Paul Du Noyer: Conversations With McCartney

Revealing chats with Sir Macca of Fab.

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Paul Du Noyer is not only a music journalist and writer of great standing, with special responsibility for his home city of Liverpool, but he’s also one of the few journos to work regularly with Paul McCartney.

His collaborations with Macca on tour programmes and the like over the years tie in neatly with the many interviews McCartney has given him for a whole heap of magazines. It makes more than a little sense, therefore, for Du Noyer to bring out this book, probably the best-compiled collection of… well, see the book’s title.

Du Noyer’s journalistic ear and sympathy for McCartney’s work combine brilliantly to produce an overview of Macca’s entire career, as well as all manner of insights into the way he works. There’s emotion, nostalgia, steeliness and a respect (on the part of both Pauls) for the creative process, which reaches deep into the heart of this book.

There may be only a few surprises, but it’s hard to see how there could be when McCartney has probably been interviewed more times than any other living musician. Instead we get a fantastic biography and autobiography in one.

David Quantick

David Quantick is an English novelist, comedy writer and critic, who has worked as a journalist and screenwriter. A former staff writer for the music magazine NME, his writing credits have included On the HourBlue JamTV Burp and Veep; for the latter of these he won an Emmy in 2015.