Paul McCartney’s tenth solo album, 1997’s Flaming Pie, will become the 13th instalment in his Grammy-winning Archive Collection on 31 July. The acclaimed set, which featured such favourites as ‘Young Boy,’ ‘Calico Skies’ and ‘Beautiful Night,’ will be released in multiple formats with a treasure trove of unheard home recordings, demos and other rarities.
The formats for the Flaming Pie archive sets include a 5CD/2DVD Deluxe Edition Box Set as well as 3LP, 2LP and 2CD formats. All digital pre-orders for the release will include ‘Young Boy,’ which is also available as a stand-alone for digital download & streaming.
The ‘Young Boy’ EP recreates the 1997 maxi-single with the remastered lead track (which featured McCartney’s old friend Steve Miller and was a top 20 hit in the UK and top three in Spain) as well as a home-recorded version of the song, the original B-side ‘Looking For You’ and excerpts of ‘Oobu Joobu Part 1,’ also from the original single. ‘Looking For You’ featured Ringo Starr and Jeff Lynne. The two music videos for the track have been restored and are also now available. Two additional EPs will be released ahead of the Flaming Pie reissue, ‘The World Tonight’ on 26 June and ‘Beautiful Night’ on 17 July.
Flaming Pie was originally released on 5 May 1997, ending a four-year gap between McCartney studio albums since Off The Ground. It was recorded largely after Paul’s involvement in the curation and release of The Beatles Anthology series and took inspiration from that experience.
Anthology, he said, “reminded me of The Beatles’ standards and the standards that we reached with the songs. So in a way it was a refresher course that set the framework for this album.” Flaming Pie was produced by Paul, Jeff Lynne and George Martin and featured family and friends including Starr, Miller, Linda McCartney and son James.
As Beatles aficionados know, the album was titled after a quote from an early interview with John Lennon, in which he gave a typically satirical explanation of the origin of The Beatles’ name: “It came in a vision – a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, ‘from this day on you are Beatles with an A.’”
Flaming Pie received rapturous reviews and became McCartney’s most commercially successful release of the 1990s. It achieved his highest chart positions since the 1980s and went gold in the US, UK, Japan and beyond.
The BOX DELUXE EDITION Flaming Pie features the original album remastered at Abbey Road Studios, 32 bonus audio tracks including unheard home recordings and demos, alternative studio recordings, rough mixes and B-sides including selections from Oobu Joobu parts 1-6.
Also included is the Flaming Pie At The Mill CD (Paul’s hour-long tour of his studio), video content including the In The World Tonight documentary, original music videos, EPKs, interviews, performances and behind-the-scenes material, a 128-page book containing previously unpublished images by Linda McCartney, expanded album artwork from the archives and the story behind the album written by Chris Heath.
This includes track-by-track information, recipes and new interviews with Paul, Ringo, Jeff Lynne, Steve Miller and key album personnel, studio notes, handwritten lyrics, the 1997 Flaming Pie issue of the McCartney Fanclub official newspaper Club Sandwich, downloadable 24bit 96kHz HD audio and more.
Additional Flaming Pie DELUXE EDITION BOX SET format will include 2CD (the remastered album + 21 tracks of bonus audio), 2LP (remastered album cut at half speed across two 180 gram LPs in gatefold sleeve with booklet), and 3LP (the remastered album cut at half speed across two 180g gram LPs in gatefold sleeve with booklet, plus single 180g LP of unreleased home recordings in hand-stamped white label sleeve both housed in a slipcase).
Flaming Pie will be released in multiple formats on 31 July. PRE-ORDER HERE., OR HERE.