Michael Jackson tributes I was struck with how the tone of this is just about exactly right. First of all it was a year to the day after his death. His friends, primarily Eric Clapton, not just entertainment industry folks who wanted to show that they knew George, put it together. The people who appear in the concert represent many parts of George’s musical life – Paul and Ringo, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty (from the Traveling Wilburys,) Billy Preston, Gary Booker, Ravi Shankar, Joe Brown (for whom the Beatles opened in the early 60’s) and even Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

The night did not feature any over-the-top tribute speeches proclaiming him the greatest entertainer who ever lived – OK, the Monty Python bit featured one that was SO over the top that it was hilarious but it soon morphed into “The Lumberjack Song.” It was a bunch of musical friends playing George’s music or music that George loved. Even the video was done well featuring two discs, one with the feature film “The Concert for George” with performances from the concert and the rehearsal as well as interview footage from the participants. The other disc has the entire concert.

The bottom line, though, is that the music is great. George was a good composer who was often great and this concert features the best of his work performed by Clapton’s crack band and some of his very talented friends. Highlights for me include the McCartney/Clapton version of “Something” which starts out with Paul’s ukulele version and shifts to be a full band version with Eric singing and playing – just beautiful. The version of “I Want to Tell You” is really cool. The Ravi Shankar composed “Arpan” suite performed by his daughter and an orchestra of Indian instruments is also wonderful – I listened to this a bit three years ago on my trip to India. Overall the DVD is well worth it – I truly enjoy watching it and listening to the CD.

Who is the best Beatle?

As part of a facebook wall exchange on the best bands in the world Andy Boyer asked me “who was the best Beatle?” This came after I pointed out to him the ridiculous notion of his that placed Nirvana in the top three bands of all time and missed the Beatles completely. [EDIT: Andy reminds me that he did mention the Beatles in his "bands I also like" section so saying that he missed them completely is unfair. I agree.]

His question, though, needs a response that is longer than a facebook wall can easily contain so I thought I’d respond here.

First of all, this is the sort of question that you shouldn’t have to answer. One is capable of enjoying the Beatles music without picking favorites or trying to sort out who brought what to the band. Not only that but there was something special in the collaboration of the four people involved. I know from playing with a variety of people that, if you let it, changing even one player in a band will change everyone. I play differently with a different piano player or drummer. When I played with the Lazy Blue Tunas I was able to play a lot differently because there were two other guitars occupying the same aural space and I needed to back off on some things and I was able to add other things. So, it’s hard to sort out what was going on with the Beatles as well.

All four Beatles brought something special to the band and that changed over the ten years or so that they were together. Paul’s bass playing, for example, is one of the high points of the best Beatles music. Have you listened to the bass on Sgt Pepper or in George’s beautiful song “Something?” Paul doesn’t get enough credit for that. John’s playing, while not virtuosic like Paul and George’s still carried the day on more than one occasion – his piano in “Ob La Di Ob La Da,” for example is what made the track work (even though it’s not one of Paul’s best songs.) George’s guitar is often just the thing that made a track work. His 12-string playing on A Hard Days Night made the album. Ringo’s drums were always on target – listen to the drums on “Come Together” – they’re brilliant. You can’t pull the pieces of the Beatles apart easily.

So let’s take a look at their post-Beatles work. This is also tough because John’s was so much shorter than the others and, for about half the time John was alive after the Beatles he wasn’t actively recording. George, too, took a lot of time off. Ringo had an on-again off-again recording career, even at times losing his recording contract. Paul, on the other hand, kept working. So how do you compare them? John’s songwriting has been recently highlighted on the wonderful “Instant Karma” collection where other artists covered his music and that reinforced the notion that he had a lot of good songs on his own. But, frankly, how many of John’s solo songs can people list? Even Imagine, his most popular album has only one song that people know - the title track. He also had minor hits with “Instant Karma” and “Give Peace a Chance.” In the same period McCartney had a large number of hits – “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Another Day,” “Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey,” “My Love,” “Band on the Run,” “Jet,” “Listen to the What the Man Said,” “Silly Love Songs,” “Let ‘Em In,” and“With A Little Luck” (to name the ones that I can off the top of my head.) And that’s just in his first decade after the Beatles. There have been nearly three more decades since then. In that same first decade George had “My Sweet Lord” and “Give Me Love.” So Paul is the clear winner in this category.

But it’s not just about hits. What about quality? Paul made a couple of lousy albums along the way. Wild Life has long been seen as one of his weaker albums and, indeed, it is not very good. And Paul has been tagged with writing a bunch of silly love songs – a charge that sticks to a certain extent. John’s work though is at least as uneven. Some Time in New York City was pretty poor. Side two of Live Peace in Toronto is unlistenable. Even his brilliant work on Double Fantasy really only amounts to half an album with Yoko’s music making up the other half – I’m quite content having on the John songs from that album and it’s posthumous follow up, Milk and Honey. George also had his stinkers – Extra Texture and Dark Horse haven’t even been released on CD yet. Ringo had one great album, Ringo. He did have a number of cool songs but, frankly, if you buy his Photograph anthology you’ve got just about all the Ringo you really need on one CD. So how do you compare Paul’s massive output with the relatively meager output from the others? It’s tough but on balance I think Paul had at least as high a batting average as the others and he came to the plate much more often. This, I think, gives him the edge.

So, Andy, with no disrespect to the other three, I think my answer is Paul McCartney.

Electric Arguments – Paul McCartney as the Fireman

Electric Arguments is the new album by the Fireman - Paul McCartney and Youth (the bassist for Killing Joke – whoever that is.) I did not buy the first two Fireman albums. They were strange ambient music – at least the part I can hear on samples from itunes – and, while I can appreciate ambient music I’m not sure I want to invest in it. But this new one is different. This has Paul singing. He and Youth went into the studio with no song in mind and no plan and, by the end of the day had a recording. He did this 13 times over the year. The result is an album that is part McCartney being his tuneful self, part McCartney being his experimental self and part Youth being his, well, youthful self.

So, what do I think? Well, on the one hand, I’m not sure yet. It is a bit of a strange album. On the other hand in the week since I’ve picked it up I find myself playing it over and over again. I haven't done this with any other album since Memory Almost Full, McCartney’s last album. I find myself entranced by the moodiness of the songs, by the interesting arrangements and by the sheer variety. There are also some really cool moments on the album.

Many reviewers are saying that this is the best McCartney album in decades – some say since Ram. Now I don’t remember people going all crazy over Ram or saying that that was one of McCartney’s best albums but, OK, Ram was a cool album and I can see why they say that Electric Arguments reminds them of it. But it also sometimes reminds me of Magical Mystery Tour and of McCartney II and also of Press to Play – did anyone else buy that one??? But to say that it’s McCartney’s best in decades is to minimize the cool stuff that McCartney has done lately. He’s done a lot of really outstanding albums lately – Flaming Pie, Chaos and Creation and Memory Almost Full have all gotten strong reviews and they’ve all been called the best in years from McCartney. (Reviewers seem to have short memories.) But because Electric Arguments is a collaboration with a producer it has a different flavor than his other albums, much like Chaos and Creation did.

So Electric Arguments is not “McCartney’s best”, nor is it a “return to form” or any of those things that some reviewers are saying. But it is a very good experimental album from an artist who, to a greater or lesser extent, does this a lot more often than he gets credit for. And I just can't seem to take it out of my CD player.

40 Years Ago - the Beatles' White Album

Tomorrow, Nov 22, marks the 40th Anniversary of the release of the White Album. I reserved a copy of that album at my local record store in Ridgewood NJ before it came out and when I went to get it the proprietor reached under the counter and pulled it out and gave it to me. It was white. It had the words "The Bealtes" embossed on the cover along with a number stamped on the front - I forget what the number was but it wasn't a particularly low one - I think somewhere in the 100,000 range.

I took it home and put in on the stereo in my bedroom. I was 14 years old and this was one of the first album releases I had ever looked forward to. Wow - what a mix of sounds and songs - what a LOT of songs! This album was in marked contrast to the Sgt Pepper / Magical Mystery Beatles that I had been listening to - especially after coming fairly quickly on the heals of the Yellow Submarine Soundtrack which just reinforced the psychedelic image of the Beatles. It struck me asa wonderful collection of songs. I remember one reviewer saying that this album made it clear that Lennon and McCartney were the best songwriters since Shubert. Yeah - it's that good.

I must admit that I had more patience for "Revolution 9" back then than I do now but I have more patience for "Good Night" now than I did then so I guess it all evens out. But any album that has "Back in the USSR," "Dear Prudence," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "I Will," "Revolution 1," and "Martha My Dear" is clearly a classic. And my list of songs here just scratches the surface. This is an amazing album.

I've written about this album before here, here and here.

What if the Beatles were Irish?

The singer here is satirist Roy Zimmerman. Thanks to Abbey Road for the link.

George Harrison playlist

Here is another of my playlists. This one features the solo music of George Harrison. Once again, my rules are that it had to fit on a CD and that I wanted it to give both a good general intro to George's music and also include some of my own quirky choices.

Name / Artist / Album
01 My Sweet Lord / George Harrison / All Things Must Pass
02 Don't Let Me Wait Too Long / George Harrison / Living In The Material World
03 What Is Life / George Harrison / All Things Must Pass
04 Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) / George Harrison / Living In The Material World
05 Crackerbox Palace / George Harrison / Thirty Three & 1/3
06 Love Comes To Everyone / George Harrison / George Harrison
07 Wake Up My Love / George Harrison / Gone Troppo
08 Got My Mind Set on You / George Harrison / Cloud 9
09 Cheer Down / George Harrison / Best Of Dark Horse 1976-1989
10 Any Road / George Harrison / Brainwashed
11 Horse To The Water (with George Harrison) / Jools Holland and His Rhythm and Blues Orchestra / Small World Big Band, Vol. 1
12 When We Was Fab / George Harrison / Cloud 9
13 All Those Years Ago / George Harrison / Somewhere In England
14 Blow Away / George Harrison / George Harrison
15 This Song / George Harrison / Thirty Three & 1/3
16 Baby Don't Run Away / George Harrison / Gone Troppo
17 Never Get Over You / George Harrison / Brainwashed
18 Living In The Material World / George Harrison / Living In The Material World
19 All Things Must Pass / George Harrison / All Things Must Pass

Notice that I included the Jools Holland cut which is basically a George cut - it was released only a few months before his death and was, apparently, the last thing he recorded. (By the way, feel free to let me know if you like this format for showing the playlist more or less than the tables I had before. I have a new computer and it isn't as easy to do the tables.)

A Beatles sampler

In another posting I posted a McCartney playlist. Here is my shot at distilling an intro to the Beatles for those who need an introduction. Again, it had to fit on one 80 min CD. I used the versions from 1 and Yellow Submarine when possible because they sound better. I also tried to make it flow well so that it was a good listening experience.

	Name	Album
1	I Should Have Known Better	A Hard Day's Night
2	Back In The U.S.S.R.	The Beatles [White Album]
3	Dear Prudence	The Beatles [White Album]
4	And Your Bird Can Sing	Revolver
5	Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band	Yellow Submarine
6	With A Little Help From My Friends	Yellow Submarine
7	Things We Said Today	A Hard Day's Night
8	Come Together	1
9	Let It Be	1
10	Can't Buy Me Love	1
11	I Feel Fine	1
12	Birthday	The Beatles [White Album]
13	Lady Madonna	1
14	All My Loving	With The Beatles
15	Penny Lane	1
16	Strawberry Fields Forever	Magical Mystery Tour
17	It Won't Be Long	With The Beatles
18	Paperback Writer	1
19	We Can Work It Out	1
20	The Inner Light	Past Masters, Vol. 2
21	Eight Days A Week	1
22	Something	1
23	Yesterday	1
24	All You Need Is Love	1
25	Hey Jude	1
26	I Want To Hold Your Hand	1
27	Across The Universe	Let It Be... Naked

A McCartney playlist

I recently found a Beatles blog which had a George Harrison playlist by someone who used the same rules that I recently used to make a couple of setlists so I thought I'd post mine and see what people think.

So here is my Post-Beatles McCartney setlist. There aren't many rules – it just needs to be able to fit onto one CD. That's the tricky part because that forces you to trim it down quite a bit. I also wanted this to be a good introduction to McCartney's music for someone who wasn't familiar with it and I wanted it to be a good listening experience so the order took some thought. Here's what I came up with.

	Name	Album
1	The Lovely Linda	Wingspan: Hits and History
2	Big Barn Bed	Red Rose Speedway
3	Jet	Wingspan: Hits and History
4	English Tea	Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
5	Pipes Of Peace	Wingspan: Hits and History
6	Live And Let Die	Wingspan: Hits and History
7	Motor Of Love	Flowers in the Dirt
8	Band On The Run	Wingspan: Hits and History
9	Ever Present Past	Memory Almost Full
10	Another Day	Wingspan: Hits and History
11	Mull Of Kintyre	Wingspan: Hits and History
12	Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey	Wingspan: Hits and History
13	Only Mama Knows	Memory Almost Full
14	Beautiful Night	Flaming Pie
15	Venus And Mars / Rockshow (Single Edit)	Wingspan: Hits and History
16	Dance Tonight	Memory Almost Full
17	Maybe I'm Amazed	Wingspan: Hits and History
18	Every Night	Wingspan: Hits and History
19	Tug Of War	Wingspan: Hits and History
20	My Brave Face	Flowers in the Dirt
21	Your Loving Flame	Driving Rain

There are three big ballads on here – McCartney often ends his album with one of these – and I like them a lot but I needed to somehow put them on here in a way that made sense. So I split the 21 songs into three parts and ended each part with one of the ballads – that helped me give the list some flow. My daughter Bethany questioned the inclusion of "English Tea." Feel free to suggest other options.

Ringo's birthday

Today is Ringo Starr's birthday - although I suppose using his last name was utterly unnecessary. He turns 68 today and he had an interesting wish - he asked if everyone would flash a peace sign and say (shout, whisper, think ... whatever) "peace and love" at 12 noon wherever they happened to be.

This happened quite off the cuff when some TV program asked him what he wanted for his birthday and his answer just "just more peace and love." He then went on from there to say something like "why don't we all just..." and there you have it.

Ringo's old band certainly did a lot to promote peace and love in the 60's and I was one of those people who grew up thinking that peace and love are a pretty good idea, overall. So, Ringo, thanks for the music. Just in case I forget I've timed this so that it pops up right at noon.

Peace and Love.

Can’t Buy Me Love by Jonathan Gould

I finally finished Can't Buy Me Love by Jonathan Gould. It took me a long time because a) it is a long book and b) I've been quite busy lately. In the prologue, Gould writes that this book is unique in that it combines "three main perspectives – the biographical, the musical and the historical – in an effort to convey the full import of the Beatles' lives art and times." (p. 12) Gould is looking to do all these things in one book, something he claims no other book on the Beatles does. He succeeds on nearly all counts.

As for the biographical, Gould's book is not quite the definitive biography that Bob Spitz' recent book is – and it couldn't be, especially since this book is not as long and covers things that Spitz never intended to. That said, I wonder if a novice could read this book and get a sense for the whole story. I'm not sure. It struck me, at times, that one had to know the story of the Beatles to really understand what was happening in the book. For me, that was a good thing – I don't need five pages explaining things at a level that someone who is culturally illiterate would need. I just found myself wondering if this book was written primarily for people like me who has seen, heard and read it all as far as the Beatles is concerned.

The historical part I found especially enlightening and learned things about the band and the things that were influencing them that I had not learned. The part of the book that is WAY over the top for novices are track by track discussions of nearly each and every song in the Beatles catalog. While the discussions are enlightening and interesting, the level of detail sometimes goes beyond being a fan to being something else entirely. On the other hand, I really dug thinking about the songs that way, and thought that the critique was especially interesting on the Beatles' top albums, Revolver, Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road.

So if you've read at least one other Beatles book I highly recommend this one. It's very very good.

Reading / Listening / Watching – March 2008

It has been a while since I've posted so I thought I'd do an update of what I've been up to.

Reading

I'm a little past halfway through the brilliant new Beatles book Can't Buy Me Love by Jonathan Gould. I wrote about it before I started reading it and it is every bit as good as many of the reviews say it is. It does a great job of not only talking about the lives of the Beatles but it also puts that and their music in the context of the times and the political social and artistic changes that were happening in the world. On top of that there is a song by song discussion of each of their recordings. It really is special and, while it is a bit too in-depth to be anyone's first book about the Beatles, for someone like me who has read lots of books on the Beatles, I'm enjoying it immensely.

I have, for the past couple of years, participated in the Calvin Theological Seminary book of the quarter reading group and this quarter we're reading Elizabeth Strout's Abide With Me, a fascinating look at the life of a small town preacher who's wife's death has brought him, his young daughter and their community personal turmoil. It is only through allowing his church to see him broken and in need of help that he can once again effectively lead them. We'll get together three times to discuss the book, once with the author who is visiting Calvin for the Festival of Faith and Writing! It's a good book and I enjoyed it a lot.

Listening

Because I have tickets to the Switchfoot and the Police/Elvis Costello concerts coming up soon I've gotten back into their music lately and, while I've already expressed my love for Jon Foreman's EPs I have mostly lately listened to a lot of Elvis Costello and, I must say, that his gift for melody and for inventive song and chordal structure is really extraordinary. I have long thought "Couldn't Call it Unexpected" from Mighty Like a Rose was a prime example of this but I just lately came to love the album All This Useless Beauty. It is just packed with beautiful songs. And if you haven't heard For the Stars, his duet album with opera singer Anne-Sophie Von Otter, you're missing something truly special.

I have also enjoyed Bethany Dillon and Matt Hammitt's worship album In Christ Alone. Meant to be more a modern hymns album than a praise and worship album it takes a number of songs by Keith Getty and others and puts them in a more modern setting and does a credible job with them. Some of the tracks come across as sub-standard versions of very popular songs (the title cut, or "How Deep the Father's Love" for example) but others, most notably Getty's "Jesus is Lord" which is transformed to a hip, new uptempo version, work really well and gives me a new appreciation for the song.

Finally, in the flurry of new and old music that I've been enjoying, I'm ashamed to say that it took me a couple of years to finally pick up the amazing Before the Daylight's Shot by Ashley Cleveland. I should have known better since her previous album, the live You Are There, is one of my all-time favorites. It's just that she doesn't release albums' very often and so I forget just how good she (and her guitarist/husband Kenny Greenberg) is. Amazing stuff. Meant to be played loud.

Watching

I continue to work through DVDs and I'm getting near the end of both Season 6 of 24 (which is much better than I was lead to believe based on the "24 is losing it" buzz that I heard last season) and Season One of Veronica Mars which also I'm enjoying quite a bit. I must also admit to watching American Idol and I have to say that, while David Archuletta got off to a strong start, David Cook is really bringing it lately … dawg.

I also watched the film Enchanted last weekend and it was wonderful. It dragged only the slightest bit near the end but, as a send up of Disney animated classics it is really great. The songs are catchy and the effects are quite impressive. And Amy Adams is just too likeable as the soon-to-be princess. Even if there are no kids in your house, this one is too much fun to miss.

Another Beatles book?

Another Beatles book? Yes, maybe the best ever. | csmonitor.com

This is the second review that I read that said Can't Buy Me Love by Jonathan Gould is perhaps the best Beatles book out there. I recently got it and I'll be reading it soon. It will have to be very very good to beat Bob Spitz' biography of the Beatles (which I write about here among other places.) But, let's face it - the world is big enough for more than one great book about the Beatles so it doesn't have to be a contest. I'm looking forward to reading it.

EDIT: Ron asked for a link to the Amazon site for the book - here it is.

Catching up

I have been doing a lot of listening to music and watching DVDs lately and I haven't commented here about many of them so here is a quick summary of what's been going on.

Beatles – I'm near the end of the standard part of one of my trip-through-the-albums-in-order journeys. I just heard Abbey Road and Let It Be for the second time in my car which means that I will next turn to the two Past Masters CDs and then on to all the special ones like the Yellow Submarine Songtrack, Live at the BBC, the Anthologies, etc. so I still have a lot of listening to do. This trip has reminded me of how much I enjoy this music and of how much I'm ready for remasters – could they be announced today at the superbowl???

The Reminder by Feist – This CD appeared on many end of year best-of lists so I took a chance and ordered it and I'm really enjoying it. The combination of authentic, roots sounding songs and instrumentation with sometimes highly polished production gives the album a vibe that is different from what I'm used to. The best comparison I can make is Norah Jones' second album but that's not really fair to either of them. Leslie Feist's songwriting is unique and her vocals and very nice. Mostly though this is an album that feels authentic in a way that I really like.

A Place to Land by Little Big Town – I'm just getting into this CD but it is high on my playlist right now. Imagine the Eagles of their first four albums with a slightly more 21^st century vibe and you get the sound of this band comprised of two men and two women all of whom sing. Sample the album opener "Fine Line" to see what I mean.

Classic Artists: Yes – This three hour documentary (four by the time you're done with the additional interview footage) on DVD is great for fans of the 70's supergroup that keeps coming back for the faithful to see again every once in a while. It follows the twists and turns of the personnel changes with interviews from the vast majority of key players while keeping it lively and interesting. Not much performance footage but I have concerts on DVD of theirs so I really wanted the overview and interviews. It's a fine addition to any Yes fan's collection.

Lost – I watched the season 3 DVD to get myself geared up for season four and it's great, of course. This is one of my all-time favorite shows. I hope the writers strike doesn't screw it up too badly. The first episode of the new season rocked.

Heroes – I'm still watching the first season on DVD. I like it a lot so far.

Upcoming Phil Keaggy concert – Phil's Master and Musician tour is coming to Calvin College next weekend. A friend from PA was trying to fly out to see it but he was unable to make it so I'll go with my kids. I'm pretty pumped about this concert, perhaps the first time Phil has toured with a band other than Glass Harp in over 15 years.

I've also been reading, mostly professional stuff, but I am partway into the Golden Compass and just can't get into it. Maybe I'll give it another shot before I give up completely.

My Musical Year - 2007

Throughout the year I have written about a number of the CDs that I spent time listening to. I was glancing at a couple of online top-ten lists and realized that I have listened to very few of the albums in these lists. This may be a factor of my advanced age but I really do try to stay up on things. I bought, for example, new albums by Rilo Kiley, A Fine Frenzy, Mae, Norah Jones, and Arcade Fire but I still feel like I've been out of touch with cutting edge music. I try to stay caught up by downloading the songs of the week from iTunes and by reading Paste magazine and listening to the sampler CD but, frankly, I end up deleting most of the stuff I get because I'm not wild about it. And even though I listen to songs by Brenda Carlisle and Amy Winehouse I just don't like it well enough to want to listen to a while lot more. I guess I'm just old.

So, with that disclaimer, here is my list of albums that really grabbed me this year. As in years past, this is not the best of the year, per se, it's the stuff that I spent the most time actually listening to. So this is the stuff that I clearly liked the most.

• Memory Almost Full – Paul McCartney
  The single most listened to album of the year for me, hands down, is Paul McCartney's latest. It seems almost cliché that I would pick a Beatles album but, the fact is, I listened to this album a LOT this year. I just really liked it. See my review here.
  
• The Circling Hour – Iona
  I spent a lot of time listening to Iona this year and The Circling Hour just might be one of their best ever albums. Outstanding music with great lyrics. My review is here.
  
• Instant Karma – various artists
  The John Lennon songbook as interpreted by artists as diverse as U2, Green Day and REM. This one spent a lot of time on my iPod and also in my car. Great songs. My review is here.
  
• The Song Within – Phil Keaggy
  I have loved Phil's playing for years and it is a real treat to have him hit one out of the park this year. This instrumental album is one of my all time favorite Keaggy albums. My review is here.
  
• Neon Bible – Arcade Fire
  Bethany recently wrote about this on her blog and I waited for a long time to write about it because I felt like I didn't understand it very well. Musically it is quite dense and lyrically it confuses me but I really do like it – I'm just not sure why. Here is what Bethany had to say about it, though.
  

There were, of course, other albums that I enjoyed: Tell Me What You Know by Sara Groves, The Silence of Everything Yearned For by Ric Hordinski, both The Trumpet Child and Live from Nowhere, Vol 2 by Over the Rhine, Singularity by Mae, Overdressed by Caedmon's Call (my review is here) and Letters to the Editor, Vol 1 by Andrew Osenga (download it for FREE here) are all honorable mention albums but they just didn't have the staying power in my iPod and player that these other albums did.

So there is my list. I also rediscovered a lot of of music this year like the Andrew Osenga catalog and Iona's music and that was a lot of fun.

Paul McCartney - The McCartney Years - Another Review

Here is a review of The McCartney Years written by someone who was predisposed to dislike it. I found his take interesting.

In case you missed it, here is my review.

Pattie Boyd – Perhaps Not So Wonderful

As a fan of both the Beatles and of Eric Clapton, I found the idea of an auto- biography of Pattie Boyd, the woman who had married both Eric and George Harrison, to be one that I couldn't miss. She had a front row seat to the all of the post Hard Day's Night Beatles and to Clapton's years with Derek and the Dominoes and his early solo Career. Boyd is Layla! So I was anxious to read Pattie's story called Wonderful Tonight. I thought this would be interesting not only as a person who has read a lot of Beatles books but I had recently read Clapton's autobiography. The difference between them is striking. I thought that Eric's book is, curiously, the better written of the two. I say that this is curious because Boyd's is basically written by her collaborator, Penny Junor, while Clapton rewrote his ghost-written book himself. More striking, though, is that Eric rewrote his book because he said it was too easy to blame other people in the ghost-written version. Blaming themselves is something that recovering addicts seem to do well. They know that the things that they do when they're drunk are not someone else's fault. In contrast, Boyd is eager to lay her problems at the feet of lots of other people; her parents, Harrison, Clapton, etc. I'm sure that living with these people was no picnic but Boyd seems to take little responsibility for her seemingly constant drinking. (She was bad enough that Clapton wrote the song "Shape You're In" about and to her.) Near the end of the book she simultaneously writes about being short on money but yet traveling to exotic places, something those of us who are not high rollers have a hard time understanding.

To make matters worse there are a couple of errors that, while they're not a big deal, are irritating. Boyd talks about the wonderful Harrison song, "Something," that he wrote for her. Unfortunately, she says that it's on the White Album instead of on Abbey Road, where it really is. Then, near the end of the book she said that she had to sell a rare guitar because she needed the money – she sold a "1960 Les Paul Stratocaster." As any guitar player knows there are Gibson Les Pauls and there are Fender Stratocasters. What she wrote is the equivalent of saying that she has a Cadillac Mustang. She clearly doesn't really know what we had.

But quibbles aside Wonderful Tonight is just not a great book. Her story, especially as it gets near the end, just isn't interesting enough, which seems hard to believe. Beatles fans who have read other books about them will learn nothing new here. Clapton fans might find this new perspective interesting but, frankly, she doesn't add much to that story either. So, if you want to read it, do what I did – check it out of the library. I'm unlikely to ever want to refer back to it.

Lennon, 27 years later

On this 27^th anniversary of John Lennon's death it's hard to believe that I continue to discover new things in his music but 2007 was a year of rediscovery for me with respect to Lennon's solo music. This was due mostly to the Instant Karma collection which helped me to realize that the songs themselves, not just the performances, were powerful. After hearing those I went back and listened to many of his original recordings to find that, even after all these years, they still sound great. I've written before about Lennon and his influence on my music. As a member of the Beatles he was a driving force behind their work and his writing and singing in that band set the standard for pop music for the next four decades. It certainly would have been interesting to see what would have happened had be not been killed so early – would he, like Paul, have continued to make music consistently throughout his life, expanding into classical music perhaps? I think that's unlikely. I think it is more likely that he would have, like George, led a mostly private life emerging occasionally with new music when it suited him and I think that, while that music would have continued to show remarkable growth, that he would continue being primarily influenced by the most basic of rock influences. John was a rocker and, when push came to shove, old rock and roll was not just one of his primary influences (as it was with Paul,) it was THE influence. I don't think he would have strayed far from that.

Revolver – the best Beatles album?

I am once again going through all the Beatles albums in order on my commute. As I have mentioned before, I have a six-CD changer in my car and two of those slots have Beatles in them. I've allowed each Beatles album to stay in the rotation for two plays and then I switch it out for the next one. Today I heard what I have long considered the best Beatles album, Revolver, and I was reminded why I like it so much. It's almost all there – all the things that are great about the Beatles are present on Revolver. George Harrison has a rocker ("Taxman,") a song with Indian influence ("Love You To,") and a mid tempo song ("I Want to Tell You,") all of which are among his best Beatles era compositions. John Lennon is cryptic ("She Said She Said,") experimental ("Tomorrow Never Knows,") and produces a couple of great standard mid-era Beatles songs ("Doctor Robert," "And Your Bird Can Sing.") Paul McCartney is clearly starting to work outside the bounds of two-guitars-bass-drums with some of his songs adding strings ("Eleanor Rigby,") brass ("Got to Get You Into My Life,") and French Horn ("For No One,") while writing some of the most memorable melodies of his career ("Here, There and Everywhere.") Even Ringo's throwaway novelty tune is the iconic "Yellow Submarine." The performances are top-notch and we see that the band is starting to develop distinct individual personalities while still operating as a unit.

Revolver is sometimes overshadowed by it's successor, Sgt Pepper because it had such a huge influence on the culture when it was released. And, frankly, at the time, Revolver was "just another Beatles album." George has even said that he sees Revolver and Rubber Soul as basically parts one and two of the same album but I think he undersells this album. This is ironic, really, because this album has more of his compositions than any album before and it shows him stepping up as a composer. It also shows some of John and Paul's strongest work. This isn't to say that the albums made before and after this one were weak. It's hard to think of Rubber Soul and Sgt Pepper as anything other than unqualified successes. But time has shown that Revolver found the Beatles at the top of their game.