Mike McCartney – “I Should’ve Been a Beatle Too”

[winstonoboogie]

I remember reading in a Beatles book back in the 70's that Badfinger was Mike McCartney's group (yes, I know now that this is total rubbish but I didn't then!)I remember thinking, "No wonder they were signed to Apple and no wonder Paul wrote 'Come and Get It' for them!") I even "convinced" myself that whoever sang lead on "Day After Day" sounded a little like Paul, as did whoever sang harmony on "No Matter What" sounded McCartney-esque (the "knock down the old gray wall" part, etc.) Interesting what the power of suggestion can do...

[John S. Damm]

LOL, I can only worship one McCartney in my life, their egos are too big! So Paul it must be, not Mike, Linda, Nancy, Stella, Mary, James, etc.

[coachbk]

I enjoy the MCGEAR album. Got it used for $1 at at a record store near Harvard in the late 70's. It is a lost Wings classic!

[vectisfabber]

There's a lot of good material on McGear. Mike is a strong vocalist - his voice doesn't have the warmth of Paul's, bit it's not bad. You've also got Paul's only bass solo on that album, let's not forget.

[mikev]

Apr 28, 2014 13:23:56 GMT -5 vectisfabber said:

There's a lot of good material on McGear. Mike is a strong vocalist - his voice doesn't have the warmth of Paul's, bit it's not bad. You've also got Paul's only bass solo on that album, let's not forget.

Which song? I haven't listened to it (LP) in years.

[Joe Karlosi]

Mike McCarntey...Mike McCartney... Mike McCartney...

Okay - here are my feelings on the neverending Mike McCartney discussion. I have no interest at all in Mike McCartney. To me, the best thing he's done is present some great vintage photos of his famous brother, Paul.

[markc]

Beatle siblings, Beatle wives, Beatle kids, Beatle parents. Who were the coolest? Uncoolest?

[scousette]

I always liked George's parents.

[coachbk]

Apr 29, 2014 8:46:35 GMT -5 mikev said:

Apr 28, 2014 13:23:56 GMT -5 vectisfabber said:

There's a lot of good material on McGear. Mike is a strong vocalist - his voice doesn't have the warmth of Paul's, bit it's not bad. You've also got Paul's only bass solo on that album, let's not forget.

Which song? I haven't listened to it (LP) in years.

"What Do We Really Know"

Also just listened to "Lily The Pink". Not too impressed. There were a few British hits that didn't become big hits in the US for a good reason and this is one of them. It tries to be funny, but it isn't.

[mikev]

Apr 29, 2014 10:56:31 GMT -5 coachbk said:

Apr 29, 2014 8:46:35 GMT -5 mikev said:

Which song? I haven't listened to it (LP) in years.

"What Do We Really Know"

Also just listened to "Lily The Pink". Not too impressed. There were a few British hits that didn't become big hits in the US for a good reason and this is one of them. It tries to be funny, but it isn't.

I remember the song well, just not the bass lead.

[mikev]

wow, just listened to some of the cuts- forgot how good this really was. Paul was everywhere on this.

Reminds me a bit of Klatuu.

This might have been one of the best Wings albums.

[John S. Damm]

Apr 29, 2014 10:49:12 GMT -5 markc said:

Beatle siblings, Beatle wives, Beatle kids, Beatle parents. Who were the coolest? Uncoolest?

Coolest
Sibling: Mike McCartney and even John said so when he didn't have much nice to say about Paul!
Wife: Pattie Boyd hottest and coolest. Honorable Mention: Heather Mills McCartney.
Kid: Zak Starkey: doesn't play role of "Beatle Son" like the others, is a kick-ass drummer and he lets his drumming do the talking!
Parent: Mona Best, she moaned a lot with Neil Aspinall! Honorable Mention: Freddie Lennon.


Uncoolest:
Sibling: Louise Harrison. Trying to exploit your own brother's fame is not cool!
Wife: Cynthia Lennon, mostly for her amazingly large eyeglasses!
Kid: James McCartney, heir apparent to Paul McCartney.....nah! Honorable Mention: Jason Starkey.
Parent: They are all cool!

[coachbk]

Coolest:
Sibling-Mike McCartney
Wife-Olivia Harrison
Kid-Dhani Harrison or Zac Starkey
Parent-Louise Harrison or Mary McCartney

Uncoolest:
Sibling-Louise Harrison
Wife-Heather Mills or Yoko Ono
Kid-Don't know of any who qualify here
Parent-Freddie Lennon

[vectisfabber]

For the benefit of those who aren't 100% familiar with Mike McCartney's stuff, it's not really fair to think of Scaffold as a pop group. As well as Mike McGear/McCartney, they other two members were Roger McGough - a poet, not a musician or singer - and John Gorman, whose main claim to artistry was as an eccentric humourist. Scaffold were essentially a humorous, artistic, somewhat surrealist performance collective, who originally started making records more or less as an incidental sideline. Their records were never straightforward pop records - they were always humorous and/or quirky. Even Liverpool Lou, one of their last records and probably the nearest to mainstream pop, was a musical adaptation of a Dominic Behan poem.

Liverpool Lou has Paul's fingerprints all over it as it was recorded at the same time as the McGear album: this was ostensibly a Mike McCartney solo album, but it is actually very much a Wings/McCartney brothers album, with Wings doing the majority of the backing, Mike taking the lead vocals, and much of the material co-written. It has a superb single in Leave It, one of the best of McCartney's simple melodic songs in Simply Love You, the aforementioned bass solo in What Do We Really Know, and all the rest of the material is, at worst, interesting and, at best, pretty darn good. It's a shame they didn't record together more - they collaborated well.

[stavros]

The McCartney brothers stories continue to leak out.

This one is from our neighbours across the errr puddle...........Ireland.

Sir Paul McCartney nearly drowned in a lime pit as a boy.

The 71-year-old legend's brother, Mike McGear McCartney, revealed the pair of them are lucky to be alive after they ''were clinging for their lives'' in a ditch and is glad their screams were heard by neighbours who helped to save them.

He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: ''We were screaming and clinging on for our lives. Eventually, a neighbour heard us. He pulled us out.''

Mike admits that their dad, James 'Jim' McCartney, was not pleased when he found out but since they were visibly shaken he let them off.

He added: ''We got a good hiding from our dad. It wasn't as bad as it could have been because he could see the shock.''

Meanwhile, talking on the 'Kevin & Bean' show, Paul has insisted he likes talking about his Beatles heyday since it's like looking at a ''scrapbook'' full of fond memories.

He explained: ''It's like kind of talking about your college days when you're kind of not at college anymore and there's quite a few years gone by. With the Beatles, so much what we did was incredible. And I can talk like that because it's over. It's like looking at scrapbook.

''There's so many great moments, that I actually like being reminded of them.''

Source : TV3 Ireland

The survivor of the lime pit crisis was back at LIPA in Liverpool yesterday

[vectisfabber]

''There's so many great moments, that I actually like being reminded of them.''

He should read Lewisohn's book, then.

[winstonoboogie]

May 8, 2014 17:47:41 GMT -5 vectisfabber said:

''There's so many great moments, that I actually like being reminded of them.''

He should read Lewisohn's book, then.

LOL!

[scousette]

I always liked Roger McGough. In 1970, when I was associate producer or director or whatever of my high school "edgy" poetry and theatrical production, I included a McGough work in the script.

www.spiritualistresources.com/cgi-bin/sarah/index.pl?read=35

[ReturnToPepperland]

Apr 20, 2014 17:59:50 GMT -5 stavros said:

We’re talking about life’s ‘if onlys’ when Mike McCartney drops his astonishing bombshell. He hates the word ‘if’....................
Then Mike lobs in his hand grenade of a confession. ‘I was nearly in The Beatles,’ he says. ‘I was The Beatles drummer, but I broke my arm in the Scouts.’ Hang on, Mike. Rewind. You were a Beatle?
‘It was when John [Lennon] used to come to the house in Forthlin Road with The Quarrymen, before George [Harrison] was even there. I broke my arm at camp and it affected the nerves that control the wrist. They were dead.
‘I had to have electric shocks and hot stuff put on my arm to get the nerves back. For a couple of years, I had to wear a support strap with a wire.
‘It’s back to that word. If I hadn’t broken my arm, I’d have been a Beatle. But I did break my arm and I’m not a Beatle. You always have to deal in reality, not dreams.’ Crikey. He has never spoken about this humongous ‘if only’ before.



Mike is a hugely proud man. So much so, that when he tried his hand at showbiz with The Scaffold, as Beatlemania was beginning to rip through the country, he changed his surname to McGear.
‘The Beatles were getting so famous, being called McCartney was like being Presley or Sinatra,’ he says. ‘If I’d gone on being McCartney, it would have seemed that I was cashing in. I couldn’t do that.’
........................................
‘I was nearly in The Beatles,’ he says. ‘I was The Beatles drummer, but I broke my arm in the Scouts.’

Mike gave up showbusiness in 1982 when The Scaffold disbanded, and his first marriage to Angela Fishwick, with whom he had three daughters, ended. Mike won custody of the girls, now in their 40s..........

‘I was best man at his weddings to Linda and Heather. When he married Nancy, James [Paul’s son] was best man because he’d grown up. Paul’s so very happy now.’ Mike, too. He has been happily married to wife Rowena for 33 years and has three boys — Josh, 31, Max, 26 and Sonny, 23.


He pauses, then says, ‘You could look at this another way. If I hadn’t broken my arm, if I had joined The Beatles, maybe we’d have ended up fighting like Liam and Noel Gallagher in Oasis. So, it’s fortuitous and lucky I didn’t join. I have a nice, close, stable relationship with my brother.’
Which is something he wouldn’t change for all the ‘ifs’ in the world.

Full story : www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2607398/I-Beatle-Maccas-little-brother-reveals-HE-bands-drummer-Scout-camp-accident-wrecked-dream.html

So there you go Pete Best and Ringo. Had it not been for an accident with the Boy Scouts we'd have had a McCartney "Drum and Bass" section in our favourite band.

I once met Micky "Macca" at a New Years Eve Party in 1998 (going on into 1999) and found him a rather odd guy. I can't ever imagine the Beatles with him taking any part at all in the band.

I will now leave this story for others to ponder.

I prefer Paul's haircuts with the sides short as he wore his hair from the late 1960s to the late 1970s to the helmet head look his brother sports in this picture.

[ReturnToPepperland]

Apr 27, 2014 20:31:39 GMT -5 winstonoboogie said:

I remember reading in a Beatles book back in the 70's that Badfinger was Mike McCartney's group (yes, I know now that this is total rubbish but I didn't then!)I remember thinking, "No wonder they were signed to Apple and no wonder Paul wrote 'Come and Get It' for them!") I even "convinced" myself that whoever sang lead on "Day After Day" sounded a little like Paul, as did whoever sang harmony on "No Matter What" sounded McCartney-esque (the "knock down the old gray wall" part, etc.) Interesting what the power of suggestion can do...

For a while in late fall of 1970 I though it was Paul singing No Matter What. It sounds even now just like him as he sounded in those days.

[ReturnToPepperland]

Apr 29, 2014 19:40:41 GMT -5 coachbk said:

Coolest:
Sibling-Mike McCartney
Wife-Olivia Harrison
Kid-Dhani Harrison or Zac Starkey
Parent-Louise Harrison or Mary McCartney

Uncoolest:
Sibling-Louise Harrison
Wife-Heather Mills or Yoko Ono
Kid-Don't know of any who qualify here
Parent-Freddie Lennon

Some might say the uncoolest kid because of his criticism of his father was Julian, but I like him.

[Deleted]

Has Olivia had a bloke since George died, if not, i'd volunteer to do the deed

[Joe Karlosi]

May 10, 2014 7:35:57 GMT -5 fabfour said:

Has Olivia had a bloke since George died, if not, i'd volunteer to do the deed

So would I, as long as she dresses up as she appeared in the "Crackerbox Palace" promo film.

[Deleted]

May 11, 2014 5:43:34 GMT -5 Joe Karlosi said:

May 10, 2014 7:35:57 GMT -5 fabfour said:

Has Olivia had a bloke since George died, if not, i'd volunteer to do the deed

So would I, as long as she dresses up as she appeared in the "Crackerbox Palace" promo film.

She looks good in suspenders...