Sir Paul McCartney has confirmed he will release a new album early next year.
The as-yet-untitled LP will be released on February 6th 2012. The record will comprise two new tracks along side a collection of covers which Sir Paul has said inspired him during his childhood, and will feature guest appearances from Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder.
“When I kind of got into songwriting, I realised how well structured these songs were and I think I took a lot of my lessons from them,” McCartney explains.
“I always thought artists like Fred Astaire were very cool. Writers like Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, all of those guys – I just thought the songs were magical. And then, as I got to be a songwriter I thought it’s beautiful, the way they made those song’.”
“It was very spontaneous, kind of organic, which then reminded me of the way we’d work with The Beatles,” he continued on the album’s recording. “We’d bring a song in, kick it around, when we found a way to do it we’d say ‘Okay, let’s do a take now’ and by the time everyone kind of had an idea of what they were doing, we’d learnt the song. So that’s what we did, we did the take live in the studio.”
“It was important for me to keep away from the more obvious song choices so, many of the classic standards will be unfamiliar to some people. I hope they are in for a pleasant surprise.”
Sir Paul McCartney is due to finish up a short tour of UK arenas tonight (December 19th) and tomorrow, playing the MEN Arena and Liverpool Echo Arena respectively.