Former Beatle Hard at Work (1981)

 Former Beatle Hard at Work

By Patrick Riordan

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

March 8, 1981

    Just past the white-washed bridge not far from the carpenter shop, up the steep unmarked road that turns off to the right between the two ancient mango trees, is the sign Paul McCartney drives past every day about 1pm local time: Air Studios, Montserrat Ltd, strictly no admittance, except by prior arrangements.

    Beefy guards from Professional Security Group Inc of New York stand watch over McCartney's personal safety and his 4.6 tons of musical luggage. From the looks of it, some secret project may be going on. Some people speculate that there will be a Beatles reunion record in memory of John Lennon, who was shot to death December 8. 

    "Not so," says George Martin, the legendary electronics engineer who was dubbed the fifth Beatle for his masterful recording techniques for the rock group during the 1960s.  Martin, who happens to own AIR Studios, indicated the recording project is a McCartney album without the former  Beatles group Wings.

     Their tribute to John is in themselves," Martin said in an interview at the studio on Sunday. "To go and make a tribute album is cashing in, I think, on John's death."

     Fueling the Beatles reunion rumor, were the presence recently of ex-Beatle Ringo Starr for a recording session, and reports that the third living former Beatle, George Harrison, may record some tracks for the album later in London. 

    The album that McCartney and Martin are working on will be the first they have produced together since Abbey Road, the last Beatles album. "We're trying to get back to something we had before," Martin said. "The album is expected to be completed by the end of March and is to be released later this year."

     Except for a minor car accident that McCartney had with an Associated Press photographer recently, his month in the British West Indies has gone smoothly. He has declined to be interviewed by the newspaper and television reporters who converged on the isolated island after rumors began circulating earlier this month that the surviving Beatles were reuniting for an album.

     Someone who is close to McCartney and who asked not to be named said that the singer-songwriter's only complaint has been the lack of wind surfers on the island. He waterskis a lot in Woodlands Bay.

     McCartney drives to the studio from his rented villa on the island's Northwest coast. The villa is a converted monastery overlooking the nearby island of Redonda. He works hard in light of the February 28 deadline to put down his tracks for the album. "They start about 1pm, and they don't get out of the studio until midnight," a spokesman for AIR studio said of McCartney and Martin.

     Locally, McCartney's visit inspired only moderate interest. While much of the outside world has hung on every word of a possible Beatles reunion, local folks still think last year's visit by the soul-oriented group Earth, Wind & Fire was more exciting.

     Montserrat is a study in isolation, a crown colony that cultivates the image and, in large measure, seems to achieve the reality of the perfect, unspoiled Caribbean island. Few planes arrive. Indeed, one of the attractions of the 39-square-mile paradise, first colonized by the Irish, is that the difficulty of getting here discourages low-rent tourism. 

    No jets can land here to disgorge economy fair vacationers. The aircraft of choice is the British Norman tri lander, a tri-motor airplane with two propellers on the wings and a third mounted on the tail, known locally as the Mini Concord. It is the workhorse of Leeward Island air transport (LI A T), the only airline servicing the island. Most tourists arrive from Antigua, about 50 minutes away by propeller plane. Landing is a thrill. Planes fly low over the waves directly toward a sheer rock cliff until they're within a few 100 yards of land.