When Paul McCartney gave his regards to Broad Street
For this week's CL cover story, "Mammal Gallery braces for an unwritten future," Richard Miller relived the moment former Beatles singer and bass player Paul McCartney wandered into his South Broad drugstore. Here is his story.
"He was here at the Merchandise Mart watching his daughter Stella sell some of her wears. She made dishes and such, and he was here with his son James watching. They got bored and wanted to go check out 'the funky side of town' — Little Five Points. He got into a limousine with his son James, and he must've told the driver, 'Take us to Five Points,' which is just a block from the drugstore. So the limousine driver pulled up in front of the store because the next block is not available for cars. Paul got out of the limousine and saw a display for a product we carry called Run Devil Run in our window and said, 'Oh, that’s a cool thing, let’s go in and see what it’s all about.'
We didn’t quite realize who he was when he and James came in. They were dressed all in black — black hat, black sunglasses, black clothes. Paul walked up to the counter and asked Diane, what is this Run Devil Run? And she told him it was aromatherapy for depression. He said, 'My wife recently passed away. I’m going to buy it. If it works, I’ll write a song about you.'
She says, 'Yeah, right.'
We get a lot of people in here saying things like that. We get a lot of artists in here, and people who will buy a mojo bag and say, 'I’m going to win the $10 million lottery and I’m going to give you a million.' But they never show up after they win it! So this fella with a foreign accent — we didn’t know who he was and we didn’t expect anything.
By: Chad Radford
Source: Creative Loafing
