How do you pay tribute to one of the giants of the music industry? Gather his admirers, contemporaries and even his influences for a massive tribute album. That’s what producer Ralph Sall decided to do for Paul McCartney.
Sall officially unveiled The Art of McCartney this week, announcing the box set’s massive set list. There will be multiple sets available and the set will be available on vinyl and CD and for download.
Sall only worked with McCartney once, but it was an amazing experience for him that inspired the project. The two worked together on a remix of “A Love For You” for the 2003 The In-Laws soundtrack and he received the former Beatle’s approval to work on the tribute project.
Over the past decade, Sall has worked with dozens of artists to assemble the 34-track set. Deluxe editions will also include a third disc with eight more tracks. The songs cover McCartney’s solo, The Beatles and Wings songs.
The set opens with Billy Joel’s performance of “Maybe I’m Amazed” and includes performances from Steve Miller (“Hey Jude,” “Junior’s Farm” ); Allen Toussaint (“Lady Madonna”); Corinne Bailey Rae (“Bluebird”); Owl City (“Listen To What The Man Said”) and Alice Cooper (“Eleanor Rigby”). McCartney’s contemporaries also participated. Brian Wilson sings “Wanderlust” and Bob Dylan contributes “Things We Said Today.”
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The biggest deluxe edition is limited to 1,000 copies and also includes the vinyl copy, the bonus CD, a DVD, an audio documentary narrated by Bill Nighy, an illustrated book and a USB with FLAC files of the first 34 tracks.
The Art of McCartney comes out on Nov. 17 in the U.K. The deluxe set comes out a month later.
image courtesy of Curtis Means/ACE/INFphoto.com