Paul Mccartney (Re blogged from last summer)

This is another in a series of posts about my biggest idols and influences.

For people who don't know much about McCartney here's some xfactor stylie big facts and stats;

His song Yesterday is the most covered song in the history of recorded music.

His song Mull of Kintyre remains the biggest selling non charity song in the UK.

He has written or co-written 32 Billboard Hot 100 number 1 singles.

He has sold over 100 million singles and 100 million albums.

Make of this one what you will, he is the only artist to reach the UK number one as a soloist and as part of a duo, trio, quartet, and quintet.

So there you are, he is a successful chap. I'm well aware that for many Paul presents a certain winsome, middle of the road, even cheesy persona. Indeed John Lennon went as far as to describe one of his former partners' tunes as "granny music." I've had various (often drunken) conversations with people determined to debunk The Beatles and rebel against the received wisdom that they are the greatest band. One young man even said "people only like the Beatles because they are told too... I mean McCartney plays bass with a pick!!!" funnily enough the person saying this wasn't a bass player himself...

In a way I sometimes think that the success of artists like McCartney gets in the way of people appreciating the music. Likewise for every modern standard that frankly gets over played (Hey Jude, Yesterday, Let it Be) there are wonderful songs that get cruelly overlooked.

So I want to demonstrate why McCartney has been such an important influence to me as a musician, songwriter and in life generally. I'll be focusing on three connected but also individually important areas; his talents as a Musician, Writer and Singer.

The Musician

Let's start with my friends comments about Paul's bass playing. He did indeed play bass with a pic. He also helped change the bass into an instrument that was cool to play, and one that didn't have to stick to the route notes and walking bass lines that were pretty much a requirement when he picked up the instrument.

Like the rest of The Beatles, McCartney is a self-taught and unschooled musician. His father was a semi professional musician and presumably this led to Paul's natural musicality.

The happy coincidences of having a natural gift for melody and being at the cutting edge of record production at just the moment technology allowed the bass to become a feature meant that McCartney was able to create wonderful bass lines. Things like Paperback Writer and With a Little Help from My Friends.

Of course he wasn't the only bass pioneer of the time and his respect for other musicians like James Jamerson further developed his style. When the music called for it he did stick to the route notes, another strength.

It wasn't just the bass, there are also a handful of Paul Guitar solos in The Beatles catalogue that just work perfectly such as Taxman and Another Girl. His acoustic style is pretty unique; simple but also right; Blackbird. He also became a good pianist writing many of his best songs on the keys, including some very tricky things like Martha My Dear.

His musicianship is idiosyncratic, musical and also just right for the song.

The Writer

There is a popular line of thought that marks out Lennon as the genius wordsmith and McCartney as naturally gifted writer of sublime melody. Not to put too fine a point on it but this is crap.

It is true that Lennon wrote great lyrics and McCartney beautiful tunes, but vice versa, as anyone who listens can tell. John's How, Jealous Guy and many others are astonishingly lovely melodies. Paul wrote fabulous lyrics. Eleanor Rigby isn't an accident, neither is She's Leaving Home. He has written many excellent story songs that create a vivid sense of time and place like Penny Lane, Two of Us and When I'm Sixty Four. Perhaps it is the case that he can't claim as many insightful or "clever" lyrics as Lennon, and it could be argued that he has often veered into the mundane or plain daft (especially at points in his solo career...) but I think Paul's main strength as a lyricist is to put together phrases that can been interpreted in various ways by millions of people.

Sir Paul has often been criticised for the music he's released over the years. The prime target tends to be the infamous We All Stand Together commonly known as the frog chorus. There has been so much mud flung at this track, as if people think McCartney himself wrote and released it as a piece of work of equal stature to Yesterday or Hey Jude. It was the theme tune to an animated Rupert the Bear film! That's the point about him as a writer; he's turned his hand to so many styles and been pretty successful most of the time. It may be true that he never again reached the artistic peaks that he did as a member of THAT band, but many writers are celebrated for much lesser works than Paul had given the world in his solo career.

The Singer

McCartney was the best singer in The Beatles. There, I said it! Best in terms of range, technicality and indeed reliability. Doesn't mean he has to be your, or my, or anyone's favourite, but it is true.

In my post about Lennon I outlined my personal view that John's voice has the ability to touch so many people because of the insecurity and vulnerability laid bare in his singing. With Paul it's confidence and brashness that push forward his vocal delivery.

A naturally gifted singer with a very wide range, McCartney is also a talented mimic. Hence his many convincing Little Richard type performances in the early days like I'm Down and She's A Woman giving him a powerful and exciting voice which matured in amazing vocals like Oh Darling and Call Me Back Again.

His powerful tenor range was also a very important part of The Beatles sound, from the delicious harmonies of Beatlemania where Paul's backing vocals often sounded more like the lead line, to soaring and graceful vocals on tracks like For No One.

In conclusion Paul's great and you won't convince me otherwise. Do I have a favourite Beatle? Do I need to? I'm happy living in a world where I can enjoy everything they did, together and apart.

To sum it all up here's a track where he plays all the instruments, including fabulous lead guitar, and delivers an astonishing vocal. Musically it's beautiful, lyrically it's simple but just perfect.

Travis

How exciting it was to hear Travis playing a live session on the Radio yesterday.

When I was 12 Travis released The Man Who and that album and it’s follow up The Invisible Band were a hugely important part of the soundtrack to my adolescence. I can so clearly remember sitting in the back of Mum and Dad’s car on the way to Pembrokeshire listening to them on my CD Walkman. The landscape was often either wet and grey or beautifully green and sunlit. Travis seemed to fit the mood either way.  At one point in the journey, near Port Talbot, the motorway has been carved through a hillside creating a valley through great sections of rock with strange arched bridges over it. If I’m ever doing the journey now I think about The Man Who at that point.

I devoured the albums completely and loved every song on them. Many of the tracks seemed to reflect how I felt, a particular example being As You Are which completely summed up an unrequited crush with a girl who knew I fancied her and even kissed me once, but would also be perfectly happy to be a bit mean and embarrass me at any opportunity. The angry middle section really helped when she did that.

The Invisible Band had many great songs on it including what I think is one of the best songs anyone has ever written, Flowers in the Window. I loved the more angry and political direction they took around the time of 12 Memories but unfortunately that was one of a handful of albums I left on a train (with my CD Walkman) and I was never able to get into that album as much.

Sometimes when I’m writing songs I worry that there isn’t enough “clever shit” going on. I wonder if it would be better to make the guitar part more showy or complicated, of if a chord sequence is too simple. Thinking about this recently I’ve realised that most of the music that inspired me was “real” and that the song should really be the most important thing. I think Travis have a similar attitude, their best songs are wonderful songs, Fran has a beautiful and wonderfully controlled voice and only uses it to serve the song, the guitar parts sound superb but again never try and take away from the overall effect of the track. If it’s simple but it works that really is the best of all, I’d say. I met a songwriter recently and thought he was great but struggled to tell him why. In the end I just said “it’s songs, isn’t it?.”

Here’s the new video from Travis, so glad they’re back!

Pete Townshend

Another in my very un-regular series of posts about my idols. See also Rufus Wainwright and John Lennon

Pete Townshend has been an inspiration to me for years. It really kicked in watched The Kids Are Alright the 1979 documentary movie of The Who. I bought the DVD to cheer myself up after a teenage romance ended badly, and the scene in which the band perform A Quick One While He's Away on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus just totally summed the musical power and inventiveness of The Who and in particular Pete. In this clip Pete sings, jumps all over the place, plays beautiful guitar, plays hard guitar and kicks over then rescues a drum mic mid song.

As well as the seminal performances on that DVD I also studied The Isle Of White 1970 DVD. So influential was Townshend that I could often be seen at gigs with my then band The Bleak doing this sort of thing.

Windmills, jumping around, all that sort of thing. Many was the gig where I'd bloodied my hands and bruised my thumb. I carried on though and in my way I meant it. And Pete means it too, even going so far as to impale his hand on his Strat's wammy bar at a gig in the 80s.

I never smashed up my guitars though and I wouldn't recommend anyone else doing it either. (I heard a great story around this time about a local guitarist who smashed up his crappy old guitar at a gig because his band had just been signed to a major label. A day later not only had the deal fell through but he was scratching around for money for a new old crap guitar.) I would say I was too poor to smash up my gear but according to legend so were The Who in 1964. They didn't make proper money until the album Tommy in 1969 because of all the debt they had build up through being expected to destroy their gear at EVERY gig. It's hard to really appreciate now what effect this smashing of gear must have had when The Who were the first band to do it. It had only been a matter of a couple of years since the cutting edge of British Rock and Roll was Cliff and The Shadows (nothing against Cliff or The Shadows by the way, I love Move It and Wonderful Land)

So Pete the showman had a big effect on me. The Who were one of the most visually arresting groups in history and Pete's performance style had a very obvious effect on Jimi Hendrix in 1966 and thousands of others since. When I actually got to see The Who play in concert in 2007 it was astonishing to see Townshend, a man in his 60s, still being the frenetic and energetic showman he was in he's 20s. He was also the only member of the band to stay on stage throughout the show.

Then there is his influence as a guitarist. If you look up his name in one of those great Rock Guitar Players lists you'll most likely find him described as a truly inventive rhythm player with an aggressive, staccato, almost flamenco style. This is very true and this alone makes it very likely that of all the 1960s guitar gods he has been influential on the most bands. I've got to add some more to that though. Whilst it's true that his lead guitar style never reached Clapton, Beck, Page or Hendrix levels of technicality and speed he did play a lot of stunning solo lines from the late 60s onwards. Maybe he hasn't got the big famous solos of other players but he always did the right thing. You can't improve on the lead guitar in the intro of Eminence Front, or the beautifully melodic breaks in tracks like Join Together. Very often his rough edges made the perfect sound, such as in all those improvised jams in the Woodstock/Tommy era. He also has a fabulous acoustic style which can go from delicate finger picking back to that aggressive rhythm.

So he helped make me the guitarist and the performer I am today. Thanks Mr Townshend. Most important of all, of course, is his song writing. By the time he was my age Pete had already written I can't Explain and My Generation. Had this been his only contribution to the cannon of British popular music he would be a giant, but by 1969 he was working towards Tommy and from there Who's Next and Quadrophenia...

There are so many of Pete's songs that I love both mega famous and criminally under valued. The lyrics on Quadropenia, the Synths on Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again, the beauty of Blue, Red and Grey, none of these things are accidents.

Great songs, great performer, exceptional guitarist.

When I first started playing solo Pete's appearances on the webcast series In The Attic were very helpful in convincing me to make the plunge. I even had a slightly surreal dream in which I sought Pete's assurances that I should perform solo and he said yes. I don't think he liked me much though...

John Lennon

A while ago I started a new series of posts about my idols. I haven't got very far, in fact I've only discussed one. As this week has seen the 30th anniversary of the murder of one of my heroes, it seemed a good time to talk about him.

But it's incredibly difficult. I have at various times in my life been near to fostering an obsession about John Lennon. For a couple of years in my youth I was even doing my best to develop some of his mannerisms in the way I spoke. His inspiration on me goes beyond the musical and lyrical, I was pretty much devastated when I finally accepted that my curls and lack of patience would forever prevent me from having any of his haircuts. I mean I wouldn't have wanted some of them, but others were pretty cool...

The best I can do is to offer up some of my thoughts and conclusions from a lifetime of Lennon study and worship.

There were many John Lennons. He was the witty, intellectual one from The Beatles. He was the loving and caring bringer of the message of Love and Peace. He was a yobbish scouse Teddy Boy with a penchant for vandalising phone boxes and mugging English Sailors in Hamburg Night Clubs, he was a devoted family man who took five years out of being a super star to raise his son, he neglected and finally left his first wife and child.

He was the archetypal angry young man, with a chip on his shoulder that was bigger than his feet. He had a tragic childhood, having lost through circumstance or death at least three of the most important people in his life by the time his was 20. (One of them, his mother, he'd actually lost twice) He was violent. He put Cavern DJ Bob Wooler in hospital for jokingly inferring that Lennon was having a gay relationship with Brian Epstein. He admitted to having hit the women in his early life in jealous rages. I think this makes it all the more remarkable that he spent his later years banging on about peace; he managed to change his behaviour. He did, however, maintain that angry, sarcastic streak which could be very damaging to people.

I think he felt less musical than Paul McCartney. When they first met Paul had more ability than Lennon, despite being younger. From the outside it looks as if Paul was always more confident in this regard than Lennon, and John used bluff and sarcasm to guard against his own insecurities. At times Lennon dismissed McCartney as a schmaltzy writer of "boring songs about boring people" I think we can see his true feelings in other stories, such as how Here, There and Everywhere was his favourite song on Revolver. Personally I think that the Beatles, in particular Lennon, thrived because of their limitations. As is the case with most musical innovation they invented a lot because they couldn't quite do what they were intending to copy.

It's a well recorded fact that Lennon was insecure about his singing. If you listen it's pretty obvious. To begin with, compare the vocal on early, confident Beatles tracks with the solo stuff. Beatle Mania John's voice was thick and raucous. Solo John often had a thin, almost timid voice. Don't get me wrong, I love everything he sang. In fact the singing on a track like Jealous Guy is so beautiful because it is timid and heartfelt. His rocky voice changed too. On Beatles Rock and Roll covers he sounds like he might just kill you, and tracks like Mother and Gimme Some Truth he sounds like a man declaring all his inner issues and using them to kill himself.

Throughout his recording career he did his best to change and disguise his vocal. On the solo records he used delay and reverb effects, I've heard one producer say he wouldn't sing a note in the studio until his favourite effect was dialed in. Once the Beatles started to use four track machines practically every Lennon vocal was double tracked to sound thicker, and a little later he instigated the creation of Artificial Double Tracking, simply to save time by electronically beefing up his vocal sound rather than physically recording each vocal twice.

Even before the Beatles used studio tools and tricks to change their sound we can hear how Lennon, despite being ostensibly the lead singer, frequently used George and Paul to harmonise with him for huge sections of songs. In my view this was an attempt, perhaps unconsciously, to cover up his own singing.

Luckily for us Lennon's arrogance and wish to be leader proved to be stronger than his insecurities about singing and writing. For me the fact that the biggest cultural and musical icon of the 20th Century doubted his abilities so much only makes him more fascinating and dare I say it, inspiring.

He may have died six years before I was born, but I love the man.