Album Review: Paul McCartney - Kisses On The Bottom

Posted by Anthony - 1st March 2012

What do you do at the age of 69 if you were in the world's greatest rock group, have then had a highly successful solo career, written some of the most well known songs ever (there are apparently over 2200 recorded versions of Yesterday), sold more records than anyone else, and remain a huge live draw? If you are Paul McCartney you record an album of old time songs with a jazz group.

Kisses On The Bottom is the latest album from Paul McCartney and follows his 2007 release Memory Almost Full. It is the first album to feature mainly songs written by other composers, Paul contributing just 2 new songs of his own. The other unique point is that Paul McCartney does not play any instruments on this album apart from acoustic guitar on two tracks; he just sings.

Tommy LiPuma is the producer, an American who has worked with Barbra Streisand, Miles Davis, Natalie Cole and Al Jarreau to name a few, and is ideally suited to this project. The instrumental backing is provided by Diana Krall and her band, with Eric Clapton guesting on two songs and Stevie Wonder on one. A number of the songs have additional orchestral backing. The overall sound of the album can best be described as late night jazzy listening.

The concept for the album was for Paul McCartney to record songs that reminded him of those that his family used to sing around the piano when he was a young boy at home in Liverpool. Some of the songs are familiar to us whereas some are now rarely heard. The result is a complete departure from Paul's usual style of music and this runs the risk of splitting his fans. However, initial sales were good (reached No.3 in UK and No.5 in USA) so it seems he has satisfied many in his loyal audience.

There are a number of familiar old songs on this album. The difficulty with this is that other artists have in the past recorded memorable versions of them, and any new recordings have to stand up to comparison. For example, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter is a Fats Domino favourite, The Glory Of Love was recorded very individually by P J Proby, and My Very Good Friend The Milkman was covered recently by Eric Clapton. Admittedly young music buyers will be unaware of these versions but then this album is clearly not going to appeal to them. Paul's versions are adequate, but not distinctive enough, and therein lies the problem. His vocals are quiet and, oddly, mainly in the higher register where he sometimes sounds strained. Perhaps he is being too respectful to the material. A bit more swing would have helped move things along nicely, à la Michael Bublé.

The musical backing is uniformly excellent. Diana Krall adds great piano playing and Eric Clapton does a lovely acoustic guitar track on My Valentine. I particularly liked the arrangement on It's Only A Paper Moon which has a Stephane Grappelli-ish violin played by Andy Stein.

The two new McCartney compositions are My Valentine and Only Our Hearts. The former is a slow song with a very attractive melody. The musical backing is just perfect and I can see this becoming a new McCartney classic. Only Our Hearts suffers in comparison and is rather average.

As a diversion from his usual style Kisses On The Bottom, a cheeky line taken from the song I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter, is an interesting project. To date Paul has given us, via Wings and as Paul McCartney, 21 studio albums of largely self penned songs. Let's hope that for his next outing it's business as usual and Paul makes an album full of new songs and accompanied by a band featuring his own great bass playing.