Following last year's deluxe reissue of Band on the Run, MPL and the Concord Music Group are pleased to announce McCartney and McCartney II as the next releases in the Paul McCartney Archive Collection on June 14th, 2011.

McCartney will be made available as a 2-disc (2 CD) Special Edition featuring the original remastered album plus seven bonus audio tracks including the previously unreleased outtakes “Suicide” and “Don’t Cry Baby” plus a rare live 1979 recording of “Maybe I’m Amazed”. For collectors, the reissue will also be made available as a lavishly packaged 3 disc (2 CD, 1 DVD) Deluxe Edition which includes an exclusive bonus DVD featuring rare and previously unseen footage, an extraordinary 128-page hard bound book containing many exclusive and unpublished photos by Paul and Linda McCartney, original album artwork, downloadable hi-res audio versions of the remastered album and bonus audio tracks, an illustrated history of the making of the album, and expanded track by track information for the two audio discs as well as detailed historical information on the film content.

McCartney was Paul McCartney’s first solo outing which was originally released in 1970, immediately prior to the release of The Beatles’ final studio disc Let It Be. McCartney dropped a ‘bombshell’ with this release when he publicly announced his departure from the Beatles in the form of a Q & A package included in advance copies of the album.

Except from Q&A
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Q: "Is this album a rest away from the Beatles or the start of a solo career?"

PAUL: "Time will tell. Being a solo album means it's 'the start of a solo career...and not being done with the Beatles means it's just a rest. So it's both."

Q: "Is your break with the Beatles temporary or permanent, due to personal differences or musical ones?"

PAUL: "Personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my family. Temporary or permanent? I don't really know."

Q: "Do you foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active songwriting partnership again?"

PAUL: "No."
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Both George Harrison and John Lennon took some swipes at this album when it was originally released but they seemed to have missed the point that this was a cathartic album for McCartney as he was trying to come to grips with his new post-Beatles life. The tracks on this release aren’t the rich, fully produced songs of Wings or later-day McCartney solo work; Paul played all the instruments on this disc and these are stripped-down demos that have been built up into full songs through multi-tracking. While this disc contains the McCartney concert staple “Maybe I’m Amazed” (and George Harrison commented at the time of this album’s release that “That Would Be Something” was “great”), the disc also contains a number of experimental tracks and instrumentals.

Here is what is on the 2CD/DVD set:

CD 1 - Original Album [13 tracks / 35 minutes]

CD 2 - Bonus Audio Tracks [26 Minutes]
1. "Suicide” [Outtake]
More of a "work-in-progress" take than an outtake with a lot of improvisational/scat lyrics and a couple run-throughs of the same verse

2. "Maybe I'm Amazed” [From the "One Hand Clapping" Video – Abbey Road 1974]
Video included in the Band on the Run deluxe edition but previously unreleased as an audio track

3. "Every Night"
4. "Hot As Sun"
5. "Maybe I'm Amazed"
Tracks 3-5 from Wing’s final concert: Glasgow, December 17, 1979

6. "Don't Cry Baby” [Outtake - Instrumental version of "Oo You"]

7. "Women Kind” [Demo - Mono]
I'm not sure where/how this fits in with Macca's first solo disc as this take sounds like it is from the "Piano Tapes" session (and resultant bootleg) which is believed to have been recorded in late '73/early '74.

DVD - Bonus Film [32 Minutes]
1. "The Album Story" [A “making of the album” vignette with some brief reflections by Paul and some great still footage of The Beatles and McCartney]

2. "The Beach" [Home movie/still shot in 1970 in Scotland]

3. "Maybe I'm Amazed” Promo Video

4. "Suicide" [from the "One Hand Clapping" Video – Abbey Road 1974]

5. "Every Night” [Live at Concert for the People of Kampuchea - December 29, 1979]

6. "Hot As Sun” [Live at Concert for the People of Kampuchea – December 29, 1979]

7. "Junk” [MTV Unplugged - January 25, 1991]

8. "That Would Be Something” [MTV Unplugged – January 25, 1991]



Links:
Paul McCartney