Beatle Paul McCartney Goes Meat-Free on Mondays

Sir Paul McCartney may be known for creating memorable rock melodies in one of the biggest bands in the world, the Beatles, but the singer and songwriter is now using his celebrity to educate the world about going vegetarian.

McCartney, along with his daughters Mary and Stella, have released a new cookbook, The Meat Free Monday Cookbook, which is available online via Amazon and from major book retailers. The book is inspired by McCartney’s ongoing campaign, started in 2009, where he and his daughters educate fans about how to eat less meat, not just for their health, but also to influence the sustainability of the world by decreasing their environmental impact.

On a recent trip to Abu Dhabi, McCartney explained his latest undertaking: “I think many of us feel helpless in the face of environmental challenges. Having one designated meat free day a week is actually a meaningful change that everyone can make, that goes to the heart of several important political, environmental and ethical issues all at once,” he told Ahlan Live . “For instance it not only addresses pollution, but better health, the ethical treatment of animals, global hunger and community and political activism.”

The Meat Free Monday Cookbook includes recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert, and features menus for each of the 52 weeks of the year. Of course, recipes are all vegetarian, from spiced pumpkin pancakes to watermelon granite to pilau rice with cashews. The collection features recipes from McCartney and his daughters, as well as famous friends including Twiggy, Vivienne Westwood and Kevin Spacey, plus globally acclaimed chefs. To find out more about the McCartneys’ campaign, visit www.MeatFreeMondays.com.

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How Sir Paul McCartney United Liverpool

Sir Paul McCartney may be a longstanding Everton soccer fan (Liverpool has two premier league soccer teams – Liverpool FC and Everton FC) and he made sure to invite players from both to his Liverpool concert on December 20.

The Daily Express says McCartney is close to Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish, saying before the show, “I’ve become friends with Kenny Dalglish – he came to one of the first Wings gigs and really supported us. One time he brought the whole Liverpool team with him to a gig.

“I’ve got a ticket for him if he wants it. In fact the whole Liverpool team can come if they want to – and the Everton team, too.”

Clearly Macca is enjoying being back on the road and playing Liverpool: “I’d play in my old back garden if it meant I got to play my home town. Actually, that’s the surprise – next year I’ll be playing a show in my old back garden!”

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Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood Joins Paul McCartney on Stage

Paul McCartney pulled a Rolling Stone on to stage at his show at London’s O2 Arena on Monday (December 5).

NME.com reports that Beatle Paul told the crowd he had a “surprise” for them before bringing Ronnie Wood on stage for a snarling version of The Beatles’ 1969 track, “Get Back.”

McCartney’s London concert lasted three hours with the veteran songsmith playing three songs that he had never before played in the U.K., “The Night Before,” “The Word” and “Come and Get It.”

McCartney next plays Manchester on December 19 and Liverpool on December 20.

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Paul McCartney Doesn’t Like ‘Chicken Pot Pie’

Longtime vegetarian and animal rights activist Paul McCartney turned down a song parody request from “Weird Al” Yankovic.

According to the Daily Express, the musical comedian wanted to parody McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” as “Chicken Pot Pie” but McCartney refused permission for the Wings track to be used. 

The musical comedian told ESPN’s The B.S. Report, “He didn’t want a song used in any context that would be supposedly promoting the consumption of animal flesh... It’s a valid reason and I get it. And I hate it when people put him on the list of humorless guys, because that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, he said, ‘Think of any other subject and I’m happy to O.K. it’.”

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McCartney & Lennon Really Did Almost Reunite

Paul McCartney has confirmed that he and John Lennon almost reunited on American TV in the ‘70s.

The Daily Express reports that McCartney was visiting his Beatle buddy in New York when Lennon said they should take up an offer to appear on the TV show,  Saturday Night Live.

McCartney told Access Hollywood: “He said, 'we should go down, just you and me... we'll say, 'there's only two of us, we'll make half the money...' and for a second...”

The reunion, however, failed to happen. "It would have been work and we were having a night off and so we elected to not go... It was a nice idea. We nearly did it."
McCartney also told Quiteus.com that he’s interested in working with Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame: "We have kind of talked. Nothing serious, but I like what they do. I have run into Damon at things and we have talked. It's got near a couple of times but we never had the time, I suppose."

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Paul McCartney ‘Not a Popular Bunny’

Coming up on his 69th birthday and busily preparing for his wedding to girlfriend Nancy Shevell, Paul McCartney has also been looking back at the Beatles breakup.

According to the Huffington Post, McCartney realizes he was “not a popular bunny” with his Beatle cohorts at the time of the split. The terse “press statement” questionnaire he delivered containing news of his debut solo album, McCartney, was probably a mistake in retrospect.

"It's possible to read all sorts of other things into it, read all sorts of motives of mine into it, which is I think what happened," McCartney said. “For me, it was simply a way to answer some questions I might have been asked if I had done interviews.”

Looking back, he just wanted to get his new music released: “I've been accused of not thinking things through enough. I get enthusiastic about something and say I'd like to do it, so let's do it. And that's mainly a good thing, because you get things done. It can occasionally create difficulties because you don't think of the implications. And to me, I hadn't thought of the implications. I was just putting out an album of some stuff that I liked.

“If I had been entirely honest, I just would have said that John has folded the group. But I'm not sure that would have gone down well, either.”

Paul McCartney handled all the musician chores on his McCartney album, something he sees becoming the norm in 2011. “It's easier in retrospect to look back and say I was doing something that laid the ground rules for people to follow. When you think about it, that's how an awful lot of records get made now – people are in their bedrooms or their garages – because the equipment's better. So I was actually starting a bit of a trend, without knowing it or really intending to.”

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Ringo Starr: Paul McCartney ‘Too Busy’ to Join All-Starrs

In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, former Beatle Ringo Starr said talked about his rotating All-Starr Band, which is now in its 22nd year. The group—which currently features Romantics frontman Wally Palmer, guitar legend Rick Derringer and multi-instrumentalist Edgar Winter, among others—is on tour in Europe. Starr said he keeps the group going out of his love for performing.

“I still love to play,” said the legendary drummer. “I go down the front and sing ‘Photograph’ or whatever, then I get to go back to the drums and play with all these other musicians. It’s a win-win situation. I get the chance to be both the entertainer and the musician. Everyone’s a star, but I’m the big star. The band gets to play 12 numbers between them and I do 12 numbers.”

Starr said he knows that there are certain songs he has to play.

“I have to do ‘With a Little Help from My Friends.’ I have to do ‘Yellow Sub.’ And for myself, I have to do ‘Boys,’ because I’ve done that since I was with Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, the band I was in before the Fabs. People love to see me playing and singing from the drums. There is a responsibility to do stuff that people have come to hear.”

As for Ringo’s All-Starrs, the amiable skinsman said that he always makes a point of asking his old pal Paul McCartney if he would care to join his backing group, just in case.

“Every time I ask him to join the All-Starrs he says he’s too busy,” Starr joked. “I tell him he’ll have his two numbers…”

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Paul McCartney: Rolling Stones Jealous of The Beatles

In a new interview, rock legend Paul McCartney has said The Rolling Stones were a bit jealous of The Beatles because of the latter’s singing talent.

“I talked to Keith Richards recently... well, a couple of years ago, and his take on it was, ‘Man, you were lucky, you guys, you had four lead singers,’ whereas the Rolling Stones only had one,” McCartney told the Radio Times (via Spinner.com). “So [for the Beatles] it wasn’t just the frontman and the back-up band. We were an entity. Mick [Jagger] used to call us the four-headed monster. We would show up at places all dressed the same.”

In the same interview, the former Beatle said that timing played a key part in the band’s success.

“A couple of years earlier, we would have been in the Army, and it’s very doubtful that the Beatles would have formed,” he said. “We would have been at Aldershot, or wherever, in various camps, and might not have even met.”

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Silly Love Songs: Paul McCartney to Release Standards Album

John Lennon used to chide his partner, Paul McCartney, at times for playing what Lennon called “granny music,” but those barbs never dissuaded Macca from occasionally visiting the styles and sounds of previous generations. Now, McCartney is apparently set to revisit some of the standards that played over the radio airwaves during his youth with a new album of covers.

“It’s my dad’s style of music,” he told Rolling Stone. “I’ve wanted to do that kind of thing forever, since the Beatle days. But then Rod [Stewart] went mad on it. I thought, ‘I have to wait so it doesn’t look like I’m trying to do a Rod.’”

As far as the selections, McCartney said, “They’re just songs I admire, I’m trying to steer away from the obvious ones. It’s get-home-from-work music. You put it on and get a glass of wine.”

Fans of “Rock Show” Paul McCartney needn’t worry, though. The former Beatle said that he also is planning an album of “heavier rock.” His hope is to enlist the services of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl.

“It sounds quite wacky, but it keeps it fresh,” he said. “I love that – you get a crazy idea and go with it. You never know – I may run into a garage to make this other album. But it won’t be in Dave’s garage.”

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Former Wings Guitarist Reflects on Paul McCartney

Laurence Juber joined Wings just as the Paul McCartney vehicle was beginning its descent. Joining the band in 1979, Juber played on the album, Back to the Egg (including its hit single, “Coming Up”), before the group folded in 1981. Three decades later, the master guitarist continues to entertain with his mostly acoustic work. His most recent album, LJ Plays The Beatles, Vol. 2, finds Juber tackling some of his old boss’s best-loved works, including “Penny Lane,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Here, There and Everywhere.” Juber spoke with NWITimes.com about Macca’s masterful ability as a songwriter.

"Paul is remarkable," Juber said. “I think, to have been a Beatle and go beyond that, and I think Paul has. Amongst his solo work, he has written songs that are the equal of what he did with The Beatles."

He continued, "You can put Paul in the [George] Gershwin, [Harold] Arlen, Jerome Kern kind of category," he added. "I don't know that there is another British songwriter that has established such a wide repertoire of music. Paul's music has transcended its time and place.”

Juber talked about the challenge of tackling such well-known and universally beloved songs on his new album.

"We are familiar with all the little details of these songs. When I'm arranging those songs, it gives me a lot of really substantial material to work with in terms of making a solo guitar arrangement of something you might be familiar with and making a new and different perspective on the material."

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Ancestors of Lennon and McCartney Revealed in New Records

More than 500 years worth of Liverpool, England’s historical documents are now available online, shedding light on the ancestors of Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney – their baptisms, marriages and other public records.

Available for the first time today via Ancestry.co.uk, the collection includes upwards of three million documents, among them the records of each of Lennon’s grandparents’ baptisms and their marriage, as well as McCartney’s grandparents’ marriage record.

“While these records are hugely significant to anyone with Liverpudlian roots, they will also be of huge interest to anyone tracing Irish ancestry – with recent research revealing Liverpool has the strongest Irish heritage of any English city,” said historian Annabel Bernhardt-Reeves to the Liverpool Daily Post.

“As well as having vast historical and genealogical value, these records are also incredibly interesting from a cultural perspective, detailing the heritage of two of the biggest stars the country has ever produced – John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Our researchers didn’t know who they would uncover when digging around in these records, and were thrilled when they uncovered half of the members of the legendary band The Beatles – two of Liverpool’s most famous exports.”

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