Recommendations matter, especially among musicians. Consider the case of Robbie McIntosh: In 1987, the guitarist had just left the Pretenders following a five-year stint. He didn’t have to wait long for his next prime gig, not when he had his former boss, Chrissie Hynde, singing his praises to Paul and Linda McCartney.
“Paul was looking for guitarists for his album Flowers in the Dirt, and Chrissie suggested me to Paul and Linda, which was quite nice” McIntosh says. “Chrissie is a great person, and I owe her a hell of a lot. I played on five or six tracks on Paul’s album, and all went quite well.”
So well, in fact, that when McCartney was plotting his first-ever solo tour, a massive global trek that would stretch from September 1989 to July 1990, he wanted McIntosh onboard as lead guitarist.
“I wasn’t actually aware that there would be a tour, but I was friends with [guitarist-bassist] Hamish Stewart, who was already in the band,” McIntosh says. “He might have said something to Paul about me.
“I can remember where I was when the subject came up — in a control room at Olympic Studios with [producers] Mitchell Froom and Neil Dorfsman. Paul’s manager at the time, Richard Ogden, came in and said, ‘We’re going to be touring the album later on in the year. Would you like to do it?’”
I think more than anything, he loves playing his Les Paul. He’s great, totally unique. I can tell his playing from George’s. He’s got an edgy kind of style.”
— Robbie McIntosh
Most guitarists would leap up and ask, “When do we start?” But McIntosh said he’d be game — with a stipulation.
“I said I didn’t want to be away from home for long periods of time, which is why I stopped playing with the Pretenders,” he explains. “Fortunately, Ogden said that Paul only wanted to tour three weeks at the time. So I said I’d do it.
“And they held to that. I think the longest stretch we were out on at a single time was three and a half weeks. We’d come home for a few days and go out again.”
The trek would prove significant for another reason: It marked the first time that McCartney fully embraced his Beatles catalog on tour, with a set that would feature a cavalcade of some 20 Fab Four songs.
“The funny thing was, Paul never said, ‘Oh, by the way, we’re going to play Beatles songs,’” McIntosh recalls. “It just seemed like that’s what he wanted to do. I think when he was with Wings, he used to do a few Beatles songs like ‘Yesterday.’
“We would suggest stuff, too. It was either me or the keyboard player, Wix, who suggested doing the Abbey Road medley at the end. Before long, we were playing a lot of Beatles songs.”
One would assume you were a Beatles fan already when you went into record with Paul.
Oh, absolutely. My big sister saw the Beatles in 1964. We had the records, and I was brought up listening to them. I wouldn't say I was a Beatles aficionado. I'm pretty good on the Beatles, but you know, there’s these guys who play in tribute bands, and they know absolutely everything.
Did Paul ever tell you in so many words what he liked about your playing?
No, he didn't really, nor did he ever tell me what to play. He was great in as much as he just gave me free rein. I think he might have had a few things to say to Hamish, who played bass when Paul wasn’t on bass himself, but it was nothing heavy. I just knew he liked what I was doing because we loved jamming together. When you work with McCartney, you do more jamming than rehearsing.
That’s interesting. What sorts of things did he like to jam on?
Just a couple of chords or 12-bar blues on electric guitar. Sometimes it was one chord for 20 minutes.
He loved playing the guitar. I think more than anything, he loves playing his Les Paul. He’s great, totally unique. I can tell his playing from George’s. He’s got an edgy kind of style.
When it came time to rehearse the set, would Paul give you a list of songs to prepare?
Possibly, yeah. I can't remember exactly. Normally, at the beginning of a rehearsal, he would say, “I want to do this song.” We’d listen to it a few times, or if it was something we already knew we might check a few parts in it.
Practically every guitarist has played a Beatles song at one time or another. Performing Beatles songs with an actual Beatle, however, must rank as a true “pinch me” moment.
Oh, it was fantastic — an absolute dream come true. We did Unplugged and I got to play “Blackbird” with him, just the two of us on acoustics. I was honored he asked me to do it.
I remember we talked about “Blackbird” the first day I worked with him. I'd been playing one part of it slightly different, and he went, “Oh, no, I play it like this.” He was very nice about it, and of course I said, “Oh, of course.” It was just a thing where he crosses over the strings instead of stretching.
Playing the song with him was incredible. As you say, it was a “pinch me” moment.
Was it assumed that the band would play Beatles songs exactly as they were on record?
It was assumed, yes. When you play “All My Loving,” you're not going to play a different king of solo. I mean, I guess you could, but I didn’t because I loved George's solo on it so much.
But something like “Let It Be” has two different solos on the recordings — the single one through the Leslie, and the more distorted one on the LP. So I sort of did my own thing on that.
How far into the weeds did you get as far as matching the tones on the records?
It’s kind of easier these days — people can use Kempers and program all sorts of sounds into them. I like to use a proper amp.
With McCartney, I didn't want to take loads of amplifiers on the tour with me. On the first tour I used a big Mesa/Boogie rig. I could get nice clean sounds with that. We weren’t doing just Beatles songs — we did songs from Flowers in the Dirt, and we did some Wings songs, as well. On “Let Me Roll It,” you want a bit of distortion.
How did you all work out the classic three-way guitar jam on “The End”?
I would have been George, Hamish played the John parts, and of course, Paul was Paul. For that, Hamish wasn’t on bass — that came from the keyboards. We didn’t copy those solos note for note. That was an example of us doing our own thing. There was a cue for us to stop. I think I might have been the cue.
Of all the shows you played with Paul, is there one gig that stands out for any particular reason?
It was one of the shows we played in Rio de Janeiro. Officially it was for 184,000 people, but it was possibly upward of 200,000. That got in the Guinness Book of Records because it wasn't a festival — it was one artist.
That was a special moment. It was the second gig we played there. The first night there were fewer people — like 130,000 people — because there had been an awful storm the night before, and there was a lot of water about.
We did a couple of warmup gigs in London theaters, but the first actual gig of the tour was in Oslo. I remember we did two nights in Amsterdam, and I stayed up drinking heavily after the first gig, which wasn't really my fault. I got to soundcheck and had something to eat, and then I had to go to the toilet to throw up.
Good times.
[laughs] Yeah. I felt so ill, but I was fine once I got on stage. I was a bit scared that I wouldn’t be well enough to play, but I did. Things turned out all right.
