Paul McCartney News
Paul McCartney Plans
U.S. Tour
NEW YORK, April 19, 2005
Paul McCartney performs during the halftime show at
Super Bowl XXXIX (Photo: AP)
"We're ready to rock."
Paul McCartney
(AP) Paul McCartney is ready to rock the United States
again.
McCartney's "US" tour will
open Sept. 16 in Miami. The 28-performance tour spans
11 weeks, ending with a Nov. 29 show in Los Angeles.
"We are looking forward to playing
again in America," McCartney said in a statement
Monday. "They know how to have a good time, and
we're there to give it to them. It'll be fun to visit
some new places, to see some old faces and to do things
a bit differently this time. We're ready to rock."
McCartney's "Back in the U.S."
tour swept through the country nearly four years ago.
He performed at the Super Bowl in February.
The "US" tour, which is planned
to coincide with a new McCartney recording, will include
stops in Boston, New York, Chicago and Las Vegas.
Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb., will get their
first-ever McCartney performances.
McCartney will perform Beatles hits
as well as material from his solo career and songs
by his 1970s band, Wings.
4/21/2005
ALL NEW Beatles, Wings and Solo Concert Tour To Launch
In Miami On September 16th; Coincides With New Album
Release
Paul McCartney is ready to rock with
‘US’ this fall, nearly four years after
his critically hailed, Billboard Magazine Concert
Tour of the Year, ‘Back In the U.S.’ swept
through the U.S. Since his return to the stage in
2002, after a decade long performance hiatus, millions
from countries across the globe have experienced his
sold-out concerts.
Paul McCartney Solo
Career Information
Early solo career
As the Beatles broke up in 1970, Paul immediately
launched a solo career with his album MCartney, which
featured him playing all the instruments and singing
all vocals apart from some support from wife Linda
McCartney. While many found this record underwhelming
(including Lennon in an interview), it did contain
the superlative "Maybe I'm Amazed", which
has remained a centerpiece of McCartney's concerts
ever since. Another successful track was "Every
Night", which was later a hit for singer Phoebe
Snow.
McCartney followed this in 1971 with
the stand-alone single "Another Day", which
to some recalled the observational style of his mid-period
Beatles work. The album Ram, later in 1971, was credited
to both Paul and Linda, and featured back-up from,
for the most part, studio musicians. While both single
and album were commercially popular, many detractors
viewed them as largely insubstantial. The album also
contained a couple of apparent insults towards Lennon;
later that year Lennon responded with the famously
scathing attack song "How Do You Sleep?".
McCartney famously insisted that his
wife should be involved with his music — and
later tour in his bands so they did not have to be
apart while he travelled — in spite of her protests
that she was not talented enough. After hearing Linda
sing, many seconded her opinion, but Paul's move was
clearly a deliberate act, intended to help dispel
some of the lingering Beatles mystique and prove his
assertion that "anyone can do it". Despite
persistent attacks on her ability (including one notorious
1990s bootleg concert tape in which her out-of-tune
vocals were deliberately mixed to the fore), Linda
became a valuable member of McCartney's bands and
an inspiring musician throughout the remainder of
her life. (In many ways this paralleled the role that
Yoko Ono played in Lennon's post-Beatles musical life,
just as there would be organizational similarities
between Wings and Lennon's Plastic Ono Band).
McCartney & Wings
Briefly, after an uneven start and despite
many personnel changes, Wings became one of the most
successful 1970s rock bands, hitting its artistic
apex in late 1973 with the Band on the Run album and
its commercial apex in 1976 with a wildly popular
world tour.
Pauls' later solo career
In 1980, as Wings came to an end, McCartney
made international headlines when he was arrested
for possession of marijuana in Japan and he spent
nine days in prison there before being deported. Since
that time he has reportedly stopped using all drugs,
although it is generally believed that he used marijuana
consistently throughout the late Sixties and Seventies.
Despite the devastating blow of the
murder of John Lennon later that year, McCartney enjoyed
continued success in the early 80s. His 1982 album
Tug Of War was a major success and in the same year
he scored two huge hits with duet singles—"Ebony
and Ivory", recorded with soul legend Stevie
Wonder, and "The Girl Is Mine", recorded
with emerging pop megastar Michael Jackson. Another
successful McCartney-Jackson duet, "Say, Say,
Say" was released in 1983.
McCartney's friendship with Jackson
was shortlived, however. Not long afterwards, Jackson
paid a huge sum to acquire the Northern Songs catalogue,
which included the publishing rights to most of the
Beatles' songs. Although McCartney subsequently approached
Jackson hoping to negotiate an increase in his royalty
rate, he was turned down.
In the mid-1980s, while making a home
movie reminiscing about his days as a schoolboy, McCartney
discovered the 1825 building which had once been his
old school was derelict. He purchased it, and pursued
a dream he had always had of helping his home town
of Liverpool in some way. January 1996 saw the dedication
of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, of
which Paul is the lead patron. On June 7th 1996 Her
Majesty the Queen officially opened the building.
In the late 1980s McCartney began a
songwriting partnership with Elvis Costello, with
the resulting songs appearing on several albums by
both artists. The best known of these is McCartney's
modest 1989 hit "My Brave Face", from his
album Flowers in the Dirt.
During 1989-1990 McCartney staged a
major, year-long world tour, in which for the first
time he included a substantial number of Beatles songs
in the set list. The tour was a big success, filling
arenas and stadiums at each stop. A similarly-scaled
tour took place in 1993.
In the 1990s MCartney was involved in
a feud with John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono. Their dispute
centred around the writing credits for a number of
Beatles songs. He had wanted to change the credits
for some songs from the traditional 'Lennon-McCartney'
to 'Paul McCartney and John Lennon'. Yoko Ono was
personally offended by this move which she felt broke
an agreement that the two had made while Lennon was
still alive to credit songs as a team. The two other
Beatles agreed that the credits should remain as they
always had been and McCartney withdrew his request.
McCartney and his wife became outspoken
vegetarians and animal-rights activists after owning
cattle and watching them outside the window as they
cooked and ate meat. In 1991, Linda introduced her
own line of vegetarian meals to the general market.
After Linda's death in 1998, Paul pledged to continue
her line of food and keep it free from genetically
modified organisms.
In 1991 McCartney made his first complete
foray into classical music, collaborating with Carl
Davis to compose the quasi-autobiographical Liverpool
Oratorio. This was received well in general, although
many commented that the music lacked the complexity
normally associated with the genre. Liverpool Oratorio
had its North American premiere in Carnegie Hall in
New York on 18 November 1991 with Davis conducting
and both McCartneys in attendance.
In 1995, McCartney, George Harrison,
and Ringo Starr reunited to release the first of the
Beatles' Anthology albums, consisting of alternate
takes and live recordings of Beatles songs; volumes
two and three were released the next year. They also
created two new Beatles songs by layering new music
around unfinished tracks Lennon had made before his
death fourteen years earlier.
On March 11, 1997, McCartney was created
a Knight by Queen Elizabeth II, and was subsequently
known as Sir Paul McCartney. In 1999 was inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist
(he was inducted with the rest of the Beatles in 1988).
In 1997 he made his second venture into
classical music with Standing Stone, a work that received
a mixed response. In 1999 he released Working Classical,
a collection of his pop songs redone for string quartet
or orchestra.
Mr. McCartney is also a very talented
artist. For more than seventeen years Paul McCartney
has been a committed painter, finding in his work
on canvas both a respite from the world and another
outlet for his drive to create. His painting, like
much of his life, has been a very private endeavor.
In April 1999 he exhibited his work for the first
time in Siegen, Germany, where it met with critical
acclaim, which led to his decision to share the work
in galleries across the UK. He is also a big fan of
animation, having released Tropic Island Hum, a CD
compilation of various animation music that he has
done over the years.
McCartney then decided to give another
genre a try, and in 2001 he published Blackbird Singing,
a volume of poetry. Some of these were lyrics to past
songs, while some were strictly poems. He gave readings
of these works in Liverpool and New York; the selections
were both serious (Here Today, about John Lennon)
and humourous (Maxwell's Silver Hammer).
Sir Paul McCartney's coat of arms.On
20 October 2001 McCartney took a lead role in organising
the Concert for New York City, a celebration of the
strength, resilience, and pride of New York and America
in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The concert was held at Madison Square Garden and
featured performances by The Who, Mick Jagger and
Keith Richards, David Bowie, Billy Joel, Destiny's
Child, Eric Clapton, Adam Sandler, Bon Jovi, Elton
John, James Taylor and many more. McCartney was the
final performer and debuted his song "Freedom",
which advocates taking forceful measures against terrorism.
In June 2002 McCartney married Heather
Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner,
in a highly elaborate ceremony at Castle Leslie in
Glaslough, County Monaghan, Ireland. Under her influence,
he has campaigned against landmines himself, and donated
substantial sums to the cause. In early 2003, for
example, he held a personal concert for the wife of
banker Ralph Whitworth and donated one million dollars
to Adopt-a-Landmine. Mills and McCartney had their
first child, Beatrice Millie, on October 28, 2003.
McCartney continues to release pop albums
(Run Devil Run, Wingspan, Flaming Pie, Driving Rain),
as well as campaign for the groups Greenpeace and
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, among
others. Paul and Linda had three children: Mary, Stella,
and James. He also adopted Heather, Linda's daughter
from her previous marriage. James (born 1977) can
be heard playing guitar in McCartney's latest albums.
Mary is the baby inside McCartney's jacket in the
back cover photograph of his first solo album. Heather
is a designer, and can be seen as a young girl in
the Let it be film. Stella McCartney is an award-winning
fashion designer and animal rights activist.
In 2002 MCartney launched another major
American tour, garnering strong notices for an energetic
and tight supporting band and an evocative and varied
show that appealed to fans of all generations. This
leg became the top-grossing U.S. tour of the year,
taking in over $126 million. The tour has subsequently
continued around the rest of the world in 2003 and
2004.
McCartney performed during the pre-game
ceremonies at the NFL's Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 and
was the halftime performer at Super Bowl XXXIX on
6 February 2005. Unlike in many previous years, he
was the only performer in the entire halftime show.
His set consisted of "Drive My Car", "Get
Back", "Live and Let Die" and "Hey
Jude", and featured interesting stage design,
fireworks, and fan-held placards.
McCartney, currently 62, says he hopes
to keep playing even after he is 64, a reference to
the Beatles song, "When I'm Sixty-Four".
