Paul McCartney - Kisses On The Bottom Review

As for the album’s weirdly suggestive title, it’s taken from a line in another Waller song “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself a Letter,” that serves as the album’s opening track. “A lot of kisses on the bottom / I’ll be glad I got ‘em,” the song goes, referring to XOXOs at the end of a letter and not, as people unfamiliar with the song might assume, an actual human bottom.

McCartney is well aware of his title’s double meaning. Hear Music, his record label, notes in the record’s accompanying press release that he’s “apparently had some fun” with the title. McCartney’s always had a cheeky sense of humor — after all, this is a man who once wrote an entire song about a three-legged dog. But he has a reputation for the overly sentimental (“Silly Love Songs,” anyone?) that can make a Valentine’s Day store display look heartless. Kisses on the Bottom is a terrible title, and it makes it hard to take the album seriously. (The cover art, in which a doe-eyed Macca holds an oversized bouquet of flowers, doesn’t help either).
...full text Those of a certain age might remember the “Is Paul Dead?” rumor that swirled around the Beatles at the peak of their career. Fans played Beatles tracks backward and carefully examined photographs for “evidence” of Paul McCartney's supposed demise.

After listening to McCartney's new quaint little dalliance with the Great American Songbook, “Kisses on the Bottom,” the question that occurred to me was “Is Paul retired?”

“Kisses on the Bottom” features music McCartney used to sing around the piano with his family as a tyke in the 1940s and '50s, along with other period pieces selected by the singer and producer Tommy LiPuma, plus two new McCartney songs. The evidence is legion that Sir James Paul McCartney, 69, longtime songwriting powerhouse, may have indeed punched his final time clock....full text On his first album since 2007, “Kisses on the Bottom” (Hear Music), Paul McCartney tosses his dinner jacket over his shoulder and takes a casual stroll down Tin Pan Alley, revisiting songs his father used to play on the family’s piano in ‘40s and ‘50s England.

The tunes are classic American songbook fare written by the greats – Frank Loesser, Fats Waller, Harold Arlen – and once were the core of countless classic jazz albums by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra. In the rock era, they’ve resurfaced on career revival albums by desperate types such as Rod Stewart and McCartney’s old pal, Ringo Starr, whose “Sentimental Journey” was recorded to please his mum in 1970....full text With the impeccable pedigree of Diana Krall and Tommy LiPuma behind the boards as producers (and with Krall’s band backing Sir Paul), there’s no question that Paul McCartney’s new album, “Kisses On The Bottom,” is going to sound tasteful and smooth. And it does. At times, so much it hurts. It’s as if you can hear every bristle on the brushes as they hit the drums and every plucked upright bass string. There is not a note out of place.

This is your grandfather’s McCartney: forget about imagining any cute head shaking, that he still, improbably, pulls off at 69. Focused primarily on songs from the ‘20s-‘50s, McCartney is paying homage to the music his father loved and that he grew up listening to. Plus, he penned two originals. That means we hear McCartney crooning, which, quite frankly, he doesn’t seem particularly comfortable doing at times, such as on “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” "Kisses," which takes its cheeky title from a line in the opening track, Fats Domino's “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter," is out today....full text This is the album that Paul McCartney always wanted to make with the Beatles. It's his 15th solo LP – his first for almost five years – and comprises 12 cover versions of songs he grew up listening to in Liverpool, such as Bye Bye Blackbird and It's Only a Paper Moon, which perhaps his father would play on the piano.

Oh, plus two originals.

Listen out, as well, for guest contributions from Diana Krall, Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton.

The album's title, Kisses on the Bottom, comes from lead track I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, originally a hit for Fats Waller in 1935....full text