Welcome to your fantastic Friday edition of the Laptop Sessions! Today I bring you a fantastic – if short – song from Paul McCartney.
The song is the title track from his 1997 album Flaming Pie, and is a great song. I heard this song (and then, this album) thanks to Jim playing it for a show we did back in 2001.
I hope to learn some more tunes from Paul in the future for more sessions. He really is quite a writer and this is expected given who he is.
I also hope you enjoy this video, and thank you for continuing to watch The Laptop Sessions.
As always, check https://guitarbucketlist.com/ for more! And, be sure to look for the release of my new EP “Greenlight” on February 24th.
Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up. We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session. We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future. But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!
Welcome, one and all, to the new and improved Laptop Sessions Cover Songs Music Blog! If you’re a regular viewer, make sure to check out the homepage of guitarbucketlist.com and see our new features and new redesign. It may not seem that different at first, but I think you’ll agree that it’s much easier to navigate, especially if you were a first-time viewer. And, for a limited time, you can get a free mp3 download of my album, “What About Today?” by subscribing to the music blog! That’s right- just enter your name and email address and we’ll send you new acoustic cover song music videos every week- cancel at any time, but keep the free mp3 download as our gift to you. Sounds like an infomercial, doesn’t it? 🙂
Tonight’s video will also be the last one in HD (there may be a couple of instances where I can’t get the HD camera, though). Today, after a scare, I got our new HD video camcorder! It’s a Canon HV10 and man, what a good deal we got on it. I found it on eBay in Canada and paid literally a third of the price for it. It’s basically brand-new and came with a whole bunch of accessories and extra tapes. But, don’t go thinking I went out and bought a camera just for this- I got it to finally play back our wedding videos (which were shot in HD) and edit them onto Blu-Ray. I can’t wait to see how it came out! Not too many people these days gettin’ married in HD.
I’m also posting this relatively early tonight in hopes that my music partner Steve will be able to see it before he goes to bed.
Tonight’s video is a slightly obscure one from Paul McCartney from his 1997 album, Flaming Pie. What a great album. Steve and I played for about a half hour extra last Thursday, just going through every song on that album. I’ve written about my love for Flaming Pie in the past (click on the Paul McCartney category in the upper left on the sidebar to see my other posts), but this is actually good timing because I haven’t recorded a McCartney song for months. Plus, I have Steve with me, playing his usual great guitar and singing the bridge with me.
“If You Wanna” is just a good driving song- when Paul McCartney got together with Steve Miller for a writing session, he promised himself he wouldn’t write an Americana driving song….so much for that idea. But, it was really fun recording this one- Steve and I always get so pumped after a good take. And this one was ONE TAKE! We had never even practiced it before! We just went over the structure once and hit record. Such is life when you’re running on a tight schedule. I keep hoping for the days when we can have a lot of time to just jam and record a bunch of tunes.
Of course, you’ll see me playing our colleague Noreen’s beautiful Gibson 1967 12-string acoustic, which never sounded better. I’m hoping she’ll let me borrow it next week so I can record a song from a sorely underrated band. That song will usher in the “holiday” (there’s a clue) season nicely. Speaking of the upcoming holiday, I’m incredibly excited!! I can’t wait to finally play some video games, eat, and go shopping for someone else for a change! We’re hoping to do the midnight madness at our local chain of outlet stores. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on trampling anyone for a TV at Wal-Mart or anything. We’re just looking forward to a really cool opportunity to ring in my favorite time of year: Christmastime! You know, we’ve recorded many Christmas songs already- you should check out some of those acoustic videos by choosing the “Christmas Songs” category up top.
I hope you enjoy tonight’s collaborative effort and I’ll be back next Tuesday with an all-new video in HD for the first time! See you then.
Hey folks! Today, I bring you a favorite song of the Fusco family in “Little Willow” by Paul McCartney. “Flaming Pie” is one of my favorite all-time albums and that’s because we listened to it CONSTANTLY when it came out, during vacation, and all throughout the summer. It always brings back fond memories and I always play the album when I take my own vacations now.
It’s fitting that I’m presenting this song today, as we’re in the midst of Tropical Storm Hanna up here in Connecticut. Hopefully it won’t be too bad because I have a video job (taping an anniversary party) up at the Mohegan Sun casino tonight. Should be fun, but who wants to drive an hour in a tropical storm?
So, why is it so fitting? Well, I read in the liner notes of “Flaming Pie” (which is the booklet I modeled the booklet to my first album, “With Or Without You”, after exactly) that this song, “Little Willow”, was written to calm people after a hurricane. It’s such a great song- so simple, but it has a great calming effect. I thought it was a perfect one to do while outside with my nylon string guitar.
There’s also “Heaven on a Sunday” off of this album that makes me feel so calm. I guess that’s the point of the song, but it always reminded me of a particular summer when I went to Boy Scout camp in Camp Sequassen. That must’ve been a busy summer. No wonder I remember this album so well! Anyway, I used to get to fish off of a row boat there. Having “Heaven on a Sunday” (“cooling my fingers in the bay…”) stuck in my head while peacefully fishing was a zen-like experience. I think of that moment and it takes me right back there.
On another topic, how about Jeff with his Beatles cover yesterday? And Chris doing Hendrix? Amazing, folks- you never know what you’re going to get next on this music video blog- the BEST music video blog in the universe! Starting in a couple weeks, we’ll be bringing you yet another “New Bands Week” here on the Sessions because we love to challenge ourselves and entertain you.
I’ll be making a couple of BIG announcements in the next few minutes here on the music blog, so stay tuned and for now, enjoy today’s music video!
Welcome to your Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions!
Today, I bring you a tune that I covered on my album “That’s All Folks” called “Great Day” by Paul McCartney. It closes out his 1997 album “Flaming Pie”, one of my all-time favorites. That album, “That’s All Folks”, came about because I had purchased my first good acoustic guitar. That guitar meant everything to me- it sounded great, played great, and made me feel like a real musician. I didn’t even really know how to play too well when I bought it. So, I learned how to play a bunch of songs I was listening to at the time. That taught me more chords, which turned me into a better player. And, at the time, I was going through a HUGE Paul McCartney phase. They had just released “Wingspan” with all of Wings’ greatest hits. I know those songs probably grate on people after all this time, but they were all new to me- and I fell for it pretty hard. We were also listening, as a family, to Paul’s albums from the 90s quite a bit. The first real song I learned how to play (and played it for my parents) was, of all things, “Hope of Deliverance” by Paul McCartney off of the “Off the Ground” album from the early 90s. I guess you could say that Paul McCartney’s songs really taught me how to play. And when it comes to rock musicians, you can’t get a much better tutor than him.
This is the perfect acoustic song and gives quite a vocal workout, which you wouldn’t expect in such a simple song. I decided to do this acoustic cover song on my nylon-string classical acoustic guitar, as it gave me the opportunity to be more expressive in my performance. This song is very soulful, which you wouldn’t really expect from the lyrics. I kind of dumbed-down the guitar picking riff throughout because that’s not really my thing. I’m a strummer and a soloist, but can’t do the flat-picking thing too well. Paul McCartney, the phenom that he is, is proficient at almost anything, musically. The man is one of the best bass players of all time, he can play the drums, sing (obviously), write songs, and play any guitar part you throw in front of him. Oh, and he’s written some of the most famous rock songs of all time on the piano, as well. That’s a pretty impressive life, for sure!
I hope you all enjoy today’s Session, as I’ll be back on Wednesday with a “political” original song- don’t miss it!
