The Unknown Paul McCartney

by Ian Peel

Paul McCartney has often initiated and participated in projects that have taken him a long way from the kind of music associated with The Beatles, Wings and his work as a solo artist. These projects include the psychedelic tape loop experiments of the 1960s, the 'Percy Thrillington' diversion in the 1970s and more recent albums recorded, as 'The Fireman' — as well as even more obscure activity, much of which this book reveals in depth for the first time. Ian Peel has interviewed many of McCartney's intimate musical associates from this less familiar side of his career. These include Youth, Super Furry Animals, Nitin Sawhney, playwright Arnold Wesker and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, Yoko Ono. What emerges is a unique insight into an apparently over-familiar public figure—Paul McCartney, experimental musician.

Genres: Music, Biography

341 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2002

Reviews

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am finding this book is pretty boring.

[Kurt Gottschalk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd and interesting reframing of McCartney as experimentalist and if the topic intrigues it's worth a read. The subject, however, has never been one to pontificate about his work (or much of anything else), and as a result Peel spends much of the book setting stages, discussing Cage, Eno, IDM and so on, and unfortunately getting more than a few facts wrong. But who else would even have dreamt up such a thesis? A flawed but still worthy contribution to Beatlelogy.