Paul McCartney Album: “Run Devil Run”

Paul McCartney has really scored big with this one. Recorded in just a weeks time, and with each song only rehearsed (quote) "15, 20 minutes top whack". Paul and band mates have created what may be the greatest Rock n' Roll tribute album ever. This; after a year of mourning his late wife Linda. I was amazed at the intensity of Paul's vocals. At 57 years old (when this was made), his voice is as strong as it was in 1963. This guy has one of the worlds greatest rock n' roll voices ever; and he rips it up on every cut. The selection of songs are a real treat as well. With the few new originals Paul wrote for this record, he has covered some of the fifties best songs. Some; well know, like "All Shook Up" and "I Got Stung", and some more obscure yet vital songs such as, "No Other Baby", "Movie Maggie", and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man". Always the innovator; McCartney makes each song his own with his unmistakable style. He has some rather impressive help here as well. David Gilmour on guitar, Ian Paice on drums, Mick Green on guitar,(just to name a few); all give extraodinary performances. The originals here are in much the same vain as the oldies, and blend in as if they were actually written in the fifties. This is a great party record, and blows the "Russian Album" away.

When Sir James Paul McCartney attended to the "Larry King Live" show on CNN previously this year (2001), he was asked how did he deal with Linda's passing, and, most of all, with pain. He simply didn't answer the question, and started playing with a strange type of watch he had been given. Macca simply does *not* deal with loss of important people. And in 1998 he lost the most important person in his life, his most important inspiration, his wife Linda. So apparently the man just got depressed a little bit (just like he had done when The Beatles broke up), and then submerged himself into work. More over, he tried not to show the pain in the work he gave us during this time. The "Run Devil Run" album, result of a couple of recording of sessions that took place in 1999, with the co-producing work of Chris Thomas and a great backing band with Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on guitar, Deep Purple's Ian Paice on drums, plus Dave Mattacks, Mick Green and some other great musicians, and Paul himself taking his legendary Hoffner bass and playing it like in the old days.

He simply decided to have a ball. "The angel's having fun", he sings in one of the three original composition that appear on this album, which is mainly a return-to-roots work. The album sounds heavier and more solid than most of his 80's and 90's work, with powerful work in the guitar sessions, excellent company of piano and keyboards, and some strong, hard-rock drumming that wasn't being heard from a long time ago in Macca albums.

This return to his youth, in some way inspired by the loss of Linda, and in other way, because he desperately needed to, found him, unexpectedly to say the less, in an amazing vocal style... His version of "All Shook Up" is easily the best of this Elvis classic ever, and his screaming trademark constructed in The Beatles' era can be found on several "happy" songs like the closer "Party" (another Elvis tune), the bluesy Little Richard song "Shake A Hand", the amazingly strong rocker "Honey Hush", his own composition "Run Devil Run" (written in a very Berry-ish style, as in telling a story), "I Got Stung" and "She Said Yeah" (bom-diddle-diddle-dum). Some of these songs contain the best McCartney vocal performances ever. "What It Is" is another bluesy track, written to join the 'happy' mood of the album, and it has the reputation of being the last song that Paul wrote for Linda while she was alive.

This album has practically no low points. The soft vocals by Paul on "Blue Jean Bop", and its acoustic structure make it a great opener. "No Other Baby" is the greatest track on the CD, not only because of its obscurity and rareness, but also because of a GREAT instrumental and vocal performance. It should have been a hit. "Lonesome Town" follows somehow the sadness that Paul was trying to hide from the world... Another blues-driven track that's amazingly played by the musicians and totally well sung by Paul. "Try Not To Cry" is the closest thing to a sincere window to Paul's soul... but still his feelings are slightly hidden. The lyrics are quite obscure, and the ryhthm is kind of "happy", with probably the strongest and most prominent drum part heard on the CD. Another high. And then "Movie Magg" and "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" are the humoristic songs, two uplifting tracks by two of the greatest songwriters of rock'n'roll: Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins. The arrangements are amazing, you get to hear an accordion on "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" and Paul playing a great acoustic guitar on "Movie Magg".

So... Mainly a ball. Paul playing with a bunch of friends, and feeling happy for awhile. Maybe for escaping from the pain and the suffering, maybe for making his fans happy. Whatever the reason was, this "comeback" was very well-received by us the Macca fans. Here he leaves that reputation of a writer of "silly love songs", and accomplishes a status of a major rock'n'roll follower and performer, who's capable to make an excellent rock effort, in the times where pop and bubblegum music are sadly commanding our world. When "angels" like this one go out and "have fun", the results are always welcomed efforts. No Beatles fan should be without this CD, and any rock fan would appreciate it as a great piece of work. Maybe the best that Macca has done in the latter years.

George Harrison spoke about the Devil's Radio. On this album, the Devil is rocking harder than ever. Paul covers a lot of old '50s music, but only has three new songs. Paul had attempted this before, with his Russian album. "Run Devil Run" blows that one away. Paul has a tight, hard-rocking band behind him, and his versions of the old '50s songs are awesome. I've tracked down many of the original versions of these songs, and I find that in most cases, Paul's versions are better. I especially liked his versions of "No Other Baby," "All Shook Up," and "She Said Yeah." I also recommend Paul's "Live at the Cavern Club" DVD for live versions of many of these classics.

Reviewer: C L Cleveland from A state of certitude, USA Isn't it interesting that energetic McCartney bashers misspell the same word in the same way so often? What is it that McCartney does that frightens them so? Sing All Shook Up as well as Presley? Possibly. Channel the spirit of Carl Perkins in Movie Magg? Could be. Write his own gospel rocker so it's indistinguishable from the real thing in Run Devil Run? Entirely possible. He has still got it; he has got it all, and it is on this album. Do you want to know what it was like to hear the Beatles selling beer to the Kaiserkeller crowd? This album is as close as you deserve to get. McCartney went into the studio in good voice because he hadn't sung in a year, and he went in without guitarist's calluses on his fingers because he hadn't played in a year, and he went in with an unformed band. And he came out a week later with this album. Friends, this album separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, and puts hair on your chest, where that is appropriate. Every track is perfectly conceived, passionately executed, and the only thing that can compete with it in popular music is an album of new McCartney compositions. And when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was about, uh, time.

RUN DEVIL RUN is the best-sounding, best-packaged and best-performed McCartney album of all. His younger brother, Mike (aka Mike McGear of the Scaffold) provides a photo he took of Paul back in his Liverpool days. One of the engineers is Geoff Emerick, who engineered a lot of Beatles records. One of the guitarists is David Gilmour, who plays in the early-sixties manner here. The lead singer and bass-player, of course, is the man himself. The other musicians understand these songs, which, for the most part, are covers of songs one would have heard on any given record player in Britain circa 1960. It is rock at its purest. It's fun and earnest at the same time. Like a lot of British rock from the late fifties and early sixties, this CD, recorded in 1999, sounds as if it came straight from New Orleans. In fact, McCartney does a great Fats Domino impression on "Coquette." I can play this CD over and over again. It brims over with humor and guts and energy. The songs are, on average two-and-a-half minutes long, but the variety is great. Here's Cajun, here's Western-swing, here's Balladry and here's Jump. If you love the music you would have heard on a juke-box in 1963, this is for you. The band is powerful and McCartney is in rare form.