After receiving The Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in June it's been announced that Paul McCartney will also be one of the five recipients of this years Kennedy Center Honours. This prestigious award "celebrates the careers of extaordinary artists". The chairman described McCartney as "one of the most influential and successful songwriters and musicians of all time, whose work has continuosly altered both the creation and perception of music all over the world."
So it's pretty darn good timing for the reissue, on November 1st in the UK and November 2nd in the US, of the "legendary" Wings album Band On The Run. This will be the first release from the Paul McCartney Archive Collection. Yes all 40 years worth will be getting a makeover.
It was originally recorded in the summer of 1973 in Lagos, Nigeria because Paul wanted to record somewhere abroad! Two band members left days before departure and the conditions were way less than ideal. They were also mugged at knifepoint and all the demos stolen. This meant that they had to record the whole thing from memory...wow.
Anyway it was released to much critical and commercial success. "The album topped the US album chart 3 separate times, won a Grammy and went on to sell more than 7 million copies," according to the official website...and I believe them.
If you go to the site you can get a free download of "A Trip To Lagos."
http://www.paulmccartney.com/
It also details the myriad versions of the reissue. Bogstandard up to Deluxe, with a big hardback book of photos and other stuff, and some versions with DVDs in between. Oh and there's also vinyl. Nice.
So now here's some tunes from Wings most successful album ever.
Band On The Run (original video)
Mrs Vanderbilt (live in Kiev. It was voted by a Ukrainian poll as their all time favourite Paul McCartney song)Really?!!!...Ok then...?! Maybe just skip to the next one.
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five
