As Paul McCartney describes it, he had always wanted to do an album of old standards. He said that whenever he thought about doing it, though, someone else would put out a similar album and he didn’t want to seem like he was just copying that performer. Eventually, though, he went into Capitol Studios (and this DVD has some cool stuff about the history of the studio, too) and recorded his collection. Now, one might think from this DVD that the music contained here are those actual sessions. They aren’t. Instead, he got a lot of the musicians back together and re-did those songs for this film. While this music probably won’t be for everyone, McCartney shows a heck of a lot of vocal talent doing this music. Additionally, he’s put together a pretty impressive array of musicians. Among those are Joe Walsh, Elvis Costello and wife Diana Krall who are shown in the studio performances and interview clips. Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder are both featured on the album, but not in these live in studio performances. They do have interviews in this DVD, though. All in all, this is intriguing. While I often find shooting in black and white to be trite on the artistic side of things, here it works because of the content. Additionally, it should be noted that while the performances are presented in black and white some interviews and other footage is in color. The whole thing is packaged inside a slick book, and it’s a great product.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2013  Volume 1 at lulu.com/strangesound.