Read this story a while ago on Ed Roman guitars website about Carl Perkins visiting Paul McCartney to record just months after Johns death and a last minute song Carl came up with that caused Paul to break down..... Carl spent eight great days with Paul and Linda, along with George and Ringo, Stevie Wonder, and the legendary Beatles producer George Martin, with whom Paul owned a studio on the island. The studio was in Pauls house, while Martin had his own house elsewhere on the property. Carl described Martins house as a castle. Thats where he stayed for the week. As the time was drawing near for me to go home, I was sitting out on the patio, Carl told Dominic Ambrosio and his camera, his guitar sitting on his lap and looking like a part of him. And I was thinking how lucky Carl Perkins was. Im kind of sentimental. Sometimes I can sing it but I cant say it, and that night before, I wrote a song. And in the morning, I went down to the studio and said to Paul and Linda, Im not good at saying good-bye, but I wrote this song last night, and I want to play it for you. It was called My Old Friend . . . Carl sang it now for Dominic with the extra emotional emphasis on the refrain: My old friend, wont you think about me every now and then. . . Well, halfway through the song, I see Paul is really crying, tears flowing down his face, Carl said. And he stepped outside. I said to Linda, Linda, I didnt mean to upset him. She says, Carl, how did you know? I said, Darlin, I dont know what yer talkin about. How did I know what? John Lennon had been killed only months before outside his apartment building, the Dakota in New York. Linda explained that, although it wasnt publicly known, only days before his death, she and Paul had visited John and Yoko at the Dakota. At the end of the visit, as they were saying good-bye, John said to Paul, Think of me every now and then, my old friend. Linda put her arms around me, Carl said now on a cold January day in Tennessee sixteen years later, and she said, Thank you, Carl, he needed that. It was a touching moment and it was a frightful moment for me. The song had just come to him out of the blue that night as he sat alone on the deck off his room in George Martins castle. And the strange thing, he later told Rick, was that he didnt write the song down--something he always did. Whenever he thought of a lyric, let alone an entire song, he had to write it down right away or he would lose it. Rick, Carl said, that song was with me. I couldnt get it out of my head He was sure John had written the song from beyond and given it to him for Paul.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 19:52:33 +0000
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