Paul McCartney: The solo years
McCartney was the first Beatle to officially go solo, and his self-titled 1970 debut drove the last nail into the Beatles’ coffin. You couldn’t really blame the guy for wanting to move on, so unpleasant had life in the Beatlemania bubble become for all involved, and so contentious was the environment fostered by the dubious legal advisement of Allen Klein – the real reason the Beatles broke up, not poor Yoko Ono.
And yet, blame McCartney they did, sending the guy, by many published accounts, into a serious depression. Most biographers credit the lovely Linda McCartney with helping her husband snap out of it.
What followed was a solo career that predated Wings, ran concurrently with that band’s activities until things fell apart following 1979’s mostly great “Back to the Egg,” and then continued without interruption to today.
Even a so-so McCartney album – think the losing-the-plot excesses of “Pipes of Peace” – is a better bet than the best efforts of the majority of the man’s peers. Here are 10 solo Macca efforts that are either full-on perfect, or ridiculously close.
“McCartney” (1970). A one-man, DIY, home-recording model, decades before this kind of thing became de rigeur for any self-respecting solo artist.
“Ram” (1971). This is the masterpiece, the most Beatle-like of his solo albums. It’s all over the place, stylistically, but in a very lovely way.
By: Jeff Miers
Source: The Buffalo News
