#see also: paul's friends blaming linda for cutting them off

[ohblahdo]

Also from Fab:

The next day [after being arrested] Linda called one of her old journalist pals, Blair Sabol, whom she hadn’t spoken to since 1969, being one of the media friends Linda dropped when she and Paul got together. Linda’s former best girlfriend, the reporter Lillian Roxon, had never forgiven her for this slight, getting her own back on Linda by writing a catty review of Paul’s 1973 TV special, shortly after which Lillian died. No chance of reconciliation there. Linda had long ago made her peace with journalist Danny Fields, but Blair hadn’t heard from Linda until now, and like Lillian she got her own back on Linda in print, writing a caustic article about their reunion in the Village Voice. ‘Now you must understand the last time I knew Linda was in her groping groupie days [when] Linda was into photographing stars with little or no film in her camera,’ Blair later wrote. I remember how impressed I was with her come-on talents as she sat in front of [Warren Beatty] in a mini-skirt and her legs in full wide-angle split for at least six rolls of Ectachrome. Warren ended up ushering me out of his Delmonico’s suite within 30 minutes and kept Linda for two days. Her pictures turned out to be mediocre to poor, but we became fast friends. When Linda invited Blair to the LA studio where Paul was finishing Venus and Mars, Blair encountered a woman who seemed to have become totally false since her celebrated marriage, speaking in a faux English accent, also affecting a lazy rock ’n’ roll manner. ‘I mean Mahhhhhhn, I cahn’t stand this town,’ she said of LA. Linda shrugged off the latest drug bust: ‘Well, you know it happens to everybody and it’s time-consuming with the lawyers, but we’ll get it taken care of.’ Then Paul came in, wearing a hideous black satin smoking jacket with a dragon stitched on the back. ‘Linda’s told me so much about you. Really glad to meet you,’ he said politely. Whether he meant it, he made the effort. Blair warmed to Paul, but found Linda a complete phoney whose ‘manipulation of Paul’ was ‘obnoxious’; as if she was using him to make herself a star, which Blair seemed to think Linda had always wanted to be, though most people don’t see Linda that way.

So I dunno, maybe Linda had her own reasons for dropping her old New York friends, who, as it turned out, were happy to stab her in the back at the first opportunity.

Source: Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney by Howard Sounes

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1975

Under the cut.

Elton John – “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” -- January 4, 1975

He slowed it down. Of course he did. And he's singing it like every word must be perfectly enunciated so that you can understand how incredibly deep it is. Awful, terrible, ugh. William Shatner's version is actually preferable.

Barry Manilow – “Mandy” -- January 18, 1975

Barry Manilow got a lot of hate when I was a kid in the 80s, and I didn't understand from any first-hand experience because the only song I knew of his was "Copacabana." Now, listening -- he's not bad. Yeah, he's 70s light rock. But he sings with emotion that doesn't sound fake and this song has a beat. I'm not saying I like this song, in which the singer regrets sending away the woman he loves, but it's fine. I find it far more tolerable than any Elton John song on this list.

The Carpenters – “Please Mr. Postman” -- January 25, 1975

The Carpenters' asset was Karen Carpenter's amazing singing. This song does not showcase it. They'd have done better to cover "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" or "One Fine Day." Also the way they redid the music makes it sound more like a light 50s pop song than early Motown. Blech.

Neil Sedaka – “Laughter In The Rain” -- February 1, 1975

This song is about taking walks in the rain with his wife/girlfriend. There's something fake about his singing, and also he doesn't hit the high notes (which aren't that high) right. I'd actually like to hear what Barry Manilow would do with this. It's not terrible, but meh.

Ohio Players – “Fire” -- February 8, 1975

Putting sirens in a pop song is kinda dickish, because you're gonna get people driving in their cars to try to suddenly swerve off the road. Anyway, besides that, this is an Ohio Players song, so it's funk. I don't really know what else to say about it. Maybe it could have been a little faster? I'm a bit bored, and that should never happen with funk.

Linda Ronstadt – “You’re No Good” -- February 15, 1975

There are sure a lot of covers this year. Boomer nostalgia. But Linda Ronstadt put a hell of a lot of effort into this one, unlike the people who did the previous two covers. The song's also a really good one, with an interesting lyrical twist; not only is the singer telling the man who broke her heart that he's no good, but "I broke a heart that’s gentle and true/ Well, I broke a heart over someone like you.” That's some vinegar in the wound. And musically, it's really good rock -- not an ounce of schmaltz anywhere. Excellent song, and I went back to listen to it on repeat when I was done writing for the night.

Average White Band – “Pick Up The Pieces” -- February 22, 1975

It's a funk instrumental. I think this has been on a lot of soundtracks. I find it repetitive and kinda boring.

Eagles – “Best Of My Love” -- March 1, 1975

They're still in love but their marriage is falling apart. The divorce rate in the 70s was very high. People often claim those 70s statistics are the same today, but they very much are not. Anyway, it's not too whiny and he doesn't blame her, but the song is too slow and too light. You could replace the words with a straightforward love song without changing the music, so long as the love song was boring. Yawn.

Olivia Newton-John – “Have You Never Been Mellow” -- March 8, 1975

Wow, shut up Olivia. I can identify with being sick of someone who is wound up like an E string and wanting to tell them to just chill. Hell, I'm that tightly-wound person pretty often, and I do much better when I remember to be mellow when I can. But this song is condescending and superior. "Have you never tried to find a comfort from inside you?" Toxic positivity.

The Doobie Brothers – “Black Water” -- March 15, 1975

I saw the song title and the chorus immediately started up in my brain. This is a song about the Mississippi by people who may never have been east of Las Vegas. "I ain't got no worries/ Cuz I ain't in a hurry at all." Pfft right. But the music of this song is so catchy and fun, that even though I'm not fond of the lyrics, I like the song.

Frankie Valli – “My Eyes Adored You” -- March 22, 1975

This guy used to lead The Four Seasons, but thankfully he doesn't do that horrible falsetto in this one. Ostensibly this song is about how he's thinking about his first crush. I think that's a metaphor, though. I think it's a song worshiping nostalgia and missing childhood. Yuck.

LaBelle – “Lady Marmalade” -- March 29, 1975

Patti LaBelle claimed she didn't know what this song was about. Yeah right. It's about a guy who spent some time with a sex worker on his trip to New Orleans. There's no judgment. It's just a sort of funky, sort of disco-ey, definitely belted song and it’s great.

Minnie Riperton – “Lovin’ You” -- April 5, 1975

Turn it off turn it off turn it off. I hate this song. It's one of the first songs I knew I hated musically, rather than only lyrically. The lyrics are whatever, a 70s love song, but the music -- I can't handle it. It's like sandpaper on my brain.

Elton John – “Philadelphia Freedom” -- April 12, 1975

Elton John's ode to Philly soul. It doesn't work. It's too slow, it's repetitive, and Elton John's no soul singer. He's so boring.

B. J. Thomas – “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” -- April 26, 1975

Hey won't you not play that please. It's too slow, and it's without guts or grit. The Muppets sped it up and made it a multi-Muppet honky tonk singalong, which improved it a lot. Also I think Bo Burnham took the idea for "Y'all dumb motherfuckers want a key change?" from Rowlf's "Up a key!" line in the Muppet version.

Tony Orlando & Dawn – “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You)” -- May 3, 1975

Another cover of a 60s song. Linda Rondstadt is still the only one to do it right. The song itself, when sung by others, is a good one. Not when sung by Tony Orlando. It's like he bleached it. Also I expect him to tell me the slot machines are available all night when he's done.

Earth, Wind & Fire – “Shining Star” -- May 24, 1975

This song is absolutely awesome. It's disco-funk, and yet it's sort of a sermon about self-actualization too. "You’re a shining star, no matter who you are / Shining bright to see what you could truly be.” Compare and contrast with the condescending "Have You Never Been Mellow." This is how you inspire people.

Freddy Fender – “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” -- May 31, 1975

This song is in both English and Spanish. Musically, it sounds like it comes from way before 1975, but that's not a bad thing. The singer is losing his woman to another man, but he tells her if the new man ever hurts her, he'll be there before the next teardrop falls. It's a solid country song.

John Denver – “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” -- June 7, 1975

How much money did John Denver have by this point? He sounds like the typical rich conservative talking about how he's a good ol' down home boy while he's got a condo in New York, a mansion in California, and keeps an official residence in Oklahoma for tax purposes that he never visits. "A-raisin’ me a family and working on the farm / My days are all filled with an easy country charm." Total and absolute bullshit -- farm work is phenomenally hard, not "easy country charm." This song is offensively bad.

America – “Sister Golden Hair” -- June 14, 1975

The singer isn't ready for commitment but can't stop thinking about the woman he's singing to. So he's trying to keep her hangin' on. There's one line that I hate: "Will you love me just a little, just enough to show you care?" How about you show her you care first, you entitled brat? The music's pretty good, but the lyrics bug me.

The Captain & Tennille – “Love Will Keep Us Together” -- June 21, 1975

It has a beat and some bounce at least. She sings about how some girl may come along to try to take him away -- seriously? This silly hat-wearing doof? Okay, that's a problem. Another problem is that she sounds perfectly chipper throughout. She's not worried, but who would be? I think this song struck a chord because of the divorce rate in the 70s. That, along with it having an actual beat of some kind unlike so many other hits of the era, is my theory as to how it got big.

Wings – “Listen To What The Man Said” -- July 19, 1975

There is, of course, nothing wrong with silly love songs. But some of them are not good songs. I usually love to hear a saxophone on a pop song, but this one sounds like it belongs in background music on a TV show. The main melody line is boring. I think it's another song about divorce anxiety: "No matter what the man said/ And love is fine for all we know/ For all we know, our love will grow." Very true. But did you have to be so boring when imparting this message, Paul?

Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony – “The Hustle” -- July 26, 1975

Doo doo doo da doo doo doo da doo. My dad actually knew how to do the two-person hustle. I think. Anyway, how he showed me to dance is the way the couples are dancing in the Hustle video here. Minus that leg kick. There are almost no words to this song. Just "Do the Hustle" and "The Hustle. Do it." And -- okay! It is an irresistible dance song. I like it, though the piccolo (I think it's a piccolo) gets hard to listen to after a while.

Eagles – “One Of These Nights” -- August 2, 1975

Tom Breihan, whose Stereogum articles I've been using to track these songs, doesn't like the Eagles when they turned to a bit more of a rock direction with this song. This is one of many examples of how he's wrong. Okay, okay, an example of how my taste differs from his, which is one thing that pushed me to do this list. But yes, I really like this song a lot. The guitars are great. The narrator of this song is looking for a girlfriend. Or maybe a friend with benefits. The lyrics are all pretty good, if hardly Stevie Nicks level, but one line stands out: "Oh, loneliness will blind you in between the wrong and the right." It will.

The Bee Gees – “Jive Talkin'” -- August 9, 1975

I made a weird noise that scared my cat when I saw this was the next one. But thankfully, I have a little more time before Barry Gibb's horrible falsetto pierces my brain. This is nonetheless a Bee Gees disco song, which means my butt is firmly planted in my seat and I have no desire to dance whatsoever. It isn't ear-bleeding like their later songs, as the falsetto is absent, but it is terribly boring.

Hamilton, Joe Frank And Reynolds – “Fallin’ In Love” -- August 23, 1975

He's fallin' in love with you again. Or maybe fallin' more in love with you. I dunno. I'm falling asleep.

KC & The Sunshine Band – “Get Down Tonight” -- August 30, 1975

Some dance songs are good listening songs. This one is not. The narrator wants to do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight. And if you are not there to get down, the song is not for you. Especially how repetitive it gets in the second half. It serves its purpose as a dance song well, though.

Glen Campbell – “Rhinestone Cowboy” -- September 6, 1975

I really like rhinestones. I like sparkly stuff. The narrator of this song does too. He's been trying to get somewhere for a long time and has had it. He's eager to sell out thoroughly at this point. I get it. Oh boy do I get it. And being a rhinestone cowboy doesn't hurt anyone. If I could churn out huge amounts of disposable fiction with a "load of compromising" to make a lot of money, I'd do it in a heartbeat. My 20-year old self would be shocked. But life's hard, and "cringe" isn't harm. Rhinestone Cowboy's good in my book.

David Bowie – “Fame” -- September 20, 1975

And here's a song about how chasing celebrity is maybe not such a great idea. A really bad idea, actually.  "It drives you to crime," for one thing. Yet this is musically not a dour song at all. It's angry but upbeat at the same time. Also brilliant musically, which from David Bowie is "of course." Most excellent.

John Denver – “I’m Sorry” -- September 27, 1975

The narrator is sorry about a breakup. He says he's also "sorry for the way things are in China." That one line makes me side-eye the entire song. Saying that they're sorry for huge things that have nothing to do with them is something abusive people sometimes do. The rest of the song sounds sincere enough though. And boring. Oh, so very boring.

Neil Sedaka – “Bad Blood” -- October 11, 1975

The narrator is telling a guy that the woman he's with is bad and is going to mess him up. And he's angry about it -- not at the woman, but at the guy. I think the narrator wanted the woman and is now calling her an evil bitch to try to turn his supposed friend against her. There's this happy flute in the background that sounds really odd with this deeply nasty song. Also, nastiness should be more interesting than this. It's both mean and boring.

Elton John – “Island Girl” -- November 1, 1975

Did Elton John start all his songs with the same chords? I feel like he did. This doesn't sound like an island song. It sounds like an ad jingle. A racist, sexist ad jingle. Ha-ha isn't it funny that a woman is tall and dark-skinned. The song calls her a "well-worn tire." So, so bad.

KC & The Sunshine Band – “That’s The Way (I Like It)” -- November 22, 1975

I have never understood any lyrics to this song but the chorus, or been curious enough to look them up. I just did. There are very few lyrics in this song besides the chorus, but yep, it's about sex. It's another KC & The Sunshine Band dance song that's great for dancing, and not really meant for anything else.

Silver Convention – “Fly, Robin, Fly” -- November 29, 1975

"Fly, robin, fly/ Up up to the sky" are the lyrics to this song. Over and over again. It's plastic Euro-disco and it is bad. Not danceable, no reason to listen to it, no reason for it to exist. I can only think that large amounts of cocaine were involved in this becoming a hit.

The Staple Singers – “Let’s Do It Again” -- December 27, 1975

It's another sleepy sex song, but this one is by a band with three sisters and their father. Their father sings on this track too. Apparently he didn't want to, and I wish he'd stuck by that, because ew.

BEST OF 1975 -- "Lady Marmalade" by LaBelle and "Shining Star" by Earth, Wind and Fire WORST OF 1975 -- "Island Girl" by Elton John

[marymccartneyphotos]

The McCartney Family Album

April 6, 2008 -- The Guardian

To mark the 10th anniversary of Linda McCartney's death, Paul and daughter Mary have selected the best of her photographs for a revealing exhibition. Here, Mary tells Sean O'Hagan why the pictures are so special to her.

When I ask Mary McCartney to describe her mother's photographic style, she thinks for a long moment and says: 'She approached photography the way she approached everything else - with quiet confidence.' You can see that in the photographs spread out before us on the table of the west London members' club where McCartney has met me to talk about a forthcoming exhibition of her mother's work. The show, which opens at the James Hyman Gallery on 25 April, is the first major retrospective of Linda McCartney's photography, and has been timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of her death from breast cancer. The photographs have been selected by Paul and Mary McCartney, with input from Hyman, from 4,000-odd contact sheets.

'It's an incredible archive,' says Mary, herself a respected fashion and portrait photographer. 'Mum never stopped taking photographs, though it may have seemed that way to the public. It's about 30 years' worth of work. The only gap is around the time when Stella and I were born when, as she said, she was up to her neck in nappies. Otherwise she always seemed to have a camera in her hand.'

To many people Linda McCartney was known, first and foremost, as the wife of a Beatle, and then as a vegetarian-cum-animal rights campaigner. Yet it is her career as a photographer, which waned as she embraced motherhood, music and activism, that is her lasting legacy.

'She was an instinctive photographer and always unobtrusive,' continues Mary. 'She wasn't that interested in straight portraiture or art photography - the images she caught were nearly always intimate, relaxed and oddly revealing.'

You can see that intimacy in her shot of John Lennon and Paul McCartney working on lyrics in the corner of a recording studio. Both are immersed in the task, but obviously having a good time. McCartney, his biro poised over a sheet of paper, may just have amended the lyrics. Lennon obviously approves. They seem almost conspiratorial and to have the intimacy of a long-term couple. Which, in a way, they were.

With the Beatles, Linda's access was assured. Before she met Paul, though, she had worked with many of the icons of the Sixties pop scene, including Jimi Hendrix, whom she famously captured mid-yawn. He didn't seem to mind.

'It was a different time,' says Mary, 'before PRs and image makers took over. Back then, she told me, the manager would often be a friend of the band. If you were cool and they liked you, you could friend hang out.'

Mary's younger sister Stella, now a celebrated fashion designer, is in one of the most intriguing family snapshots. It was taken at Paul McCartney's cottage in Scotland, near the Mull of Kintyre, which he famously hymned on one of Wings's more mawkish songs. Paul balances on a fence in dressing gown and slippers. He is watching with some concern his young son James, who has just leapt off the bonnet of the family Land Rover. Immune to the drama, Stella is kneeling on the grass in the foreground, immersed in some private reverie.

'That's Poppy, our family dog,' says Mary, pointing at a pooch in the background. There is also a sack of logs, or maybe potatoes, in the foreground near Stella. It is a detailed photograph but intricately composed: the dark, looming cottage on the right of the image, the fence that arcs away to the horizon, the tall figure of Paul echoed by what appears to be a ring of standing stones in the background on the left.

It is also a perfectly rendered moment, a deceptively casual portrait of a family caught up in one of the small dramas of the everyday. The age is given added resonance by the fact that it is a glimpse into the private life of the McCartney family at a time in the early Seventies when Paul had fled the media-fuelled madness that attended the Beatles, and by the fact that Linda is the invisible, guiding presence.

'I love that photograph,' says Mary. 'It's so weird - the dog, my brother jumping into the air, and Stella in a world of her own. I could look at it for ages. It's not set up at all; it's all about watching and timing. I bet she didn't even change the lens to take it, just used the same old 50mm lens she always did. That's what I mean about instinctive. There's a faith that it will be alright and it is. She just gets it.'

She stares at it some more, and the photographer in her gives way to the loving daughter. 'We used to walk that fence all the time to see how far we could go before we fell off. So it has all those memories, too. Our lives are mapped out in our mum's photographs. I found out her and Dad's story just by looking through the contact sheets: her rock'n'roll stuff, then her photographs of the Beatles, then her meeting Dad. It's like her diary, really, a record of her life.'

Linda Louise Eastman began her career as a photographer almost by accident. While working as a receptionist for Town & Country magazine in Manhattan in the mid-Sixties, she picked up an invite for a press party on a boat on the Hudson. It was for the Rolling Stones, newly arrived in America. She charmed the bad boys of rock as she later charmed Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

Soon afterwards, she forsook the genteel concerns of Town & Country for the more earthy delights of the Fillmore East, a celebrated but grungy New York rock venue, where she became the house photographer, capturing live images of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, the Doors and the Who. Before Annie Leibovitz became Rolling Stone magazine's favourite snapper, Linda was the first woman photographer to have her work on the cover - a portrait of Eric Clapton.

'Mum liked doing music work when it was all free and easy,' Mary says, 'but when the lawyers and the accountants took over, she lost interest. She was independent always. She did it on her own terms or not at all. Plus, she had children. Children take over your life.'

Contrary to received wisdom, Linda Eastman was not an heir to the Eastman Kodak empire, but she did come from wealthy American stock. Her father Lee was a music-business attorney, while her mother, Louise Sara Lindner, inherited the Lindner department-store fortune. She died in an aeroplane crash in 1962, when Linda was just 20, precipitating in her daughter a lifelong aversion to flying.

'I think Mum and Dad were close because they both lost their mothers when they were young,' says Mary. 'It was one of the things that bonded them. You could glimpse it when certain songs came on the radio, and they'd both be suddenly sad at the same time. I also think it's what made them so family-oriented.'

Family life, one suspects, is also what grounded Paul McCartney after the craziness of the Beatles years - though blissful domesticity also seemed to soften his musical brain. For a long time Linda stopped being a professional photographer to become a musician of sorts with Wings, and had to contend with the wrath of Beatles fans who blamed her and Yoko Ono - but mostly Yoko - for the fall in quality in both Paul and John's solo work. She later admitted that she sometimes sang out of tune on early Wings songs.

Paul met Linda in the famed Bag O'Nails club in London in May 1967, where the new rock aristocracy hung out, and where she was taking shots of Georgie Fame for a feature on Swinging London. That same week, they met again when the Beatles unveiled their Sergeant Pepper album at a party in their manager Brian Epstein's Belgravia pad. In September 1968 Paul asked Linda to fly to London for a date. They married six months later. Mary was born in August 1969. On the back of her father's first solo album, McCartney, she is the curious infant peeking out of her father's jacket straight at her mother's lens.

'It's a beautiful moment, isn't it?' Mary says. Does she remember much about her childhood in Scotland? 'Oh God, yeah! I remember we'd go off exploring a lot, Stella and me, and we didn't have to be watched all the time.' It's a revealing memory, a reminder that they were still the children of one of the most famous pop stars in the world and had to be protected accordingly.

How big an influence is her mother on her own photographic style? 'I'm not sure. It was more her attitude I admired. She was feisty in her own way, but not in a big, in-your-face way. I suppose she was quietly persuasive. It took me a long time to even get to that point. I used to be so green when I started, almost apologetic. I'm more like her in the way I approach my personal projects: just me and the camera and a few rolls of film. She gave me loads of advice all the time and I really miss that, chatting and arguing over the contact sheets. I remember when I used to moan about missing a great moment, a great photograph, she'd say: "Oh, don't worry, it's in your soul camera." I think she really believed that.'

Was it hard to be the child not just of famous parents, but parents who were seen as alternative types - hippies, vegetarians, animal rights activists? 'Well, my friend Josie used to call us hippy convoy kids,' she laughs. 'We were tomboys, that was down to Mum. She was a bit anti-authority, a bit rebellious. At the local comprehensive in Rye I tried to blend in but Mum and Dad would turn up in the Land Rover with the rainbow-stripe fabric on the seats. The rock hippy parents! I did the whole thing of being embarrassed as a teenager. I'd look at her odd stripy socks and go: "You're not going out dressed like that, Mum!" Now I think it's beautiful. Like the way she cut her own hair. It's quite cool, really.'

There is a powerful self-portrait of Linda towards the end of her life in Francis Bacon's studio. I ask Mary if this was the last image taken of her mother before she died. 'No,' she says haltingly. 'I think I took the last photographs of her. I was working on the press pictures for her cookbook. I think the very last one was a close-up where she is looking deep into the lens. Really intimate and poignant. The thing is,' she says, tears welling up, 'I don't think she ever saw it.'

As she composes herself, she sorts through the images. 'That's the thing about photographs,' she says. 'They are wonderful reminders of things, but they also carry memories, sadness.'

It must have been an emotional experience to sort through her mother's archive for the show. 'In one way it was, but in another it was satisfying. Me and Dad have a proper grown-up relationship now. I feel I was a kid for so long, but now we have both been through a lot. We're both divorc��s, for a start,' she says, laughing mischievously.

Though I had been warned that the words Heather Mills were not to be even mentioned, it seemed an opportune moment to utter them. Did you, I ask, gritting my teeth, ever do a portrait of her? 'No,' she says, looking perplexed at the very thought. 'No. Not really. I didn't.' Funny that, I say, but she does not respond. The silence, though, says enough. In more ways than one, she is her mother's daughter.

Linda McCartney's photographs will be at the James Hyman Gallery, 5 Savile Row, London W1 (020 7494 3857) from 25 April to 19 July