PAUL TELLS REMIXERS IT´S "WELL COOL" TO MASH UP THE BEATLES

EMI came down like a ton of bricks on Danger Mouse’s innovative 2006 Grey Album, a bootleg mash-up of The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album. The Beatles’ record company sent cease and desist letters over its use of unauthorised samples after more than 100,00 copies were downloaded.

Now Sir Paul McCartney has given the thumbs up to dance producers who want to give the Beatles hits an unofficial remix. Macca revealed that he secretly approved of The Grey Album and thought it was a tribute.

“I didn’t mind when something like that happened with the Grey Album,” he tells a Rario 1 documentary on the Beatles and Black Music broadcast next Monday. “But the thing was the record company minded. They didn’t like that and they put up a bit of a fuss. But it was like, take it easy guys, it’s a tribute.”

Macca wants more producers to sample the Beatles: “It was really cool when hip-hop started, you would hear references in lyrics, you always felt honoured. It’s exactly what we did in the beginning – introducing black soul music to a mass white audience. It’s come full circle, it’s well cool.”

“When you hear a riff similar to your own, your first feeling is ‘rip-off’. After you’ve got over it you think, look at that, someone’s noticed that riff.”

Sampling Beatles songs also helps make Macca even richer. Questlove of The Roots sampled the Fab Four hit Hey Bulldog. He said: “When you want to cover the Beatles, there’s a mighty price to pay. Had I known I might have shied away from it.”

McCartney listens to all conventional Beatles cover versions: “There’s so many covers of Beatles songs, whether they are musically good or not, as a composer it’s a tribute.

There are certain versions that stand out. Most of the black artist, people like Marvin Gaye (Yesterday) and Ray Charles (Eleanor Rigby). The best thing is having your song regurgitated by someone incredible and thinking, wow, did we write that?”

The doc, narrated by DJ Semtex, is aimed at a young urban pop-loving audience who improbably might not know who The Beatles are or why everyone keeps going on about them.

Thumbs up for "cool" mash-ups

It explains how Chuck Berry and black American music influenced the Beatles’ formative years, with Macca wxing lyrical about the “soul, power and energy” of songs the band themselves covered including Twist And Shout.

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