Friday, March 29, 2024

Paul McCartney and Keith Richards Almost Put Out a Record Together

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The Beatles and the Rolling Stones are always considered rivals. But as Keith Richards writes in his new memoir–and has been written about in the past–they scheduled their records not come out at the same time.

This friendly rivalry began in the early 60s when the Stones were hard up for a good single. John Lennon and Paul McCartney gave them a song–“I Wanna Be Your Man”–which the Stones turned into their own record.

In “Life,” Richards writes that in recent years he and McCartney almost worked together. They ran into each other on the beach and struck up a friendship.

“We were really pleased to see each other. We fell straight in, talking about the past, talking about songwriting. We talked about such strangely simple things as the difference between the Beatles and Stones, and that the Beatles were a vocal band because they could all sing the lead vocal, and we were more of a musicians’ band–we had only one front man.

“He told me that because he was left-handed, he and John could play the guitars like mirrors opposite each other, watching each other’s hands. So we started playing like that. We even started composing a song together, a McCartney/Richards numberwhose lyrics were pinned to the wall for many weeks.”

Richards says he begged McCartney to play “Please Please Me” at the Super Bowl, but Paul said it took too many weeks to plan properly. He did do an imitation for Richards of Roy Orbison–one of their mutual heroes– singing the song.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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