Bill Malchow

So I am sitting here, transcribing french horn parts from Paul McCartney's Little Lamb/Dragonfly.

From time to time I play with two Beatles tribute bands.  One is "Bubble Does Beatles", they play mostly to kids and their families, the other is Larrry Russell's Beatlestock who play to adults and try to do more of a sing along thing.   Mostly my role is to play piano, organ and write out parts for strings and horns. Usually we can't afford the horns/strings so I play all those trumpet, violins etc on the keyboard. Occasionally I sing a lead.

I took the gigs cause I always liked the Beatles and figure why not learn all those cool little things that George Martin did.    But every gig turns into mountains of work. Late nights transcribing the tunes, writing charts out, and trying to program my keyboard to sound like backward saxophones through guitar amps. 
Too much work.  Typically a week before the gig I swear I'll never do another one

Then the show comes and you think, wow that was lots of fun, the crowd loved us, I learned some great tunes.  Some time passes and I think oh that wasn't so bad, sure I'll do "Abbey Road" etc.     So here comes another one.

Larry Russel (leader of Beatlestock) says "hey, B.B. King's wants us to do a Paul McCartney birthday show"  I think, Hmm... I've done enough shows that I have charts for nearly every beatles song, this show will be easy. B.B. Kings is nice too. "Ok Larry I'm in". 

Setlists suggestions go back and forth and next thing you know we are doing lots of Paul McCartney solo and Wings tunes.  Dang.  More tunes I've never heard, more charts, more questions like "how can I play that french horn part while I play those flutes"... grrr.  I'm never doing another show again.

I must say though, Paul, if your reading this, nice job! There is some pretty cool stuff here. Mrs. Vanderbilt (hey heyo), Backseat of my Car, Venus and Mars and others (I won't give it all away).   Also, did you know that Badfinger tune "Come and Get It" was written by Paul?  Now we both do.

Larry Russel's Beatles Stock - Thursday June 18. @ B.B. Kings.