Linda McCartney
Friday, 21 September 2007
I never had much interest in the music of the Beatles, but I am fascinated by the impact they had and still have on the world. And I admire them for being so down to earth after what happened to them. Well, it is easy for some of the Beatles to be down to earth now, but I mean most of all Paul McCartney. I was amazed and touched when he was the last one to come on stage at the last Live Eight concert and to sing Helter skelter. (I might be wrong here, maybe it was another concert, but it doesn’t matter for this story.) I was listening to the concert on the radio, and most of the bands that I had heard did not make any impression on me. And here was a guy of 64, who had been in the most successful band ever, 30 years ago, but who had still more power and magic than all the musicians who had been on stage that day. At least, that’s what I heard.
I always liked Linda McCartney. I know that many Beatles fans hated her, because she was in Paul’s band and she couldn’t sing. At least, that’s what I heard and read more than once. In his radio show, Piet Schreuders played a so called monitor recording of Linda; the rest of the band was filtered out, so that only the voice of Linda could be heard. Somebody had made this tape to put for once and for all an end to the discussion about the question whether Linda could sing or not. It sounded like this:
.
Later I found out that the tape was fake. But I already expected that, because I had bought the CD Wild prairie.
It would be a lie to say that I think that Linda McCartney has the most beautiful voice in the world, but she has more than a bit charm, and she is singing significant better than the woman on the monitor tape.
The influence of Paul on this CD is of course substantial, to say the least. I get the impression that Linda didn’t care much about having a CD out with all the songs she ever recorded. Paul managed to make this incoherent mishmash of demo’s and other miscellenea into a musical document of the woman he clearly loved deeply.
Here is Linda with Cook of the house, to make an end to all rumours about her singing qualities.