Third solo album by Beatle ‘Sir Paul’

Forty years after John Lennon died at the hands of an evangelical Christian assassin, surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still making music, now on their own.

“Sir Paul”, pictured, may be 78 years old but he is bringing out his 18th solo album McCartney III, which will be available on Friday next week.

It will be his third album on which he not only wrote the songs but also played everything from piano to drums.

“Fab Four” drummer Ringo Starr is 80 and does not enjoy the same level of global fame, but he too is still going strong.

McCartney III refers back to McCartney, released in 1970 – the first time he did everything himself – and McCartney II, from 1980.

“McCartney is a pioneer of the ‘home studio’, where everything is done at home, because he knows how to play every instrument,” said Stan Cuesta, author of The Beatles.

“He blazed the trail for this type of production, as Prince did later on.”

The first solo album unleashed a fire storm, with McCartney publishing a “self-interview”, saying he would no longer work with John, George and Ringo at a time when the split had not yet been formalised.

This time, he locked himself away on his property in Sussex, southern England, as much because of the novel coronavirus as the workload.

“I was living lockdown life with my family and I would go to my studio every day,” he said in notes released by his US music publisher Capitol. “I had to ... work on some film music and that turned into the opening track.

“Each day I’d start recording with the instrument I wrote the song on and then gradually layer it all up, it was a lot of fun.”

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