Sunday, December 31, 2006
Run Devil Run
I'm going to make this a New Year's Eve tradition. Starting tonight, I'll post this little record review from March, 2000. I had it on my Geocities page. I still believe what I wrote in this review. This record is the best thing Macca has ever done.
March 12, 2000
RUN DEVIL RUN-Paul McCartney
This disc was recorded in the first few months of 1999 in a few quick sessions.
The personnel are, of course, McCartney (bass, guitar, vocals), David Gilmour (guitar), Mick Green (guitar), Ian Paice (drums), Pete Wingfield (keyboards), Dave Mattacks (drums) and Geraint Watkins (keyboard.) The booklet says these musicians "recreated that golden age of rock 'n' roll" which inspired the Beatles.
Two things are notable about the booklet: First, it actually refers to the Beatles, which no other McCartney release has done (with the exception of the first pressing of the McCARTNEY album, which came with a piece of paper on which McCartney explained, bitterly, why he was leaving the group.) The second thing is that I find its boast about the recreation of the early rock sound not at all far-fetched.
Geoff Emerick, one of the engineers who worked with the Beatles, co-engineered this CD. He's worked on several of McCartney's solo albums, so his presence here doesn't necessarily mean he helped make this one sound the way it does. Nevertheless, this effort is so focused that I suspect McCartney made sure he worked with people understood him.
Proof that he respected the thinking of the people he was working with is in his description of his recording of COQUETTE: "It's just me singing Fats. We tried fixing little bits of it because I thought 'God, this is too much like a pub singer'...but we ended up going back to the earliest mix, it just has a feeling." After working with McCartney in 1989, Elvis Costello said, in an interview, that he couldn't prevent McCartney from adding layers and layers to some of their songs. He essentially said McCartney didn't know when to stop. Steve Miller worked with him on the FLAMING PIE CD and said McCartney would work on a song of some originality and then record three or four in a tried-and-true McCartney style. Steve Miller said something like, "I said to him, 'You don't need to prove to anybody you can do a pop song. Why do you keep trying to prove that?'"
The impression I get is that successful recording artists who have worked with McCartney have indeed tried to get across to him that they're disappointed with him. But, Elvis Costello owes too much to the Beatles, if only because he is a post-Beatles hit-maker. Steve Miller is, when he wants to be, a blues man, and when he wants a hit, a pop artist. There is no compelling reason for Paul McCartney to listen to what Elvis Costello and Steve Miller say to him. He doesn't have to listen to their music, either.
But David Gilmour, who is on every cut on RUN DEVIL RUN, is just the guy to get McCartney's ear. His sound is his own. He's not blues, he's not pop and he's never been studio. When he's on somebody's record, even if you don't quite know it's him, you don't picture some slick jack-of-all trades walking into the studio, doing his bit and hopping back out. He takes a song to a personal level. "No More Lonely Nights" would have been a commercial jingle if Gilmour hadn't done deep-sea-diving. He knew he could find something and knew how to bring it out. On the RUN DEVIL RUN disc, however, McCartney does something he almost, but didn't quite, do on "No More Lonely Nights." He works with Gilmour.
The whole CD features a band which is paying attention. One of the drummers was in DEEP PURPLE, which was a sixties band. He can do those sounds which fifties and sixties rock requires. The keyboard work is to the point, which is absolutely necessary with songs which must make an impact quickly. While the only two musicians I'm at all familiar with here are McCartney and Gilmour, it's clear that what the entire band is going for is a British rock sound circa 1962. The American influence is heavy. But the early-sixties English abilility to remove the commercialism from such tunes is in evidence. England took rock more seriously in 1962 than America did. This CD takes American music from that era more seriously than Americans do now. This band does Elvis Presley's, "I Got Stung," a song virtually created for the further humiliation of its original singer, and turns it into an urgent, living thing.
With humor and drive, McCartney's vocals call the listener's attention to these songs. "Lonesome Town" ends with the words, "Maybe down in Lonesome town/ I can learn to forget." Not having heard the original version by Ricky Nelson, I can't say if he managed the pathos McCartney does with those lyrics, but I'll say this: McCartney's never sounded so much as if he meant what he sang.
The best track on RUN DEVIL RUN is a true example of the Liverpool sound. It's called "No Other Baby." The booklet says it was done in 1958 by the Vipers, "a British Skiffle Group." Apparently, only McCartney had heard the song. He couldn't find the record. He sang it to the rest of his band and they recorded the track. When he sings the words, "Got a little woman/Lives across the hall," Gilmour plays a note for each syllable. This harmony is blues to the core, but something more. I hear it and I picture a dimly lit hallway and a door being opened. Here's a song about adult pain and pleasure. The bass-line is brooding and sweeping. The keyboard is somewhere between revery and hangover.
Add to this all a cajun sound on "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," such as Dave Edmunds might do, a version of Carl Perkins' "Movie Magg" which sounds as if it was part of a Gene Autry one-reeler, and a positively thrashing "Honey Hush" (McCartney is a riot when he belts the words, "Don't make me nervous/I'm holdin' a baseball bat.")
You won't hear this on the radio. The age of hit singles, while not exactly gone, was an age for McCartney's generation. He's put together, with a tight band, a CD of songs that should be hits. If they do this well musically with songs they know very few people will hear, they put themselves in good company. How many people have Bob Dylan's GOOD AS I BEEN TO YOU? Only as many people as know that that's one of Dylan's most well-realized projects. McCartney's done something similar here. He's interpreted other singer's songs (as Dylan was doing with GOOD AS I BEEN TO YOU) and let us hear that they mean something to him.
March 12, 2000
RUN DEVIL RUN-Paul McCartney
This disc was recorded in the first few months of 1999 in a few quick sessions.
The personnel are, of course, McCartney (bass, guitar, vocals), David Gilmour (guitar), Mick Green (guitar), Ian Paice (drums), Pete Wingfield (keyboards), Dave Mattacks (drums) and Geraint Watkins (keyboard.) The booklet says these musicians "recreated that golden age of rock 'n' roll" which inspired the Beatles.
Two things are notable about the booklet: First, it actually refers to the Beatles, which no other McCartney release has done (with the exception of the first pressing of the McCARTNEY album, which came with a piece of paper on which McCartney explained, bitterly, why he was leaving the group.) The second thing is that I find its boast about the recreation of the early rock sound not at all far-fetched.
Geoff Emerick, one of the engineers who worked with the Beatles, co-engineered this CD. He's worked on several of McCartney's solo albums, so his presence here doesn't necessarily mean he helped make this one sound the way it does. Nevertheless, this effort is so focused that I suspect McCartney made sure he worked with people understood him.
Proof that he respected the thinking of the people he was working with is in his description of his recording of COQUETTE: "It's just me singing Fats. We tried fixing little bits of it because I thought 'God, this is too much like a pub singer'...but we ended up going back to the earliest mix, it just has a feeling." After working with McCartney in 1989, Elvis Costello said, in an interview, that he couldn't prevent McCartney from adding layers and layers to some of their songs. He essentially said McCartney didn't know when to stop. Steve Miller worked with him on the FLAMING PIE CD and said McCartney would work on a song of some originality and then record three or four in a tried-and-true McCartney style. Steve Miller said something like, "I said to him, 'You don't need to prove to anybody you can do a pop song. Why do you keep trying to prove that?'"
The impression I get is that successful recording artists who have worked with McCartney have indeed tried to get across to him that they're disappointed with him. But, Elvis Costello owes too much to the Beatles, if only because he is a post-Beatles hit-maker. Steve Miller is, when he wants to be, a blues man, and when he wants a hit, a pop artist. There is no compelling reason for Paul McCartney to listen to what Elvis Costello and Steve Miller say to him. He doesn't have to listen to their music, either.
But David Gilmour, who is on every cut on RUN DEVIL RUN, is just the guy to get McCartney's ear. His sound is his own. He's not blues, he's not pop and he's never been studio. When he's on somebody's record, even if you don't quite know it's him, you don't picture some slick jack-of-all trades walking into the studio, doing his bit and hopping back out. He takes a song to a personal level. "No More Lonely Nights" would have been a commercial jingle if Gilmour hadn't done deep-sea-diving. He knew he could find something and knew how to bring it out. On the RUN DEVIL RUN disc, however, McCartney does something he almost, but didn't quite, do on "No More Lonely Nights." He works with Gilmour.
The whole CD features a band which is paying attention. One of the drummers was in DEEP PURPLE, which was a sixties band. He can do those sounds which fifties and sixties rock requires. The keyboard work is to the point, which is absolutely necessary with songs which must make an impact quickly. While the only two musicians I'm at all familiar with here are McCartney and Gilmour, it's clear that what the entire band is going for is a British rock sound circa 1962. The American influence is heavy. But the early-sixties English abilility to remove the commercialism from such tunes is in evidence. England took rock more seriously in 1962 than America did. This CD takes American music from that era more seriously than Americans do now. This band does Elvis Presley's, "I Got Stung," a song virtually created for the further humiliation of its original singer, and turns it into an urgent, living thing.
With humor and drive, McCartney's vocals call the listener's attention to these songs. "Lonesome Town" ends with the words, "Maybe down in Lonesome town/ I can learn to forget." Not having heard the original version by Ricky Nelson, I can't say if he managed the pathos McCartney does with those lyrics, but I'll say this: McCartney's never sounded so much as if he meant what he sang.
The best track on RUN DEVIL RUN is a true example of the Liverpool sound. It's called "No Other Baby." The booklet says it was done in 1958 by the Vipers, "a British Skiffle Group." Apparently, only McCartney had heard the song. He couldn't find the record. He sang it to the rest of his band and they recorded the track. When he sings the words, "Got a little woman/Lives across the hall," Gilmour plays a note for each syllable. This harmony is blues to the core, but something more. I hear it and I picture a dimly lit hallway and a door being opened. Here's a song about adult pain and pleasure. The bass-line is brooding and sweeping. The keyboard is somewhere between revery and hangover.
Add to this all a cajun sound on "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," such as Dave Edmunds might do, a version of Carl Perkins' "Movie Magg" which sounds as if it was part of a Gene Autry one-reeler, and a positively thrashing "Honey Hush" (McCartney is a riot when he belts the words, "Don't make me nervous/I'm holdin' a baseball bat.")
You won't hear this on the radio. The age of hit singles, while not exactly gone, was an age for McCartney's generation. He's put together, with a tight band, a CD of songs that should be hits. If they do this well musically with songs they know very few people will hear, they put themselves in good company. How many people have Bob Dylan's GOOD AS I BEEN TO YOU? Only as many people as know that that's one of Dylan's most well-realized projects. McCartney's done something similar here. He's interpreted other singer's songs (as Dylan was doing with GOOD AS I BEEN TO YOU) and let us hear that they mean something to him.
# posted by Fredwemyss @ 10:56 PM 
