Paul McCartney

Flaming Pie

Paul's best effort in years...

Review Score:

(8/10)
Paul McCartney returns with 1997's "Flaming Pie" a reference to John Lennon's elaboration on the founding of the Beatles' name.

On the heel's of the Beatles "Anthology" series, Flaming Pie shows Paul refreshing his sixties sound with the help of some old friends, producer/guitarist/vocalist Jeff Lynne, producer George Martin, engineer Geoff Emerick, vocalist/guitarist Steve Miller, drummer Ringo Starr, and Linda McCartney. Linda contributes backing vocals as well as warm and intimate photographs in the sleeve notes.

Many of the songs have strong melodies and wonderfully layered vocals, such as "Little Willow" and "Heaven on a Sunday" features a guitar solo by Paul's son, James, his debut on disk.

Some of the standout cuts include "The Song We Were Singing," a nice memory tune about sitting around with friends, talking and singing songs. The next tune is "The World Tonight" which has a catchy rhythm and raw vocals from Paul. "If You Wanna" has echoes of "Things We Said Today" with some great guitar interplay between McCartney and Steve Miller. "Somedays" features a dual vocal by Paul as well as an interesting orchestral arrangement by George Martin that provides some beautiful counterpoint.

Pauls lyrics are simple, heartfelt and sincere. "We don't need anybody else, to tell us what is real, inside ieach one of us is love, and we know how it feels" speaks from the heart.

My major criticism would be that many of the songs have that Jeff Lynne stamp found on late eighties, early ninties work by George Harrison, Tom Petty and their work with Lynne on the Traveling Wilburys. You know what I mean, that strummy acoustic guitar and mid-tempo 4/4 beat. Example "Young Boy."

Still, many of the songs hear sound like they had their origins in the "White Album" era that produced "Blackbird", "Mother Nature's Son" and "I Will", which isn't so bad.

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