Kisses On The Bottom, McCartney On Top
At the end of their first big single, “She Loves You,” the Beatles played a complex, jazzy chord they referred to as “the Glenn Miller chord.” Ironically, old school producer George Martin tried to talk them out it, calling it “corny.” But the Fabs insisted it remain. Thus, fresh out of the gate, Paul McCartney and his cohorts acknowledged a debt to the vast canon of sophisticated music predating rock and roll.
Paul McCartney by Henry Grossman
Ergo, McCartney’s choice to record Kisses On The Bottom, an entire album of mostly standards from the ‘30s and ‘40s, is no surprise. The son of a jazz bandleader, McCartney was the Beatle most responsible for music hall touches (“Martha My Dear,” “Her Majesty,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”) American Songbook cribs (“World Without Love,” “Here, There, and Everywhere”) and chamber pop (“Eleanor Rigby,” “For No One”). While he could – and still can – rock with the best of them, his pleather-clad toe has always been in a sepia world of dancehalls and nickelodeons. Indeed, the synthesis of this sensibility and Lennon’s raw, rock and roll heart made for pop potency that remains undiminished today.
Paul McCartney by Ian Dickson
Having watched Macca captivate Giants Stadium last summer by belting out “Helter Skelter” and “Day Tripper,” it is lovely to hear him ease into tunes like “It’s Only A Paper Moon,” and “Bye, Bye, Blackbird.” His elastic voice effortlessly curls around the exquisitely well-wrought melodies and lyrics of those tunes, plus fourteen others (two of which – “My Valentine” and “Only Our Hearts” – he composed specifically for this collection). “The players did all the hard work,” he says in the liner notes, giving props to bandleader-pianist Diana Krall, guitarists Bucky and John Pizzarelli and a host of top-caliber session cats. But it’s fair to say the writers did some pretty heavy lifting as well, crafting classics requiring a nuanced vocalist to stay out of the way of a sublime line like, E.Y. Harburg’s “Without your love it’s a honky-tonk parade / Without your love it’s a melody played in a penny arcade.” McCartney is more than up to the task of doing right by these gems of song, which, happily, will now be introduced to new ears.
Yet some critics snipe. Time’s Claire Suddath seems confused when she laments, “No rocking, no rolling, nothing that will take you above a resting heart rate. The Beatle appears to have finally grown old.” NPR’s Stephen Thompson finds the CD “jarring,” while the L.A. Times’ Randall Roberts complains, “The evidence is legion that Sir James Paul McCartney, 69, longtime songwriting powerhouse, may have indeed punched his final time clock.”
Paul McCartney by James Fortune
Really? Slow news day?
Well. McCartney did not get to be McCartney by caring what others say. This is the guy who took Lennon’s criticism of “All you write is silly love songs,” and turned it into an annoying but ubiquitous hit. Granted, he has released some unlistenable dreck, but Kisses On The Bottom, which nods to Fats Waller, Frank Loesser, and Irving Berlin, does not deserve to be on that list. This collection is the sound of the very specific, quiet joy of a loving debt repaid, which is sweet music indeed.
Paul McCartney by Tom Murray
