Album Review: Various Artists, 'The Art of McCartney'
by Jim McGuinn
December 22, 2014
Over the past 50 years, there have been literally thousands of recordings made of songs written by Paul McCartney. The latest to enter the fray are the 34 contained on the double CD The Art of McCartney. According to producer, Ralph Sall, the project has been in the works for more than 11 years. Once Sall received permission from McCartney to do the project, Sall began recording songs with McCartney's backing band, which includes guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, keyboardist Paul "Wix" Wickens and drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr., lining up vocalists to match the song choices. Not surprisingly, no one really turned down Sall's invitation to participate.
And that's where it gets interesting. The best selections on The Art of McCartney tend to be the ones that stray farthest from the original versions — especially contributions from Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Dr. John, Harry Connick, The Cure, Perry Farrell and Toots Hibbert, who all make Paul's songs their own. Bob Dylan rarely participates in projects like this — his choice and performance on "Things We Said Today" illustrates the enduring respect he's had for McCartney, which goes back to 1964 when he first heard the Beatles and immediately noticed the sophistication of the chord structures and harmonies. Willie's heartfelt reading breathes new life into "Yesterday," while Toots takes McCartney to Jamaica on the song he gave to Badfinger, "Come and Get It," composed around the same time as Macca's more overtly reggae/ska Beatles song, "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."
In fact, The Art of McCartney might have been more rewarding had these types of re-inventions been deployed more frequently and with more recklessness — such as the way the five volumes of the locally produced Minnesota Beatle Project deployed everyone from P.O.S. to Haley Bonar to rearrange the sonic furniture. Using Paul's touring band on many of the tracks is both a bonus (wow, these guys play these songs perfectly!) and a detriment (wow, these guys play these songs perfectly!) — mostly because even some of the best vocalists in rock history (Roger Daltrey, Paul Rodgers, Billy Joel, Heart, Steve Miller, Smokey Robinson, Robin Zander) pale in comparison to McCartney. The other issue with this album is an over-reliance on the old school: Barry Gibb singing "When I'm 64" is kinda cool, but less so in the company of a list of singers with an average age of 64. Wasn't it the young Boomers of the '60s who implored us to not trust anyone over 30? The only vocalist on the entire collection under the age of 35 is Owatonna's own Adam Young of Owl City.
The song choices on The Art of McCartney lean more heavily on his rockers from the Beatles and Wings than his pop confections, and hearing Daltrey tear into "Helter Skelter" or Def Leppard's Joe Elliot tackle "Hi Hi Hi" reminds us that Paul was always more than just the cute one. And despite the minor gripes, it's worth the price of admission to hear the likes of Dylan, Willie, and Brian Wilson interpreting songs by one of the most celebrated songwriters of the past 50 years.