Photos by LINDA MCCARTNEY, Story By DONNA BALANCIA
With a month to go until the release of the reissue of Paul McCartney’s classic album Flowers In The Dirt (the 10th installment of the GRAMMY Award-winning Paul McCartney Archive Collection) – Paul has released some photographs taken by Linda McCartney during the recording of the album.
The photographs show Paul working with Elvis Costello, who he collaborated with on four of the tracks featured on the album (“My Brave Face,” “You Want Her Too,” “Don’t Be Careless Love” and “That Day Is Done”) as well as a shared moment with The Beatles producer George Martin, who did the string arrangement for “Put It There.”
The majority of the album was recorded at Paul’s Hog Hill Mill studio in East Sussex in the UK. This is also where some of the tracks were written with Costello.
Recalling working with Elvis, Paul said: “I was looking for someone to work with, trying to think of something imaginative to do and one day my manager said ‘Do you fancy writing with Elvis Costello? It might be a great thing’. I said ‘Yeah’.
“He (Elvis) came down to my studio and we sat opposite each other with our guitars because I had said to him early on that this is how I’d written with John, with me being left handed and him being right handed, it was almost like looking in a mirror. We did virtually what John and I did which was just make up a song a day.”
Those who pre-order the album digitally from today will get Instant Grat tracks – previously unreleased original demo versions of My Brave Face and That Day Is Done – both recorded at one of the early writing sessions.
“Because we were working above the studio, we’d just go downstairs and make the record, just the two of us singing exactly what we had made up,” Paul said. “So there were a few recordings that haven’t been released. We keep saying to each other that they’re good because they are raw, it’s hot off the skillet.”
The reissue of Flowers In The Dirt is available from March 24th.
PRE-ORDERS: Super Deluxe (3CD/1DVD), Special Edition (2CD), Vinyl (2LP)
