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FAB: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney

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Helping To Keep Local Music Live !

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As an outsider to the Fab Four's real world, this detailed book helps explain a lot, really putting things into perspective...

From: Chronicling Paul's early life, and revealing how it intersected with others, thereby giving birth to an amazing song writing duo, that set the musical bench mark so high, that few can only dream of emulating...

To: Ultimately helping to create the most influential popular group of all time.

And then there's Paul life after the Beatles, right up to his encounter with Heather Mills.

Eloquently illustrating the famous quote by Samuel Goldwyn who once said:
   "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

Trepidation:
I decided to read this account of Paul's life, with some trepidation, thinking, here's just another hack out to make a quick buck at the expense of someone else’s hard earned career...

But I needn't have worried:
As author Howard Sounes, has managed to create not only an interesting and informative read, but he's achieved this with great compassion and diligence to the facts, without resorting to the more sensationalised approach so often chosen by lesser authors.

A great informative read, whether your: An ardent Paul McCartney/Beatles nut, or: Wish to be inspired and uplifted by great achievements from humble beginnings.

Long Live The Beatles !

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'George Martin called the Beatles back to EMI and asked them to perform their stage show for him.

Thus creating in one amazing day, Monday the 11th February 1963, a complete album !

The Beatles recorded ten songs on the day, to which EMI later added the four numbers previously released as singles...

here then was essentially the sound of the Beatles [live] on stage in 1963, as they would have sounded in the Cavern: four young men having the time of their lives.

As emphasised by the album cover photo of the lads grinning, on the stairs at EMI headquarters, in Manchester Square.'

'George Martin was initially doubtful about the song ending on a sixth...'
However: "Paul was right. Released at the end of August, 'She Loves You' went directly to No: 1"

3:     P124: The Smash (hit) of the Century

'One morning in 1963 Paul awoke in his garret with a melody in his head that he assumed was a Jazz Standard...'

"Paul went straight to the piano... 'I just fell out of bed, found out what key I had dreamed it in...
I got the G, then I got the nice F# minor 7... it just kept sort of tumbling out with those chords' "

" 'I'm changing my mind. I'd like to do them at Shea Stadium' 
Sid [Bernstein] told Brian [Epstein] over the telephone...

 'How big is that?' asked Epstein.    'Fifty-five thousand seats !'  replied Sid. "

5:     P86: " So it was that John and Paul gave the Stones...
          what proved to be their breakthrough second single:    'I wanna Be You Man'

...teaching the band the chords that afternoon.   'They ran through it for us and Paul, being left-handed, amazed me by playing my bass backwards,'   Bill Wyman " 

John was furious... [so they left & went to the Ad-Lib club] 
     George drove them all in Pattie's Mini, which seemed to be shrinking... 
as the lift rose, the red light seemed to glow like fire... 

As George recalled 'it felt as though... we where going into Hell... 
     we stayed for hours on the top floor... John noticed their table was s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g... 
at dawn George drove Pattie, John & Cynthia home to Surrey, very, very slowly...'

John had always loved Alice in Wonderland, and here was a drug that could send him down the Rabbit hole anytime he liked."

John would say of these sessions.
Like in 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' I remember when we got the chord that made the song.

We were in Jane Asher's House, downstairs in the cellar, playing the piano at the same time.

We had  'Oh you, you got something ...' and Paul hits this chord and I turned to him and said, 'That's it! Do that again.'   In those days we really used to write like that. "

8:     P142: 'Paul certainly seemed to have placed a low value on the Beatles early songs,

judging by the fact that he signed away his rights to their first 56 tunes in the spring of 1966
for a modest one-off payment.'

...asking the audience for help: 'Would the the people in the cheaper seats clap their hands?' he said... and ...with a nod to the royal box, '...And the rest of you, ...just rattle your jewellery.' "

10:   P76: "The boys wanted a [publishing] company. 
'We said to them, "Can we have our own company?" ' Paul recalled.  ' They said, "Yeah." '
Northern Songs was thereby created... 

John & Paul were assigned 20% each, ...Brian 10%... 
Dick James and his partner [Dick James music] owned half [of Northern Songs], plus 10% off the top, to manage the company... 

Which meant that James earned more money from publishing John & Paul's songs than they did."