Paul/Beatle

[pledm]

At least with this Paul can pay for his divorce;

McCartney: $400 million windfall

04/13/2007 3:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Dotmusic

Paul McCartney will make nearly $400 million when the Beatles' music is made available on the Internet, according to reports.

Sir Macca was at the center of lawsuit between the Fab Four and EMI over a royalties dispute launched by the band in 2005.

Yesterday it was confirmed an agreement has been reached between both parties, which is expected to finally prompt the availability of Beatles music for download.

McCartney and Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, are expected to take the lion's share of revenue from the new source of Beatles' income.

"That might just be a few per cent, but on a billion pounds of sales, that is hundreds of millions for the likes of Paul and Yoko. The release of the back catalog though iTunes will be the most extraordinary money-spinner," a source told a U.K. newspaper.

"We are talking perhaps 14 remastered albums and numerous opportunities to release singles."

[pledm]

Paul McCartney in nostalgic mood on new album Tue May 1, 6:03 AM ET



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A reflective Paul McCartney, currently embroiled in a bitter divorce battle, retreats to a simpler time of childhood games and early Beatles gigs on his new album, "Memory Almost Full."

The album, his first since 2005's Grammy-nominated "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," is due for worldwide release in the week beginning June 4; he turns 65 on June 18.

"In places it's a very personal record, and a lot of it is retrospective, drawing from memory, like memories from being a kid, from Liverpool and from summers gone," McCartney said in a statement. "The album is evocative, emotional, rocking, but I can't really sum it up in one sentence."

McCartney pondered the past in such Beatles tunes as "Penny Lane" and "Eleanor Rigby," and returns to similar territory in such new songs as "That Was Me," in which he recalls "playing conkers at the bus stop" and "Merseybeatin' with the band."

But tunes such as "My Ever Present Past" and "Vintage Clothes" warn against spending too much time looking back.

Fans looking for commentary on McCartney's highly publicized and increasingly nasty divorce from Heather Mills might find a conciliatory line in the song "Gratitude," in which he sings, "I should stop loving you, think what you put me through, but I don't want to lock my heart away."

A spokesman said he did not know if this lyric was directed at Mills, who separated from McCartney last year and has been portrayed in Britain's tabloid newspapers as gold-digger seeking to cash in on the beloved former Beatle's fortune.

In his statement, McCartney noted, "I know people are going to look at some of the songs and interpret them in different ways, but this has always been the case."

"Memory Almost Full" marks his first release for coffee retailer Starbucks Corp.'s nascent Hear Music label, following a career spent mostly at EMI Group Plc

[pledm]

McCartney says new CD is retrospective Tue May 1, 6:21 AM ET



NEW YORK - Paul McCartney says his upcoming album, "Memory Almost Full," looks back to the past. "In places it's a very personal record and a lot of it is retrospective, drawing from memory, like memories from being a kid, from Liverpool and from summers gone," the 64-year-old ex-Beatle said Monday in a statement.

"The album is evocative, emotional, rocking, but I can't really sum it up in one sentence," he said.

"Memory Almost Full," McCartney's 21st solo album, will be released June 5 in the United States. It is his first for Hear Music, Starbucks' new music label.

A medley of five songs on the 13-track disc is "purposely retrospective," said the legendary singer-songwriter. "I thought this might be because I'm at this point in my life, but then I think about the times I was writing with John (Lennon) and a lot of that was also looking back."

Film director Michel Gondry has directed a music video — starring Natalie Portman — for the opening track "Dance Tonight," but McCartney said he's "not going to give the plot away."

McCartney last released the acclaimed "Chaos And Creation In the Backyard," in 2005.

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[pledm]

Paul McCartney enters the digital domain
By Randy Lewis, Times Staff Writer
May 15, 2007


All those "Silly Love Songs" are about to start echoing across the Internet. Most of Paul McCartney's post-Beatles solo albums and those with his group Wings soon will be available digitally for the first time, EMI Music and Capitol Records announced Monday.

That makes him the final Beatle to put solo albums online. John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr have made recordings available for download after parting with EMI / Capitol. But McCartney becomes the first of the Fab Four to place albums into the digital domain from his most fertile period following the group's 1970 breakup.

The announcement spans his first solo effort, "McCartney," in 1970, through his Wings hits "Band on the Run" and "Wings at the Speed of Sound" and on to his 2005 Grammy-nominated "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard." It also covers albums he recorded for Columbia Records from 1979 to 1984, because the rights to those works reverted to EMI / Capitol when he returned to that fold upon leaving Columbia. It won't extend to his new album, "Memory Almost Full," scheduled for release June 4 on the new Starbucks-Concord Music Group's Hear Music label, which is not part of the EMI / Capitol family.

EMI officials would not elaborate on Monday's news release, which included no specific date when McCartney's albums would become available for download. They are expected this year, possibly before summer. EMI's announcement also did not address when the other Beatles' EMI / Capitol solo albums (including Lennon's "Imagine," Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" and Starr's "Ringo") may be showing up online. There's still no word on when the Beatles catalog might enter the digital realm or be reissued in remastered editions

[pledm]

I would have loved to be at this small show;

McCartney rocks with new songs at "secret" NY show


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Paul McCartney stormed the stage of a small ballroom on Wednesday and delivered a 20-song set featuring Beatles favorites and select cuts from his newly released album "Memory Almost Full."

The free show for about 700 fans at the Highline Ballroom in New York's Chelsea district was hastily arranged, with McCartney's website only announcing the gig on Tuesday. Passes were distributed through a give-away on the website and to fans who lined up on Wednesday outside the venue.

The former Beatle and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer played a dozen songs from the Beatles catalogue that included opening number "Drive My Car" and Fab Four warhorses "Hey Jude," "Lady Madonna," "Let It Be" and "Get Back." The remaining songs came from the new album and other McCartney solo projects.

McCartney debuted at No. 3 -- his highest spot on the U.S. pop charts in a decade -- on Wednesday with his first album for coffee retailer Starbucks Corp.

"Memory Almost Full" marks the first release on Hear Music, the new label formed by Starbucks and privately held jazz specialist Concord Music Group. McCartney, who turns 65 next Monday, had spent most of his 45-year career with EMI Group Plc., which still distributes the Beatles' catalog.

"Well, here we are in a little club in the Highline," McCartney said, referring to the club's neighborhood, which has a discontinued, elevated freight train line running through it. "We should do this more often."

The show's intimate setting had McCartney in a relaxed mood and he reminisced about writing certain songs.

"I remember writing this next song in a little house we used to live in Liverpool. I was standing in the front parlor looking out through the little lace curtains and thinking, 'I'm going to be a star,' like you do, but it never happened," he quipped before performing "I'll Follow The Sun" from the 1964 release "Beatles For Sale."

Before performing "Here Today," from his 1982 album "Tug of War," McCartney said the mournful ballad was originally written for his one-time writing partner and fellow Beatle John Lennon, slain by a deranged fan in 1980 just a few miles away.

"I'd like to dedicate it tonight to fallen heroes John, George (and) Linda," McCartney said, referring to Lennon as well as Beatle guitarist George Harrison, who died of cancer in 2001, and McCartney's first wife, who died in 1998.

"But as for me, I still remember how it was before, and I am holding back the tears no more," he sang to a hushed crowd.

McCartney made no mention of fellow surviving Beatle Ringo Starr, the group's drummer.

It wasn’t the Cavern Club, or some Reeperbahn dive. And the year was definitely not 1962. But after Paul McCartney finished off his semi-secret Manhattan club show Wednesday night with a blazing, garage-y take on “I Saw Her Standing There,” it was possible to imagine – just for a moment – that you finally had an idea what it was like to see him and his old bandmates play rock n’ roll in a packed, tiny venue. “Well, here we are in a small club,” he said earlier in the evening, sounding as surprised as anybody.



McCartney’s performance – at Chelsea’s brand-new, upscale Highline Ballroom, which holds only 700 people (in this case, that meant press, VIPs who included a beaming Whoopi Goldberg, and ultra-giddy contest winners) – was meant to promote his strong new album, Memory Almost Full, which just debuted at No. 3. And while he skipped the album’s best tune, “My Ever Present Past,” the four new ones he did play held up: The strongest were “Only Mama Knows” with its heavy, winding guitar riff, and “That Was Me,” which had McCartney finding his “I’m Down” growl for the first time of the night as he sang about his own unlikely life story: “That was me… sweating cobwebs in the cellar/ On TV/ That was me.”

The bulk of the set was made up of Beatles songs, performed with McCartney’s usual, stripped-down touring band (except for a substitute keyboardist), in arrangements that were mostly identical to the ones he played at Madison Square Garden last year. Some elements, such as the synth strings on “Long and Winding Road,” felt particularly out of place in a club setting. McCartney seemed to have the most fun when he swapped his bass for a guitar and picked out the signature riffs on an extended, super-funky “I’ve Got a Feeling” – which still feels like it’s missing something without John Lennon on hand to sing his “Everybody’s had a wet dream” part. McCartney acknowledged that absence and two others a few songs earlier, dedicating the aching ballad “Here Today” to “our fallen heroes: John, George and Linda.”

Setlist:

“Drive My Car”
“Only Mama Knows”
“Dance Tonight”
“C Moon”
“The Long and Winding Road”
“I’ll Follow the Sun”
“Calico Skies”
“That Was Me”
“Blackbird”
“Here Today”
“Back in the U.S.S.R.”
“Nod Your Head”
“House of Wax”
“I’ve Got a Feeling”
“Matchbox”
“Get Back”
“Baby Face” (snippet)
“Hey Jude”
“Let It Be”
“Lady Madonna”
“I Saw Her Standing There”

[Bob]

Wow! I'd very much like to see McCartney perform live. It will never happen though. It's great that he is still doing stuff. With the money he's got, he doesnt have to work at all.. So it's nice that he's still on stage.

[pledm]

Paul McCartney rocks Hollywood record store



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Paul McCartney's informal world tour of small venues brought him to Hollywood on Wednesday when he played a free concert at a record store for an audience that included fellow Beatle Ringo Starr.

"No shoplifting please," McCartney jokingly told the 900-strong crowd, who had come from as far afield as Canada, Japan and Australia for the historic 85-minute event.

Any illegal activity would have been difficult. Fans were herded into rows behind the display racks, hemmed in by yellow tape as fire marshals and security guards patrolled the aisles making sure no one left their designated areas. Visibility for those at the back and sides was severely limited.

Hundreds of fans started lining up at Amoeba Records on Monday when the concert was announced. The lucky ones were given blue wristbands on a first-come, first-served basis.

Earlier this month, McCartney played clubs in London and New York, all part of an unorthodox promotional blitz for his well-received new album, "Memory Almost Full."

The set list was largely the same each time, heavy on late-era Beatle tunes such as "Get Back," "Hey Jude," "The Long and Winding Road" and "I've Got A Feeling."

He dropped in a few cuts from his new album, including the single "Dance Tonight" and the nostalgic "That Was Me."

Wearing a red sweater that he later took off to reveal a white "Von Dutch"-branded t-shirt, McCartney was in a playful mood, at one time asking the audience to repeat various silly sounds, and then to nod their heads in unison.

He got serious once when he played "Here Today," his 1982 tribute to fallen Beatle John Lennon.

Others at the venue included Olivia Harrison, the widow of George Harrison, English rocker Jeff Lynne, and actress Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Would love to be at this