Happy 70th birthday, Paul McCartney

That blood-chilling shiver you've been sensing all day was the Boomer generation learning that Paul McCartney just turned 70. But let's not use the occasion for existential reflection — instead, let's applaud the intestimable Macca for staying healthy, good-humored and a fantastic festival headliner into his seventh decade of life on this mortal coil. Be it the veganism, the new marriage, the Hollywood star, or the recent standards album and affectionate revisiting of his post-Beatles solo albums, we could all learn something from him about life after 64 — or after 70.

LISTEN: Paul McCartney on drugs and music

It'd be a fool's errand to try to post a highlight reel from his singular career, so let's just go with "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" from his newly reissued 1971 album of earnest domesticity, "Ram." He recorded it with then-wife Linda McCartney, and it's survived one of the greatest critical about-faces in rock history. Upon its release, Rolling Stone said it was "the nadir in the decomposition of Sixties rock thus far." In May 2012, Pitchfork gave it a 9.2, and L.A. musicians were well ahead of them in paying tribute at a 2009 roundtable show of covers.

Here's to many more years of such domestic bliss, Sir Paul. 

 

RELATED:

11 L.A. artists honor Paul McCartney's "Ram."

Paul McCartney gets his Walk of Fame star

Album review: Paul McCartney's 'Kisses on the Bottom'

Photo: In this Wednesday, July 15, 2009, file photo Paul McCartney peeks through the curtains during rehearsals for a taping of "Late Show with David Letterman" in New York. McCartney turned 70 on Monday. Credit: Charles Sykes / Associated Press.

— August Brown

Joe Smith's candid artist talks heading to Library of Congress

Classic-film fans know all about Frank Capra’s 1941 political treatise “Meet John Doe.” Soon, music lovers will have the chance to “Meet Joe Smith,” and in the process get a little closer to dozens of the most important players in 20th century pop music through a trove of one-on-one interviews the veteran record executive conducted a generation ago and is now donating to the Library of Congress.

Smith, who headed three of the most important record labels in the 1960s, '70s and '80s -- Warner Bros., Elektra/Asylum and Capitol Records -- sat down in the mid-’80s with a who’s who of pop music for his 1988 book “Off the Record.”

Over the course of about two years, he interviewed more than 200 musicians, record executives, producers, songwriters and managers, from rock superstars Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Elton John to key pre-rock figures such as Artie Shaw, Ella Fitzgerald and Woody Herman. He also interviewed some of his business peers and competitors including Clive Davis, David Geffen and Irving Azoff.

LISTEN: Joe Smith's talks with Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, more

Their stories span half a century of pop music, from the swing era to the birth of rock 'n’ roll through dance music, punk and hair metal. Yet even though his book ran 429 pages, it still contained only a fraction of what Smith and each subject talked about, typically for 30 minutes to an hour.

So, Smith is handing over his collection of unabridged audio interviews -- 238 hours’ worth -- to the nation’s official keeper of recorded cultural history, where they’ll be available to the public, to music historians, journalists and academics interested in hearing musicians’ own words about their lives and careers.

“The Joe Smith Collection is an invaluable addition to the library’s comprehensive collection of recorded sound,” librarian of Congress James H. Billington said in a statement issued Monday (June 18). “These frank and poignant oral histories of many of the nation’s musical icons give us unique insights into them as artists, entertainers and human beings. The world knows these great musicians through their songs, but Joe Smith has provided us an intimate window into their lives through their own words.”

Smith’s original tapes, which will be housed at the library’s Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation in Culpepper, Va., have been digitized and are expected to be accessible to the public at the library later this year and eventually online.

Smith said his marching orders for the “Off the Record” came in the mid-'80s from John Hammond Sr., the great talent scout who was responsible for launching the careers of Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen and many others during his five-decade relationship with Columbia Records.

“He was very sick, and I wanted to go see him in the hospital,” Smith, 84, said over lunch at one of his favorite haunts in Beverly Hills, the Grill, where he was greeted by name by most of the staff and many patrons when he walked through the door one afternoon last week.

“So we’re talking -- it was around the time that Count Basie and somebody else died. I said, ‘What a shame. I don’t know if anybody ever got them on tape. I know they’ve done interviews, but did anybody actually get them [talking] on tape?’ And he sat up in bed, and he said, ‘You must do that!’ Get it all -- you know the ones from the past, you know the ones from today.’ And he says, ‘You MUST do this!’ ”

Hal David, Burt Bacharach honored in D.C. with Gershwin Prize

Lyricist Hal David and composer Burt Bacharach were saluted Tuesday night in Washington as recipients of the 2012 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song bestowed by the Library of Congress, the first time the honor has been given to a songwriting team.

The singer most closely associated with the Bacharach-David songbook, Dionne Warwick, sang “This Guy’s in Love With You” and was joined at the event by Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall, Lyle Lovett, Mike Myers and other performers who sang songs David and Bacharach wrote together during their long collaboration from the late 1950s into the 1970s.

Wonder sang “Alfie” and “Make It Easy,” Krall took “The Look of Love,” Crow gave her rendition of “Walk On By,” Lovett did “Always Something There to Remind Me” and Myers sang “What’s New Pussycat” in recognition of the important role Bacharach and David’s music played in his “Austin Powers” films, all three of which included a cameo appearance by Bacharach.

The ceremony was videotaped and will be aired on PBS stations premiering May 21. Other performers included Arturo Sandoval, Michael Feinstein, Rumer and Shelea.

Bacharach, 83, was on hand for the ceremony; David, 90, is recuperating from a recent illness and was unable to attend. Bacharach said winning the Gershwin Prize surpassed receiving an Oscar.

Winning an Academy Award, he said, gives you a “spike up your spine that is an unbelievable feeling. But that’s for a score or a song. But it’s one thing. This is the whole conglomeration of my work that I’ve done. So it is the best of all awards possible. I mean that with all my heart.”

Feinstein told the crowd of lyricist Ira Gershwin’s fondness for the music of Bacharach and David.

“Ira loved the fact that Bacharach and David were continuing a tradition of finding fresh ways to express the feelings of the heart not only lyrically but musically,” said Feinstein, who performed “Close to You.” “He admired that because these were songs that he thought were accessible.”

“I have followed you since I was a little boy. The chord structures inspired me so much, the words, the lyrics. This song is an example of my appreciation,” Wonder said introducing his performance of “Alfie.”

When Wonder was young, he would sing their tunes to girls he was pursuing. He recalled singing “Make it Easy on Yourself” to one in particular.

“She quit me for another guy because he could take her to the movies at a particular time, and I didn’t feel like watching movies that night,” he quipped.

Previous recipients of the Library of Congress’ recently instituted Gershwin Prize include Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. The prize "celebrates the work of an artist whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting song as a vehicle of musical expression and cultural understanding," according to the Library's website.

Update at 5:38 p.m.: Librarian of Congress James H. Billington lauded the pair's compositions for helping "launch the careers of many of our nation’s most celebrated performers, and they continue to be played on iPods, radio, television, in movies, and performed in cabarets and on the Broadway stage." He added that the Bacharach-David songbook constitutes "without question one of the richest and most recognizable multi-generational playlists known to the world. Their creative talents have inspired songwriters for more than five decades, and their legacy is much in the tradition of George and Ira Gershwin, for whom this award is named."

The advisory committee for the 2012 award consisted of the three previous winners as well as Elvis Costello, Lee Ann Womack, Rickey Minor and Bobette Dudley.

RELATED:

Hal David: Songwriter

Bacharach and David: Reconciled and Honored

Burt Bacharach prepares for 'Some Lovers,' his first stage musical in four decades

-- Randy Lewis

Photos, from top: Stevie Wonder saluting Hal David and Burt Bacharach in Washington; Dionne Warwick at Tuesday's ceremony for the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Credits: Abby Brack Lewis / Library of Congress Photos.

Rare music from George Harrison, Martin Scorsese doc out on CD, DVD

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese released a well-received documentary last year about the creative life of the quiet Beatle, “George Harrison: Living in the Material World,” an intimate and revealing look at Harrison deep in his work. Fans were sure to notice that the film featured not just a trove of archival film footage and home movies but also some first takes, alternative tracks and other audio material that had never been released.

Much of that music is now available on a new CD, “Early Takes Volume 1: Music From the Martin Scorsese Picture Living in the Material World,” released this week in tandem with the DVD/Blu-ray release of Scorsese's film. The album is available as a stand-alone CD as well as part of a deluxe set that includes the Scorsese film, the CD and an accompanying 96-page book that Harrison’s widow, Olivia, assembled last year.

“We really were doing it for the fans,” Olivia said recently in a joint interview with producer and musician Giles Martin, who oversaw production of the CD and who is the son of legendary Beatles producer George Martin. “They wanted to hear it, they’ve asked for it . . . They’re so close to the songs, and these early takes really get to the essence of the songs. You can almost hear the excitement in George singing these songs, which he’d written maybe a few months earlier, or perhaps the year before. It’s always an exciting time for a musician when you’re writing a new song -- or for any creative person, when you create something that’s new.”

“Early Takes” encompasses songs that figure into Scorsese’s film, which helped Olivia Harrison and Martin sift through the piles of archival material that George Harrison left behind when he died in 2001 of cancer.

There’s his embryonic recording of “My Sweet Lord,” his biggest solo hit and the song that became the first No. 1 single from a Beatle after the group broke up in 1970.

How early is the “Early Takes” version?

“It’s Take No. 1,” Martin said. “It’s not from the Phil Spector sessions” that became his watershed solo album “All Things Must Pass.” “It’s just George laying down the songs. It was the first time he played his songs with a band. It just shows the quality of his voice, the quality of his songwriting.”

Other works-in-progress versions of songs from “All Things Must Pass” are included: “I’d Have You Anytime,” which he wrote with Bob Dylan; “Awaiting on You All”; “Run of the Mill”; the title track; a late-'70s composition, “Woman Don’t You Cry for Me”; and his interpretation of Dylan’s “Mama You’ve Been on My Mind.”

“Early Takes” doesn’t include any of Harrison’s songs that the Beatles recorded. “A lot of Beatles material was touched on in the ‘Anthology,’ ” Martin said, referring to the 1995 TV miniseries that brought Fab Four outtakes and other archival material public for the first time in official form. “I do think it’s important that people are not sold the same thing over and over again.”

In addition to the hard copy of Olivia Harrison's companion coffee-table book that was published last year, the book is available this week in e-book form.

One of the more revealing moments among several bonus features on the Scorsese film is an in-studio conversation among Harrison’s son, Dhani, and both George and Giles Martin.

As they play back the original tapes for “Something” -- Harrison’s song that (along with “Yesterday”) is one of the most widely recorded of all Beatles compositions -- Giles Martin points out that it was the first Harrison song for which his father wrote an orchestral accompaniment.

George Martin had crafted string parts for Lennon and McCartney songs as early as 1965 with “Yesterday,” on through the signature orchestral tornado that creates the climax of “A Day in the Life.” He even scored the music for the animated Beatles feature “Yellow Submarine.”

But it wasn’t until the band’s final recording sessions for 1969’s “Abbey Road” that he extended the favor to some of Harrison’s music, and he has said in other interviews that one regret during his years as the Beatles’ indispensable fifth man was that he didn’t devote more time to nurturing Harrison’s music.

Olivia Harrison decided to label the audio disc “Volume 1” because she anticipates releasing additional tracks in the future. Among those she most prizes on this first release are “Woman Don’t You Cry for Me,” which takes on a benedictory tone in the wake of Harrison’s premature death, and her husband’s rendition of the Everly Brothers’ “Let It Be Me.”

“I remember the Everly Brothers had just come to England and that’s when he recorded that song,” she said. “Anything he did when I was around was special for me. I really wanted those tracks on there.”

RELATED:

Documentary examines George Harrison

Paul McCartney gets his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Lost George Harrison 'Sun' guitar solo on 'Material World' film

 --Randy Lewis

Photo of George Harrison circa 1970. Credit: The George Harrison Estate.

Johnny Depp, Natalie Portman star in 3 new Paul McCartney videos

A clip from a new music video starring Johnny Depp and Natalie Portman for a song from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney’s new “Kisses on the Bottom” album has leaked, one of three videos for the song “My Valentine,” all three of which will be officially released at an as-yet-undisclosed location today in Los Angeles.

The 25-second excerpt now up on YouTube is described only as “Johnny Depp Video,” and there’s no sound, just the actor and amateur musician doing sign language while cradling a guitar in his lap. It can be seen here:

Reportedly, Depp stars in one video, Portman stars in a second, and they appear together in the third. The Sun tabloid in England has a photo of Depp and McCartney chatting and other shots of Depp and Portman from what is said to be the set where the videos were filmed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister.

McCartney himself is said to have directed all three videos, inspired by an idea from his daughter, fashion designer Stella McCartney.

The full videos are expected to go live on Saturday. “My Valentine” is one of two McCartney originals on the “Kisses” album, which consists predominantly of vintage songs McCartney loved in his youth.

RELATED:

Album review: Paul McCartney's 'Kisses on the Bottom'

Paul McCartney gets his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Paul McCartney's Spotify trade-off 

— Randy Lewis

Photo of Paul McCartney during his performance at the Grammy Awards ceremony in February. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times.

Grammys 2012: Paul McCartney rehearses 'My Valentine'

You could sense there was something special in the air at Saturday morning rehearsals for the 54th annual Grammy Awards, and with good reason --  Beatle Paul McCartney was in the house.

The final day of prep for the Sunday night awards show on CBS began with none other than McCartney, who did three run-throughs of his new song "My Valentine," a dreamy, bittersweet ballad. Diana Krall joined him on piano and Joe Walsh strummed guitar while, behind the three veteran artists, an entire orchestra gave body to the forlorn melody.

Afterward, Walsh sighed when he spoke of the song. "It's a beautiful song," the Eagles guitar hero said. "He wrote that for his wife. He just did an album of standards, something he wanted to do for a long time. It's a side of Paul we never really heard before. It's a side he never really heard before. He didn't know it was in him."

PHOTOS: Pre-Grammys activities

Walsh (whose brother-in-law happens to be a fellow named Ringo Starr) has become friends with McCartney in recent years, and they have talked about the curious rhythms of genre experimentation.

"He was trying to sing these songs and he found that they are different. It's real easy to get Vegas, you know? But he got in there and found a style. And now we have a new side to Paul McCartney."

McCartney may be seeking his inner Cole Porter these days, but he's still in touch with his teenybopper heritage; at the end of the second take of "My Valentine" he curled his hands in front of him and, pressing his thumbs together, he made a heart symbol -- yes, that's right, the sweet salutation favored by modern-day moptop Justin Bieber.

RELATED:

Photos: Musicares honors Paul McCartney

Full Coverage: 54^th annual Grammy Awards

Paul McCartney feted as MusiCares Person of the Year

-- Geoff Boucher

Photo: Paul McCartney digs into his rock 'n' roll songbook at the Hollywood Bowl in 2010. Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times.

Grammys 2012: Paul McCartney feted as MusiCares Person of the Year

This post has been updated. See the note at the bottom for details.

Is anyone surprised that Friday night’s MusiCares Person of the Year gala honoring Paul McCartney shattered the record for the fund-raising event, generating more than $6.5 million for the Recording Academy’s division that provides medical care and other support for musicians in need?

For the price of a ticket (2,800 people paid a minimum of $1,500 to attend), audience members got to hear McCartney perform a handful of numbers as well as a cadre of peers sing his songs, from 25-year-old pop princess Katy Perry to 85-year-old pop music institution Tony Bennett, with the Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Alison Krauss, Duane Eddy, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, James Taylor, Diana Krall and Sergio Mendes joining them.

PHOTOS: MusiCares Person of the Year gala | Show

The entertainment started with a presentation by what appeared to be the full Cirque du Soleil cast of the Beatles “Love” show in Las Vegas, after which McCartney and his regular touring band appeared and started the live music with his Wings-era single “Junior’s Farm.”

The Foo Fighters took on “Jet,” Keys sang “Blackbird,” Krauss handled “No More Lonely Nights,” Bennett and his combo turned “Here, There and Everywhere” into a swinging jazz tune, Eddy brought his deep twang guitar to “And I Love Her,” Jones took “Oh! Darling,” Perry sang “Hey Jude,” Young bashed through “I Saw Her Standing There,” Mendes emphasized the Latin groove in “The Fool on the Hill,” Coldplay did “We Can Work It Out,” Krall sang “For No One” and Taylor crooned “Yesterday.”

Paul McCartney gets his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

There's no shortage of stars, real and imagined, visible along Hollywood's Walk of Fame, but even by Tinseltown standards, Paul McCartney ramped up the quotient Thursday in getting his own belated star.

The former Beatle drew several hundred fans who packed a cordoned-off section of Vine Street outside Capitol Records for the ceremony.

He brought several Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member pals along for the ride, including Neil Young, who gave McCartney a cheery introduction, Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh and pop music power couple Elvis Costello and Diana Krall. Jazz great Herbie Hancock was there as well as musician-producer Don Was and former Electric Light Orchestra leader/Traveling Wilburys member Jeff Lynne. McCartney's wife, Nancy, and son, James, also attended the ceremony.

PANORAMIC PHOTO: Paul McCartney star ceremony

"Let me tell you a little bit about our friend Paul here just as a musician," said Young, wearing a black leather Buffalo Springfield tour jacket. "When I was in high school and the Beatles came out, I loved the Beatles and I tried to learn how to play like them, and no one could figure out what  Paul was doing on the bass. Not only was he playing differently because he plays left-handed, he played notes that no one had put together before -- in a way that made us stand in awe of this great musician."

"I'm so proud to be doing this," he added. "As a musician, as a songwriter, Paul's craft and his art are truly at the top of his game, the way Charlie Chaplin was an actor. He has an ability to put melodies and feelings and chords together, but it's the soul that he puts into everything he does that makes me feel so good and so happy to be here."

McCartney then stepped to the microphone and first acknowledged his debt to "three other guys -- so thanks,  John, George and Ringo."

PHOTOS: Paul McCartney star ceremony

Although Starr, the only other surviving Beatle, lives in Southern California, McCartney said, "Ringo's a little under the weather, so he's not here." The comment drew sighs of disappointment from onlookers.

"When I was growing up in Liverpool and listening to Buddy Holly and the other rock 'n' roll greats, I never thought I'd ever come to get a star on the Walk of Fame," said McCartney, 69 -- a sentiment probably shared by members of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who had been after him to accept the award ever since it was approved for him in 1993. "But here we are today," he said.

"Today," not coincidentally, was the 48th anniversary of the Beatles' game-changing U.S. television debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show." The ceremony also came synergistically just two days after the release of McCartney's latest album,  "Kisses on the Bottom," a collection of mostly pre-rock pop songs he loved as a child, supplemented by two originals.

INTERACTIVE: Hollywood Star Walk

Always the Beatle most attuned to business matters, he closed his succinct speech by telling fans and others "around the world that I send you all hugs and kisses on the bottom."

It's a particularly busy week for McCartney: After the star ceremony, he was slated to do a live performance in one of Capitol's recording studios to be streamed live at 7 tonight on iTunes and Apple TV. On Friday, he's the guest of honor at the Recording Academy's annual MusiCares Person of the Year all-star tribute gala and fundraiser. And Sunday, he's on tap to perform during the Grammy Awards telecast. 

Many fans who showed up in Hollywood brought various bits of memorabilia in hopes of snagging an autograph: One teenage girl had a worn LP copy of his first solo album, 1970's "McCartney." Others leaned across metal police barricades with copies of "A Hard Day's Night," "Beatles for Sale," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," books, photos and a plethora of other items.

Only one succeeded: On his way back into the Capitol building, McCartney spotted Fullerton 18-year-old Paul Madariaga holding up a Hofner bass guitar like the one McCartney first popularized nearly half a century ago when he was just out of his teens. McCartney gave a nod and the instrument was handed to him. The world’s most famous bassist hoisted it aloft, as he often does at the end of his concerts, scribbled his name across the front with a hastily supplied Sharpie and passed it back to Madariaga.

Score one for the kid.

RELATED:

More stars along the Walk of Fame

Album review: Paul McCartney's 'Kisses on the Bottom'

Paul McCartney's MusiCares tribute gala slated for Feb. 10

-- Randy Lewis

Top photo: Paul McCartney showing off the plaque he received at his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony Thursday. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Center photo: Neil and Pegi Young at Paul McCartney's star ceremony in Hollywood. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Bottom photo: Paul McCartney's new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on Vine Street immediately outside Capitol Records. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Album review: Paul McCartney's 'Kisses on the Bottom'

This post has been updated. See below for details.

Those of a certain age might remember the “Is Paul Dead?” rumor that swirled around the Beatles at the peak of their career. Fans played Beatles tracks backward and carefully examined photographs for “evidence” of Paul McCartney's supposed demise.

After listening to McCartney's new quaint little dalliance with the Great American Songbook, “Kisses on the Bottom,” the question that occurred to me was “Is Paul retired?”

“Kisses on the Bottom” features music McCartney used to sing around the piano with his family as a tyke in the 1940s and '50s, along with other period pieces selected by the singer and producer Tommy LiPuma, plus two new McCartney songs. The evidence is legion that Sir James Paul McCartney, 69, longtime songwriting powerhouse, may have indeed punched his final time clock.

Grammys 2012: Katy Perry added to Grammys, McCartney gala

When it comes to the Grammys, pop star Katy Perry has strutted around a stage outfitted with giant fruit, while last year, she took a more solitary and serious route, albeit on a glittery swing for a medley that included "Not Like the Movies." The artist of extremes is back for the 2012 ceremony, with a record of the year nomination for "Firework," but perhaps Grammy producers have some surprises up their sleeves too.

Not only is Perry performing during the Feb. 12 awards show telecast, but she's also been added to the impressive roster of artists who will pay tribute to Beatle Paul McCartney on Feb. 10 at the MusiCares Person of the Year Ceremony.

MusiCares represents the charitable art of the Record Academy, and the sold-out gala will also feature Tony Bennett, Coldplay, the Foo Fighters, Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Duane Eddy, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys, James Taylor, Diana Krall, Neil Young with Crazy Horse and Sergio Mendes. Whew. 

PHOTOS: Grammys 2012: Top nominees

McCartney will perform at both the MusiCares dinner and the Grammys. No doubt there will be some overlap between those paying respects to the legend on Feb. 10 and those performing with the Beatle on Feb. 12.