MJ Kim
Well past 64, and still rocking Beatles, Wings and solo tunes without a break.
Last week, our high school-age grandson, Aidan, said something that shocked us: “Who’s Paul McCartney?”
We were discussing the singer/songwriter’s upcoming June 6 Kohl Center concert, one of two Wisconsin dates along with Green Bay’s Lambeau Field, that are part of his “Freshen Up” tour.
How could a musical icon of McCartney’s stature draw no more than a blank stare from a member of the emerging generation?
Lest we forget, McCartney, along with John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, were collectively The Beatles, credited with almost single-handedly changing the timbre and texture of popular music in the mid-20th century. Bursting on the U.S. music scene in 1964 with a youthful exuberance and a playlist of silly love songs, the Four Lads from Liverpool pushed aside Elvis Presley and his pomaded pompadour with their mop-top haircuts, collarless suits and Marx Brothers antics.
Paul was the heartthrob, the “cute Beatle.” John was the intellectual — he wrote and illustrated two books of surrealistic poetry. George was the quiet one, and Ringo was, well, Ringo. Paul, 76, and Ringo, 78, both of whom have been knighted by England’s Queen, are still alive and performing. John died in 1980 at age 40 of a gunshot wound, murdered in the street outside his New York City apartment. George died in 2001 at age 58 of lung cancer, which had spread to his brain, in his Los Angeles home.
Before all that, however, The Beatles attracted an enormous following. But by 1966, their music and lifestyles had begun to change. The hair got longer, the clothes wilder, the music more experimental and their choice of smokes a little less legal. The group went from “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” its first U.S. hit, to the acid-soaked “I Am the Walrus” in barely four years, and the rest of pop music went with them.
John, abandoned by his parents and raised by his aunt, was the moody one whose darker side helped temper Paul’s chirpy, English music hall-inspired melodies, which John once called “Paul’s granny shit music.” As a songwriting team, however, they drew from each other’s strengths, and their work was among the best.
It all ended in 1970, after a decade together, with an acrimonious breakup that sent each Beatle on his separate way.
But that was just the beginning for the self-taught musician from a working class Liverpool neighborhood. Paul, depressed at the Beatles demise, was encouraged by his wife, the late Linda Eastman, to rely on his skills as a songwriter. He forged ahead with his first solo album, McCartney, which was an immediate hit due largely to the fact that it was part Beatles, and part entirely Paul — that same musical cocktail that has carried him through almost 50 years of a post-Beatles success.
Linda joined Paul and several other musicians to form Wings, a group that created its own followers through a playlist of hit singles and albums. Paul’s inherent musicality and familiar voice helped create the success. Wings lasted 10 years, but set the stage for a confident, musically maturing tunesmith who began to stretch his own musical wings.
Paul has dabbled in electronica and symphonic music, and held multiple benefit concerts for various causes, and in memory of bandmate George. He recorded with Stevie Wonder and Kanye West, headlined countless stadium shows and continues to push himself in new directions, but never without a wink and a nod to his Beatles past.
He has also composed film scores, both for movies that were about or featured The Beatles, and for a few animated shorts. His best known cinematic outing remains the theme song for the James Bond film Live and Let Die. Loud, bombastic and ridden at a staggered gallop, the anthem was a regular at his stage shows with Wings and is now a staple on his solo tour with a backup band. It’s the one excuse he has for on-stage pyrotechnics.
Expect a lot of post-Beatles McCartney during his Kohl Center concert, including tunes from his 17th solo album, 2018’s Egypt Station, which Rolling Stone called “awesomely eccentric” and “classic Paul.” But judging from the setlists for shows on his recent South American tour, the cute Beatle still knows which side his bread is buttered on.
Fans at the Kohl Center can expect a heaping dose of the Beatles music most of them came to hear: “We Can Work It Out,” “From Me to You,” “Lady Madonna,” “Blackbird,” “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and others. The shows routinely opened with “A Hard Day’s Night” and, not counting multiple encores, closed with a “Hey Jude” singalong. If you’ve been lucky enough to catch McCartney on recent tours, or manage to snag a ticket to the sold-out Wisconsin shows, you’ll see that the septuagenarian is a tremendously energetic performer who still darts around the stage playing multiple instruments, not stopping even for a sip of water during two-and-a-half hour concerts.
At his core, Paul McCartney is still a Beatle – granny shit music and all. And that means his musical legacy is getting better — or at least more important — all the time.
