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BLACKBIRD: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney by Geoffrey Giuliano

BLACKBIRD: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney

By

Pub Date: Nov. 15th, 1991
Publisher: Dutton

Prince Paul conquers the world as a Beatle, then daringly starts his own group (Wings) and lives forever after in tight-fisted happiness with his Lady Linda--in this vapid gusher from Giuliano (Dark Horse: The Secret Life of George Harrison, 1990). Giuliano begins with a 90-page rehearsal of the Fab Four's career--nothing new here, it's all from familiar and secondary sources. He then turns to the marriage of Linda Eastman and Mccartney. Potentially of interest, this union of a son of a cotton factor and a daughter of a Cleveland heiress--but after a run through old fan magazines and previously published interviews, enlivened only by Giuliano's fillips (""Linda McCartney...is today a mature, creative, socially concerned woman with no illusions about either her complicated place in pop history or her role as a responsible, caring citizen of Spaceship Earth""), we know no more than we began with. Giuliano's chief informant, Denny Laine--who played guitar in Wings for several years--does provide some interesting insights. Money: ""McCartney was always making excuses for not paying us properly by saying his money was all tied up in the Beatles' company, Apple...I was kept in the dark all the time about money, just given a check now and again."" Recording: ""He and Linda did smoke a fantastic amount of stuff by anybody's standards...so much of it makes you very indecisive and takes away your self-confidence. That's why Paul's albums take him ages and ages to make. He just cannot be decisive about anything."" Laine left the band when McCartney was arrested for drug-possession in Tokyo. In subsequent years, McCartey forbade the band to carry any drugs across the border. This prohibition, says Giuliano, did not apply to McCartney himself; he used the hood on his daughter's coat and his son's diaper as stash bags. For True Believers only.