Customer Reviews

Run Devil Run

5 star:		(217)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

More than anything, what made Lennon so special to me was his ability to communicate his feelings through song and have you know that he meant what he sung- that it was real. Despite his very uneven solo career, I remained a loyal Lennon fan. Not so with McCartney, whose immense talent I felt was channelled into well crafted songs that make people feel good. Now there's nothing wrong with silly love songs and few have ever done them better, but its not my cup of tea. McCartney had not moved me since Let It Be-that was 30 years ago. There is a reason why this album has over 200 reviews posted. It is a masterpiece. It is so bold, so pure and in your face that some long time McCartney lovers are dismissing it with two stars as "Not Paul." What it is- is another part of Paul, a part that has been held in restraint until the tragic emotional upheavel that disrupted his life forced him to turn to his art again, not as a craft but as survival, an expression of his deepest feelings. It is a deeply moving experience to those who are listening. Paul's mask in Run Devil Run is that for the most part he hides behind the covers, but his grief is evident. He is using the covers he and John first cut their teeth with and he is using technically the best male voice in Rock (Paul's)but finally singing like the best male singer in Rock (as recently voted in a widely publicized international poll-none other than John Lennon). Now why would anyone ever vote John's thin voice the best in Rock? -Because he sang from his heart and soul, which is what McCartney does here. He takes no prisoners. John would be proud,(is he channelling him on Honey Hush?) and any true Lennon fan will be moved by Paul's honesty. McCartney's singing and his three superb originals are an inspiration not only to the healing power of Rock and Roll but to anyone who thinks they're too over the hill to play it. He is 56 and sounds as good or better than he ever has. It's been worth a 30 year wait. In my mind this is the truest art he has ever done. Long live Paul McCartney-and you better run devil run. Rock and roll still has the power to chase even the most evil of demons away. This album is medicine for the wounded soul. It is a timeless treasure. Bravo!

Paul McCartney has really scored big with this one. Recorded in just a weeks time, and with each song only rehearsed (quote) "15, 20 minutes top whack". Paul and band mates have created what may be the greatest Rock n' Roll tribute album ever. This; after a year of mourning his late wife Linda. I was amazed at the intensity of Paul's vocals. At 57 years old (when this was made), his voice is as strong as it was in 1963. This guy has one of the worlds greatest rock n' roll voices ever; and he rips it up on every cut. The selection of songs are a real treat as well. With the few new originals Paul wrote for this record, he has covered some of the fifties best songs. Some; well know, like "All Shook Up" and "I Got Stung", and some more obscure yet vital songs such as, "No Other Baby", "Movie Maggie", and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man". Always the innovator; McCartney makes each song his own with his unmistakable style. He has some rather impressive help here as well. David Gilmour on guitar, Ian Paice on drums, Mick Green on guitar,(just to name a few); all give extraodinary performances. The originals here are in much the same vain as the oldies, and blend in as if they were actually written in the fifties. This is a great party record, and blows the "Russian Album" away.

With over 200 reviews listed, this is a favorite of many folks. Paul opens hard with "Blue Jean Bop" putting the 50s rock right out there. He keeps up the pace with "She Said Yeah" and the Elvis classic "All Shook Up" with David Gilmour's buring lead guitar. The title tune sounds most like Wings with the backing vocals, "angels having fun." "No Other Baby" slows the pace; and I always expect to hear Chris Isaak! We remain in low gear for "Lonesome Town" "where the broken hearts stay." "Try Not to Cry" is one of my favorites, a great rocker with a full-band sound and Paul's breathing punctuating the vocals. Carl Perkins' "Movie Mag" seems a bit trite, but is a good bit of fun. The simple but catchy "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" has a bit of the cajun thrown in. "What It Is" has a driving bass line underscoring just what a great bass player Paul is. "Coquette" is a nice homage to that era. The band blasts on the 50s "I Got Stung." Did Elvis sing that? "Honey Hush" keeps the throttle turned up; and Paul makes "Shake a Hand" shine. CD wraps with the call to arms of the era, let's have a "Party"! If part of you is still a kid who likes the beat of rock & roll, you'll flip over this CD!

The writer Henry James once said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that one must approach an artist according to his metier. In other words, judge them by the artistic goals and intentions they set for themselves. Judging McCartney's _Run Devil Run_ in terms of his previous work (i.e., wanting another _Band on the Run_ or _Flaming Pie_), then, would be a false expectation. Yet some in this review list (the "One Star Trio": Kirk, Mark, and the mysterioso phruffner@sundyne.com) want to do just that. Apparently, they want Paul to do the same thing he had been doing. But Paul's intentions, if these "critics" had taken the time to read his liner notes, was not to reproduce well-worn ground, but to try to bring new life to '50s classics and obscure pieces. That was his intentions, and he came through with more than flying colors. Another comment for the One Star Trio: what the devil is wrong with 1950s music? Please keep in mind, had it not been for the likes of Paul's '50s heroes, there wouldn't be a Paul McCartney, there wouldn't be a Beatles...hell, I don't know what there'd be without those wonderful pioneers.

Perhaps the most surprising music event in 1999 was the upbeat tone of Paul McCartney's new album, given the recent death of his wife, Linda. Rather than delivering a dour lament, "Run Devil Run" is a celebration of McCartney's blissful teenage days, rocking the walls down with covers of popular Rock of the day with young bandmates in a Liverpool garage. However, these days he doesn't rock with pimply faced kids, but with legends such as Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, who ressurrects himself with a surprising mastery of rockabilly. His ferocious, very Chuck Berry like guitar solos bring the album to a heavenly level. McCartney's voice leaps from delicate croons to vicious howls only heard on classic performances like 'She's a Woman" or "Maybe I'm Amazed." He breaths new life into lost classics and a couple of well known staples from the archives of 50's rock, such as Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up," Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" and Ricky Nelson's "Lonesome Town." Also, McCartney originals like the title track and his "little tribute to Linda," "What It Is," prove that McCartney still knows how to rock. PLAY IT LOUD!

Reviewer: C L Cleveland from A state of certitude, USA Isn't it interesting that energetic McCartney bashers misspell the same word in the same way so often? What is it that McCartney does that frightens them so? Sing All Shook Up as well as Presley? Possibly. Channel the spirit of Carl Perkins in Movie Magg? Could be. Write his own gospel rocker so it's indistinguishable from the real thing in Run Devil Run? Entirely possible. He has still got it; he has got it all, and it is on this album. Do you want to know what it was like to hear the Beatles selling beer to the Kaiserkeller crowd? This album is as close as you deserve to get. McCartney went into the studio in good voice because he hadn't sung in a year, and he went in without guitarist's calluses on his fingers because he hadn't played in a year, and he went in with an unformed band. And he came out a week later with this album. Friends, this album separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, and puts hair on your chest, where that is appropriate. Every track is perfectly conceived, passionately executed, and the only thing that can compete with it in popular music is an album of new McCartney compositions. And when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was about, uh, time.

Forget the comparison that Lennon did the very same type of LP back in the 1970's (his "Rock 'N "Roll" album). Here we have Paul doing what he doesn't do too often these days and that's flat out rock. McCartney takes a trip down memory lane and covers a bunch of 1950's rockers that inspired him when he was a younger lad. The production is a bit on the over polished side (it could have sounded a little more raw) but the songs are loud and fun nonetheless.

RUN DEVIL RUN is the best-sounding, best-packaged and best-performed McCartney album of all. His younger brother, Mike (aka Mike McGear of the Scaffold) provides a photo he took of Paul back in his Liverpool days. One of the engineers is Geoff Emerick, who engineered a lot of Beatles records. One of the guitarists is David Gilmour, who plays in the early-sixties manner here. The lead singer and bass-player, of course, is the man himself. The other musicians understand these songs, which, for the most part, are covers of songs one would have heard on any given record player in Britain circa 1960. It is rock at its purest. It's fun and earnest at the same time. Like a lot of British rock from the late fifties and early sixties, this CD, recorded in 1999, sounds as if it came straight from New Orleans. In fact, McCartney does a great Fats Domino impression on "Coquette." I can play this CD over and over again. It brims over with humor and guts and energy. The songs are, on average two-and-a-half minutes long, but the variety is great. Here's Cajun, here's Western-swing, here's Balladry and here's Jump. If you love the music you would have heard on a juke-box in 1963, this is for you. The band is powerful and McCartney is in rare form.

When Sir James Paul McCartney attended to the "Larry King Live" show on CNN previously this year (2001), he was asked how did he deal with Linda's passing, and, most of all, with pain. He simply didn't answer the question, and started playing with a strange type of watch he had been given. Macca simply does *not* deal with loss of important people. And in 1998 he lost the most important person in his life, his most important inspiration, his wife Linda. So apparently the man just got depressed a little bit (just like he had done when The Beatles broke up), and then submerged himself into work. More over, he tried not to show the pain in the work he gave us during this time. The "Run Devil Run" album, result of a couple of recording of sessions that took place in 1999, with the co-producing work of Chris Thomas and a great backing band with Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on guitar, Deep Purple's Ian Paice on drums, plus Dave Mattacks, Mick Green and some other great musicians, and Paul himself taking his legendary Hoffner bass and playing it like in the old days.

He simply decided to have a ball. "The angel's having fun", he sings in one of the three original composition that appear on this album, which is mainly a return-to-roots work. The album sounds heavier and more solid than most of his 80's and 90's work, with powerful work in the guitar sessions, excellent company of piano and keyboards, and some strong, hard-rock drumming that wasn't being heard from a long time ago in Macca albums.

This return to his youth, in some way inspired by the loss of Linda, and in other way, because he desperately needed to, found him, unexpectedly to say the less, in an amazing vocal style... His version of "All Shook Up" is easily the best of this Elvis classic ever, and his screaming trademark constructed in The Beatles' era can be found on several "happy" songs like the closer "Party" (another Elvis tune), the bluesy Little Richard song "Shake A Hand", the amazingly strong rocker "Honey Hush", his own composition "Run Devil Run" (written in a very Berry-ish style, as in telling a story), "I Got Stung" and "She Said Yeah" (bom-diddle-diddle-dum). Some of these songs contain the best McCartney vocal performances ever. "What It Is" is another bluesy track, written to join the 'happy' mood of the album, and it has the reputation of being the last song that Paul wrote for Linda while she was alive.

This album has practically no low points. The soft vocals by Paul on "Blue Jean Bop", and its acoustic structure make it a great opener. "No Other Baby" is the greatest track on the CD, not only because of its obscurity and rareness, but also because of a GREAT instrumental and vocal performance. It should have been a hit. "Lonesome Town" follows somehow the sadness that Paul was trying to hide from the world... Another blues-driven track that's amazingly played by the musicians and totally well sung by Paul. "Try Not To Cry" is the closest thing to a sincere window to Paul's soul... but still his feelings are slightly hidden. The lyrics are quite obscure, and the ryhthm is kind of "happy", with probably the strongest and most prominent drum part heard on the CD. Another high. And then "Movie Magg" and "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" are the humoristic songs, two uplifting tracks by two of the greatest songwriters of rock'n'roll: Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins. The arrangements are amazing, you get to hear an accordion on "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" and Paul playing a great acoustic guitar on "Movie Magg".

So... Mainly a ball. Paul playing with a bunch of friends, and feeling happy for awhile. Maybe for escaping from the pain and the suffering, maybe for making his fans happy. Whatever the reason was, this "comeback" was very well-received by us the Macca fans. Here he leaves that reputation of a writer of "silly love songs", and accomplishes a status of a major rock'n'roll follower and performer, who's capable to make an excellent rock effort, in the times where pop and bubblegum music are sadly commanding our world. When "angels" like this one go out and "have fun", the results are always welcomed efforts. No Beatles fan should be without this CD, and any rock fan would appreciate it as a great piece of work. Maybe the best that Macca has done in the latter years.

The last time I bought a Paul McCartney album ("Band on the Run") was in the early 1970s when there was still hope for a Beatles' reunion. I recently heard the song, "No Other Baby" on the radio and decided to take a chance on this CD. This is the best thing McCartney has done in years! McCartney has selected a list of mostly obscure 50s rock'n'roll and reinterpreted them with the help of band mates Ian Paice (Deep Purple) and David Gilmour (Pink Floyd). In addition, Paul has written 3 new songs that fit in perfectly with the other 50s songs. However, it is Paul's great vocal work that ties this all together. His heartfelt singing on "Try Not To Cry" sounds like the perfect tribute to Linda--emotional without being maudlin. The title track (written by Paul) sounds right out of Chuck Berry. Every song is a keeper and Paul sings them with just the right amount of Little Richard flare and emotional resonance that makes this some of the best vocal work he has done. Each of these songs was recorded live in the studio after a brief rehearsal (much like the Beatles did when they recorded similar songs in the mid-60s). Paul is one of the few rock singers who can convincingly move from screaming rockers to weepy ballads, without skipping a beat. Paul has even re-cast Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" with a Cajun feel and has dug up some very obscure oldies that most of us have never heard like "Movie Magg." Whether you're a "Macca" fan or not, do not hesitate to buy this CD-You'll love it even after only one playing.