Paul McCartney Archive Collection - Tug Of War & Pipes Of Peace coming! (Part Two)

I'm looking forward to Tug of War, but I wish Paul would deluxe the rest of the 70s albums first.

 

Twenty years ago, I had copies of every Macca/Wings lp from whatever country issued them, plus different era pressings from each country, plus label variations, etc. IIRC, I was up to about 55 vinyl copies of 'Band On The Run', but the UK first pressing was the one that got played. Yes, I know, I had it bad. But what's the point of collecting if you draw the line somewhere?.

 

That's incredible. Especially considering how hard it was pre-Internet to get hold of all this stuff. I used Esprit and Adrian's in those days as there weren't (and still aren't) any really decent record shops in my area.

I still check out Esprit occasionally.. They're still devastatingly expensive!

 

55 copies of Band on the Run - wow thats a lot. Guess you like the album

 

Well, it wasn't always THAT hard to get hold of stuff; once I started going to record fairs around 1979/80, I quickly got to know the dealers who did the local fairs and the big London ones. Once I got to know them and saw them regularly at the Leeds fairs, they'd look out for stuff for me. One advantage over the Internet era, of course, is that I could actually see the item in question and grade them for myself. Looking back, I don't think I was ever disappointed, condition-wise, with anything I bought from them. After having to get out of the collecting thing in the mid-'90s, I REALLY missed the camaraderie of seeing the dealers and my collector chums. We always had a good natter outside queueing up before the doors opened. Of course, once we were in it was every collector for himself!!.

 

I never went to record fairs, so no wonder I found it difficult to get stuff! To be honest, I never realised how pressings varied until years later. They must have been great days for you, though..

Not tempted to start again?!

 

There's absolutely NO CHANCE of ever having another almost-complete collection. I had every group and solo boot and most worldwide releases of albums, singles and E.P.s; I'd never have the time or the money to even think about starting again. When I started collecting, you could get the yellow/black Parlophone albums for less than a tenner each - and the monos were even cheaper!. I've missed far too much in even the last twenty years for it be a non-starter. Even if I won the lottery, I'd never see a lot of the stuff again.

 

What happened to your collection?

 

Ballroom Dancing also has some tremendous harmonies that would have worked in other live settings - I could imagine a great acoustic C&W version of that one.

 

He traded it all for one personalized autograph from Ringo:

Peace & Love... Peace & Love... Peace & Love, Yours Truly, Richy

Arnie

 

It was stolen while I was on holiday around '95/'96. Everything that was downstairs was taken; Beatles and solo official and boots, Queen and solo official and boots. Hopefully, whoever took it suffered a huge coronary thrombosis whilst unloading it wherever they took it. The only things I was left with were my two Blue boxes and a copy of 'Broadcasts' which happened to be upstairs at the time.

 

Good God! I was hoping you would say you'd sold it and made a killing... That's absolutely dreadful. I can barely imagine the devastation..

 

Thanks, both. At the time I tried to rationalise it by thinking it was at least a good thing that no one was at home or got hurt, but whenever I'm surfing on the interweb I usually see something I used to have and that's when it feels like a kick.

 

I'd be the same. Hard to stay positive over something like that...

 

That is dreadful; it must have been devastating.

Did the person who stole it ever get caught? I wonder if they knew that you had the collection, or whether they just broke-in and found it by chance?

 

Good point. I think that it is a shame that Ballroom Dancing was scrapped as a single from Broadstreet; it is a great song, very catchy and I imagine that it could have been a hit, by appealing to the same people who liked the Kinks 'Come Dancing'.

 

No, unfortunately not. It does seem unlikely to have been a random robbery, particularly as they didn't even appear to have looked upstairs. The Police said they'd notify local record shops to keep an eye out for Beatles items. I didn't hold out any great hopes.

 

I am sorry about that. So is it most likely that it was a fellow collector? Have you ever seen any of your stolen items being sold anywhere?

 

Could have been a collector, I suppose, or that's who it ended up with. I mean, who WOULDN'T want an instant collection?. Tbh, after it happened I stopped going into record shops or record fairs; wasn't really much point.

 

Even though it was 20 years ago, I too feel bad about the loss of your collection by a robbery. My apartment was broken into in NYC around that time too, but they only took electronics (and 1 nice leather jacket). But to have your collection stolen... I am sorry to hear it happened.

Arnie

 

Thanks, Arnie.

 

So sad to hear about this. And I can only imagine the distress you must have felt!

 

As an aside, I had one break in in my life when I was living out of town working on a film. The teens who did it were found (they were living with their grandma down the street), but they had thrown out was valuable to me (Randy Newman's first hand written note to me - d'oh!), yet they left the acetates and 45s scattered on the floor. So I lost a bunch of CDs, some pills they couldn't get high off, and some stuff like that. At the time, it was devastating. I'm sorry to hear that.

Had they known what 45s or acetates were... the story would have ended very differently for the teens, but they did not, and what their grandma promised she'd do to the boys (and with the cops standing over them while she said it...), I felt justice was done - or rather, I accepted their apology. I have no idea if they learned their lesson, but they sure seemed scared.

Why did I travel with acetates and 45s? Using the sound guys to help transfer to hi-rez WAV of course! (This was about 10 years ago now..)

When Katrina hit, a lot of Randy's huge fans were, and are from, New Orleans.

Randy and his manager sent some of the more notable fans who were public about their collection and admiration for his work replacement CDs for what they lost.

No one asked them to do it - Randy and his manager Cathy took it upon themselves to send out CDs - one huge fan kept his collection on the first floor of his house in New Orleans and although Randy didn't replace the LPs, he sent his CD catalogue to him...

Jeff

 

Thanks, Andy.