One of the most influential songwriters in the world since The Beatles achieved success, Paul McCartney has always paid attention to what was happening in music throughout his career. Rock and Roll has evolved into many different subgenres and there are several bands he likes. He has had the chance to perform at many festivals as a solo artist and once revealed which bands he would choose for his dream festival lineup. Rock and Roll Garage selected what he has said about those bands over the years and his connections with some of them.
8 bands Paul McCartney would choose for his dream festival lineup
The Who
The first band Paul mentioned in an interview with NME was The Who, of which he is a fan, especially of Keith Moon’s drumming. When listing the greatest drummers of all time, he placed Moon in third position, behind only Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham and Ringo Starr. “I go Ringo Top, he is something else, second I’d go Bonzo and third Keith Moon. I mean, that’s mine, I’m going from that generation, those are pretty good drummers,” McCartney told Howard Stern in 2020.
Paul did the introduction speech when Pete Townshend won the Les Paul award and praised him and The Who. “Congratulations on getting the Les Paul award, we all know you deserve it. Because man, we go back and I have so many great memories of you and the band. Your music, seeing you on TV doing ‘My Generation’, seeing you live playing. To this day, you’re just great.”
“So isn’t it funny? I never had a chance to really just stand opposite you and tell you. I would probably be too embarrassed but here it is the ideal occasion for me to just say what I think everybody in the room (wants) to say. You are just a great monster, man! The way you played that guitar, the way you write, it’s fantastic. Always has been, hopefully always will be. So congratulations on getting the Les Paul award. How cool is that? We love Les, another great musical monster. We love Les, we love you and congratulations,” Paul McCartney said in 2012 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
The Rolling Stones
Paul McCartney also mentioned The Rolling Stones, whom he and John Lennon helped score their first hit by giving them the song “I Wanna Be Your Man”. “I wrote it (“I Wanna Be Your Man”) for Ringo to do on one of the early albums. But we ended up giving it to the Stones. We met Mick and Keith in a taxi one day in Charing Cross Road. Mick said, ‘Have you got any songs?’”
“So we said, ‘Well, we just happen to have one with us!’ I think George had been instrumental in getting them their first record contract. We suggested them to Decca, ‘cuz Decca had blown it by refusing us. So they had tried to save face by asking George, ‘Know any other groups?’ He said, ‘Well, there is this group called the Stones.’”
Paul McCartney continued:
“So that’s how they got their first contract. Anyway, John and I gave them maybe not their first record, but I think the first they got on the charts with. They don’t tell anybody about it these days; they prefer to be more ethnic. But you and I know the real truth,” Paul McCartney told Playboy magazine in 1984.
Contrary to what the press and fans thought, there was never a rivalry between The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. They even used to coordinate their album release schedules to avoid clashing with each other. “People thought that there was a big rivalry. But it was the opposite, if we had a record coming out August 28, we would ring them and say: ‘Have you got anything coming out?’ And they would say: ‘Yeah, we got something August 17, so we will put ours back a little bit’”.
“There was a very friendly scene. I remember one evening, we used to hang out in each other’s places, Mick was living with Keith and a few other people. I was there hanging out and they were in the studio, in the recording session, when they came back (they had a recording) and it was ‘Ruby Tuesday’ (So they played for us) and I was like “I like that one’,” Paul McCartney told Marc Moron in 2017 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). McCartney appeared on the Stones most recent two albums, he played bass on the songs “Bite My Head Off” and “Covered in You”.
Queen
Paul McCartney also would like to see Queen playing on his dream festival. He was a big fan of the group and Freddie Mercury. “Freddie always had a good voice. That’s always been the anchor of that group I think and Brian good guitar player as well you know they’ve had musical skill.”.
“I think you can tell when a band’s got musical skill. But I think there’s a say, the first thing you heard with Queen was Freddie’s voice. And it’s the same as it was then. It’s a very strong voice. A very distinctive voice. And you recognize that this guy knows what he’s doing,” he said in the volume I of Magic Years documentary.
Interestingly, McCartney almost recorded a song with the late singer in 1987. The track “Once Upon a Long Ago”, which was included on his solo compilation album “All the Best!”, was originally intended to be a duet with Mercury. Queen’s frontman was busy with the band and his solo work at the time and couldn’t record the song with Paul.Although that collaboration never happened, they shared the stage at Live Aid in 1985, when many famous musicians performed “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, which had been recorded to raise money for famine relief efforts in Ethiopia.
The Beatle was invited to take part in the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert but was unable to attend. However, as Brian May recalled, McCartney called him during rehearsals. “It felt surreal. He was phoning to wish us luck and say he was sad he couldn’t appear with us at that show, as I’m sat on a chair looking at Robert Plant, Tony Iommi, Roger Daltrey and Seal,” he told NME in 2021.
Grateful Dead
Another band Paul mentioned was The Grateful Dead, which he even credited with inspiring him to return to the road in the late 1980s. “I’ll tell you what prompted me (in going out on the road), the Grateful Dead. ‘Deadheads, man! Allright’ (he imitates Grateful Dead fans). Listen, if Jerry (Garcia) can still do it that good, you know, I mean, there’s hope for us all,” he said during a press conference in 1989.
At the time, Paul hadn’t performed in the United States since 1976. Seeing how The Grateful Dead were attracting so many young fans gave artists like him and The Rolling Stones the motivation they needed to tour again, as it proved that new generations were still interested in their music. ”My own personal thing was seeing the Grateful Dead become so popular over the last few years. Because you know, I’ve got like young nephews and their friends and stuff in America, particularly. I’ve seen them grow up and it is strange to see these kids coming around with headbands on and Dead t-shirts. You know, (they are) well into Jerry (Garcia) and the gang.”
Paul McCartney continued:
“So you think: Well, hell it does mean that there isn’t really a youth factor, it’s more a music factor. I do think kids are getting more into 60s music. My kids are certainly into Otis Redding, James Brown, Traffic, Jimi Hendrix. You know, maybe through Steve Winwood then they go back to traffic,” he said in a TV interview.
Curiously, Paul visited the Grateful Dead at their house in San Francisco in the 1960s. He visited them at their historic house on Ashbury Street because they had mutual friends. Linda McCartney, who worked as a photographer before meeting Paul, took many photos of the Dead in the 1960s. In the ’90s, Paul and Linda decided to retrieve the negatives of photos she had taken of them in the early days. Those images of them during that era were rare, so they decided to create a photo film. The whole process took years to be completed and, sadly, was not ready until after Garcia’s passing in 1995. The film was released the following year and screened at several film festivals.
Jimi Hendrix Experience
Paul McCartney had the chance to meet Jimi Hendrix and see him perform multiple times. He once recalled how amazed he was when he first saw Hendrix play. “Jimi Hendrix, it’s gotta be Jimi (The best guitarist of all time). Oh man, great guy. I knew him a little bit because he kind of got discovered over here (In the UK) really. Even though he’d been working a long time in America.”
“I think I was possibly at one of his first gigs down a place called The Bag of Nails. (Which) is a club I used to go to. Actually it’s where I met Linda (McCartney). He just sort of shambled on stage one night. We never really used to bother with the live acts. We used to be more interested in the records. The live acts weren’t always that good but he had these very big amps. We were wondering what he was going to do with them.”
“So suddenly this (big noise starts) and we just (were amazed). There were not many people there that night. But a couple of nights later he played again and everyone was there. It was like me, (Pete) Townshend, (Eric) Clapton, all like paying homage already to this man,” Paul McCartney said in a TV interview back in the 80s. McCartney often plays an excerpt of “Foxy Lady” in every show. During his 2023, the track was played right after the Wings hit “Let Me Roll It”.
Sex Pistols
Unlike many artists from his era, Paul McCartney actually liked Punk Rock music and praised the Sex Pistols several times. “It was a great thing (Punk) and something like ‘Pretty Vacant’ as a record, is really good. It was produced by Chris Thomas, who we knew – he was George Martin’s assistant and had worked on some Beatles stuff. The sound of ‘Pretty Vacant’ is really good and, of course, the energy of the band is sensational. It’s not to be denied,” Paul McCartney said in an interview with The Quietus in 2009 why he thought it was a great track.
Curiously, back in the 1970s, Paul McCartney once ran towards a cab carrying the band’s vocalist, John Lydon, hoping to meet him. However, the singer locked the door and told the driver to keep going. McCartney later recalled the funny story, saying: “Oh that was terrible. I was with my wife Nora and we were going to visit my brother in Tottenham. We had to go through past Harrods and two people come running across the street and it’s Paul and Linda McCartney.”
“They’re banging on the cab window, I put the lock down and turned my head around. I could not cope with it, it was too much. This is, you know, a famous person. I couldn’t handle it, my shyness took over. Nora was saying ‘Why don’t you let them in?’ You know when things take you sometimes by surprise ‘Bang! It’s Paul and Linda (in your face)’, John Lydon said in an interview with Piers Morgan in 2015 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
Radiohead
Paul has praised Radiohead several times during the past decades and even said he would like to collaborate with Thom Yorke. “(My daughter) keeps saying to me, ‘Ring Thom and just go into the studio and just see what you come out with. I’m a bit sort of paranoid to just ring him up. ‘Hey Thom, it’s Paul here. What do you fancy, what are you doing? Do you fancy writing something?’ Just in case he says, ‘Er, actually I’m busy’,” he said in an interview with NME in 2013.
The collaboration didn’t happen but Paul is a good friend of the band. In 2021 he was interviewed by Radiohead’s guitarist Ed O’Brien. He appeared on McCartney’s star-studded remix album, “McCartney III: Imagined”.
The Beatles
The final band Paul mentioned was The Beatles, and there is no doubt they would be the headliners of this festival. Their final full concert took place at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California, on August 29, 1966. During the show, they played Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music”, Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” and their own songs “She’s a Woman”, “If I Needed Someone”, “Day Tripper”, “Baby’s in Black”, “I Feel Fine”, “Yesterday”, “I Wanna Be Your Man”, “Nowhere Man” and “Paperback Writer”.
The last time the four Beatles performed together was on the rooftop of Apple Corps at 3 Savile Row in Mayfair, London, on January 30, 1969. They performed “Get Back”, “Don’t Let Me Down”, “I’ve Got a Feeling”, “One After 909” and “Dig a Pony”. They also played “God Save the Queen” during the session, and “I’ve Got a Feeling” and “Don’t Let Me Down” were performed more than once.