2003

2003 was here and Paul as always went back to writing new songs.

I guess this is a silly line, as he really never, except at a few certain periods in his life, never stopped writing songs or thinking of his next project since The Beatles had formed.

Long time fan Wendy Whitworth got the ultimate birthday present at her party on February 22nd when her husband hired Macca himself to play at the bash – for a fee of $1 million.

TV executive Wendy was stunned and left in tears of joy at her 50th birthday party – as she and 150 guests were given a private 90-minute rock show by Macca and his band at a party in San Diego, California.

Mr. Whitworth offered Paul McCartney $1 million dollars to play a personal show for his wife. Macca agreed – but then he instantly gave away the massive fee to charity.

Paul played the birthday concert – one of the smallest gigs of his life – only on condition that he could donate the $1 million fee to Adopt A Minefield, the anti-landmines charity backed by him and his wife Heather.

Wendy, the executive producer of CNN’s “The Larry King Show,” had no idea of the surprise in store when she joined family and friends including Larry King and NBC Today show host Katie Couric.

The party began at 7.00 pm; two hours later an announcement that “now we’re going to play a bit of rock and roll for Wendy” – and to her shock Macca and his band took to the stage.

Paul, for whom the show was also a warm-up gig for his upcoming concert tour of Europe that starts next month, then led his band through a 19-song set.

Paul further surprised Wendy when he called her up onto the stage, presented her with his gift of 50 roses, and then had her dance at his side as he led his band through the Beatles rock song “Birthday.”
Paul said: “Normally I don’t do this sort of gig, but I was chuffed (delighted) to do it because it was a win-win show. Ralph gets to be the great husband for organizing the surprise, his wife gets a rocking party, I get to rehearse the band for the tour and, most important, Adopt-A-Minefield gets $1 million. It was a very human evening and we all had a fabulous time”.

The next leg of touring began as The Back In The World Tour, which consisted of 33 shows in 13 countries. It ran from March 25th (Paris, France) until June 1st (Liverpool, England).

They had another surprise show on May 30th at The Cavern, in Liverpool.

Paul McCartney held his end of world tour party at the Cavern Club. For the people who came to the door of the Cavern Club that night, the poster on the door told them it was a private retirement party.

Little did they realize that Paul McCartney was downstairs.
The following day Paul performed to an audience of 30,000 on an outside stage at King’s Dock.

In 2003, Paul helprd out his lead guitarist, Rusty on his solo album, UNDRESSING UNDERWATER on the track “Hurt Myself.”

He also offered his song “Calico Skies” for the charity album, HOPE (War Child), Hope is a 2003 compilation album released by the War Child charity in conjunction with Daily Mirror to aid the victims of the Iraq war. It featured contributions from Travis, New Order, Paul McCartney, David Bowie and George Michael.

He performed again at Heather’s 3rd annual Adopt-A-Minefield Gala on September 23rd, performing 10 songs.

The album CONCERT FOR GEORGE was released on November 17th.

He also had his 1980 song “Temporary Secretary” remixed to help promote the album, A SECRET HISTORY. McCartney authorized remix master and deejay Matt Edwards, better known by his monikers Rekid or, in this case, Radio Slave, to create an extended dance mix of “Temporary Secretary” for release as a promotional-only 12-inch single in December 2003.

The one-sided single sports the classic black Parlophone label and is the only release of Radio Slave’s nearly seven and a half minute mix of the song. Only 500 copies of the disc were made and all of them were numbered and distributed mainly to key radio stations in Europe.

On October 22nd and 23rd Paul reunited with Dave Stewart to re-record the song “Whole Life” again. Stewart, from The Eurythmics, recorded “Whole Life” for Nelson Mandela’s AIDS awareness campaign (they had previously recorded this song in 1995).

The backing of the track was done by Paul’s live band.

Rusty Anderson remembers:
“Well that was interesting because it was all of sudden last minute where Paul went into the studio and, “Oh yeah Dave Stewart’s coming by and we’ve got this song that I want to finish up”.

I wasn’t sure if, I thought well Dave Stewart plays guitar you know maybe I won’t even be part of this so I don’t know what he’s really talking about. So, but then we all got together and we all sort of did it live so it was cool. Dave Stewart played acoustic and Paul and I played electric and Brian played bass and Abe played drums. It was really fun actually. It was kind of cool meeting Dave Stewart who I never met before. Just getting in there and really quickly getting the song together. Then we all got around the mike, I guess the four of us, Paul, Abe, Brian and I did all the background vocals and then pretty quickly it was mixed that night.”

LET IT BE NAKED and BACK IN THE WORLD were also released on CD in 2003.

2004 began and surprise… Heather is pregnant and much more….