Paul McCartney writing new songs for album
Thumbs-up: Paul McCartney played songs from his Beatles, Wings and solo days
Paul McCartney will begin the new year with an album of cover tunes and two original songs, he said yesterday.
The album, due for release on 7 February, will be the former Beatle's first studio album in five years.
It will showcase McCartney on a "deeply personal journey" covering classic American songs that inspired him and bandmate John Lennon when they wrote their own tunes.
"When I kind of got into songwriting, I realized how well structured these songs were, and I think I took a lot of my lessons from them," McCartney said in a statement.
"I always thought artists like Fred Astaire were very cool. Writers like Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, all of those guys - I just thought the songs were magical. And then, as I got to be a songwriter I thought it's beautiful, the way they made those songs."
Teaming up with Grammy-winning jazz musician Diana Krall and producer Tommy LiPuma, the ex-Beatles frontman recorded his vocals in a booth without instruments for the first time in his musical career.
"It was very spontaneous, kind of organic, which then reminded me of the way we'd work with the Beatles. We'd bring a song in, kick it around, when we found a way to do it we'd say 'Okay, let's do a take now' and by the time everyone kind of had an idea of what they were doing, we'd learnt the song. So that's what we did, we did the take live in the studio," said McCartney.
While the full tracklist is yet to be revealed, the album will feature collaborations on two new, original songs, with legendary musicians Stevie Wonder on Only Our Hearts and Eric Clapton on My Valentine.
