Paul McCartney’s first studio CD of the 1990′s was Off The Ground. Continuing with the majority of the band from his previous Flowers In The Dirt album from 1989 and most recent world tour, Paul initiated sessions for Off The Ground in December of 1991 and had the tracks up to snuff by the following July. American drummer Blair Cunningham was the newest edition to Paul’s line-up. Blair, who had formerly played with The Pretenders, along with a few other bands, had replaced previous drummer Chris Whitten after Paul’s 1989/1990 world tour. Chris had left the band earlier and went on to participate in the Dire Straits final world tour of 1991-1992. Hamish Stuart and Robbie McIntosh, who both play guitar and bass, had been with Paul since ‘Flowers,’ as had keyboardist Paul ‘Wix’ Wickens, who is still touring with Paul today. Paul’s late wife Linda sings backing vocals and plays keyboards.

The title track to the disc, seen in this promo clip, is an upbeat pop-flavored tune that has Paul taking a trip out the window and flying around the world. Paul released a VHS in October 1993 called Movin’ On that touches on the making of the video, as well as a few others from the album. The song “Off The Ground” was also released on a CD single in April of 1993. The short interlude that precedes the song in the video is a non-album track that appears on the CD single with the curious title “Soggy Noodle.”

Click the image above to play the video.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Off the Ground 1993 complete CD containing title track and other great tracks C’Mon People and even a couple collaborations with Elvis Costello.

2) Movin on [VHS] – VHS film of one hour feature on Paul and his band in the studio and video filming sets for Off The Ground promos, etc. Never released on DVD/BluRay.

3) Flowers in the Dirt- – Paul’s previous CD with ‘almost’ the same band (Chris Whitten was on drums instead of Blair Cunningham). Includes the hit My Brave Face and a few other collaborations with Elvis Costello.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. Many of you may remember a radio show in the mid-90s that was created by Paul McCartney called Oobu Joobu. The program aired on the American radio network Westwood One and the name was inspired by the BBC’s production of a play by the late French writer Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) called Ubu Cocu (if someone knows what that means, feel free to leave a comment). The show was officially plugged as a weekly radio program created, directed and presented by DeeJay Paul McCartney. Paul’s shorter tag-descriptor for the show was Wide Screen Radio which is heard in a few of the jingles used on the show. Each broadcast was about an hour (except for a couple two-hour specials) and it ran every week from Memorial Day weekend (last weekend in May) through the weekend following the U.S. Labor Day holiday (September) 1995. Besides being able to hear Paul in action as a DJ, the show’s material included demos, rehearsals, live performances and many unreleased recordings by both Paul McCartney and The Beatles. Needless to say, much of the material from the shows have been widely bootlegged. Paul also included guests on the show like Stevie Wonder, Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) and Little Richard and he featured a lot of music by other acts such as Buddy Holly, Steve Miller, and Elvis Costello, to cite only a few. There was even a segment by Linda McCartney called Cook Of The House (of course, named after her track on the Wings At the Speed Of Sound LP), where she would share vegetarian recipes while Paul would often get to ‘stir’ or ‘taste-test’.

On the June 25, 1995 broadcast of Oobu Joobu, Paul presented a show with the theme of ‘Ecology’ and the music followed suit with some tracks like Looking For Changes, Wild Life and Linda McCartney’s touching song Cow (later released on her posthumous CD Wide Prairie), all addressing animal rights. This week’s BROW is another one featured on that show. It is The Beatles ‘White Album’ classic Mother Nature’s Son. In the soundclip, I’ve included Paul’s explanation that the words were inspired by a song he liked as a kid called Nature Boy (he is likely referring to the 1948 recording by Nat King Cole). This version of Mother Nature’s Son was recorded sometime in 1994 with Paul’s “90′s” band: Hamish Stuart, Robbie McIntosh, Wix Wickens, and Blair Cunningham. Unlike the original Beatles account of the song, this one features some outstanding accordion work by Wix. A couple years after the Oobu Joobu broadcasts in 1997, Paul included an abbreviated account of this particular Oobu Joobu program on a bonus disc, packaged with his Flaming Pie CD, and this was only available on the initial few copies sold from Best Buy stores. This bonus disc is now somewhat hard to find. There was also some edits of selected material from the Oobu Joobu broadcasts released officially as ‘b-sides’ on a few of the singles associated with the Flaming Pie CD.

Paul and Linda McCartney

For more info on the Ecology Oobu Joobu CD (track listings, cover art, etc.) click here.

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of thousands of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

Music makes FAB Christmas gifts…

1) The White Album (Remastered) – the original Beatles double album on 2 CDs with the original version of Mother Nature’s Son.

2) Flaming Pie – note this edition of the CD will not contain the Oobu Joobu Ecology CD discussed above.

3) The World Tonight – CD single with a 9-minute + track from Oobu Joobo broadcast

4) Wide Prairie – Linda McCartney’s CD featuring Cow.

5) Amazon links for more of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Have a peak at Paul McCartney’s December 10, 1992 performance for a television special titled Up Close. The gig was filmed at the Ed Sullivan Theatre where Paul made his U.S. debut with The Beatles in February 1964, and the occasion was Paul’s upcoming February 2, 1993 release of his new Off The Ground CD. After opening the show with the Eddie Cochrane rock ‘n’ roll standard “Twenty Flight Rock”, Paul introduced the first track of the evening from the upcoming album – another rocker with an energetic ’50′s sound called Get Out Of My Way. Paul works his Hofner bass and belts out the lead vocal on the track with the full support of his 90′s band including Blair Cunningham on drums, Paul “Wix” Wickens on the keys, Hamish Stuart and Robbie McIntosh on electric guitars and Linda McCartney on tambourine. Interspersed with short segments of backstage commentary, Paul and band kept the show alive with more plugs from Off The Ground such as “Biker Like An Icon” and “Hope Of Deliverance”. He was also quick to throw in a few Beatles tunes for good measure such as “I Wanna Be Your Man”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “Fixing A Hole” and “Lady Madonna”.

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Welcome to BROW. This past Saturday (April 4th) at Radio City Music Hall in New York, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr performed together for the first time since November 2002, when they were guests at the Concert for George event. Saturday’s event raised 3 million dollars for the David Lynch Foundation‘s cause of teaching one million children the technique of Transcendental Meditation (TM). One of the selections Paul performed at the event with Ringo on the drum kit had never been performed on stage before. Cosmically Conscious was written by Paul in 1968 while The Beatles studied TM in India with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Many years later, in early 1992 while Paul was recording his Off The Ground CD, he completed a studio recording of this interesting song. However only a short snippet of it appeared on Off The Ground as an unlisted final track. The complete version was released as a b-side on a CD single in April 1993 but that has been out of print since the mid-90′s by which time the first (and only) pressings were bought up. In celebration of TM and the reunion of Paul and Ringo, this is the complete studio version of Cosmically Conscious. The track concludes with a short reprise of another Macca number called Down To the River. For a good description of last Saturday’s show including other performing artists and set lists, visit here.

Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to this week’s Beatles Rarity Of The Week. This is where I take on the attitude that you can find the mainstream Beatles and solo-Beatles hits anywhere but once a week or so, you might want to hear something that there’s less of a chance that you’ve heard before. And if you have, maybe it’s been awhile because it’s not on the radio or easily found in stores anymore.

As you may be aware, around 1987 through 1992 Paul McCartney struck up a collaboration with Declan Patrick MacManus, otherwise known as Elvis Costello. The two, both Liverpudlians, got on well and wound up composing a dozen or so songs together. Four of them ended up on Paul’s Flowers In The Dirt album in 1989 including the My Brave Face single and one song called You Want Her Too performed as a duet with Elvis. Another couple McCartney/MacManus (aka Mac ‘n’ Mac) compositions showed up on Paul’s 1993 Off The Ground CD. Prior to the release of either of these albums Paul issued a single in the UK called Once Upon A Long Ago and the b-side on that single is this weeks Beatles Rarity Of The Week. Back On My Feet was the first Mac ‘n’ Mac composition to be released and came out in November of 1987. It surfaced again around 1993 as a bonus track on the UK-issued remaster of Flowers In The Dirt. Neither of these releases were made available in the US and now they are slowly sinking out of circulation anywhere. I actually feel quite good dusting this little rocker off and getting it online for your enjoyment. Spring has arrived. Have yourselves a fab weekend…

Left to right: Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to this week’s BROW which honors a recent request for Paul McCartney’s February 13, 1993 Saturday Night Live performance of Get Out Of My Way. This song hailed from Paul’s Off The Ground CD which had been released only a week and a half prior to this performance. Paul also performed Biker Like An Icon on the show (also from Off The Ground) and finished the show with the Beatles classic Hey Jude. Another interesting segment was a cheeky interview of Paul by the late Chris Farley. There is a Best of SNL DVD for sale out there somewhere that has this episode on it and if you haven’t seen it before it just might be worth checking out.

Saturday Night Live

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

No related posts.

This week’s BROW is a gospel flavored b-side from Paul’s C’Mon People CD single released back in February 1993 and long since out of print. It was recorded sometime between December 1991 and July 1992 as part of the Off The Ground sessions when Paul had his earlier band with Hamish Stuart (from the Average White Band), Robbie McIntosh, Blair Cunningham, Wix Wickens (whose still with him now) and of course, Linda. It also appeared as a b-side to the C’Mon People white vinyl single issued for juke boxes only. I know this because I happen to have a copy of it. Although the song is penned by McCartney, it has a sort of Motown ring to it.

Stick with me here in the coming weeks and I will get to the requests I’ve been getting. Until then, thanks for stopping by.

Paul McCartney

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

No related posts.