A little look at Paul's friendship with artist Humphrey Ocean.
Personal thoughts in green.
Humphrey Ocean and Paul McCartney in 1983, photo by Linda McCartney.
Humphrey Ocean is a British artist who was also briefly the bass player in Kilburn and the Highwoods (a band formed by Ian Dury, while Ian was teaching Humphrey art at Canterbury College of Art). While Humphrey was in the band, they opened for The Who on their tour in 1973.
Humphrey's early art work included record album covers and sleeves, and in 1976 contributed the inner sleeve for Wings at the Speed Of Sound.
Humphrey was then invited on the American leg of the Wings Over The World tour in 1976 as the band's 'artist in residence' and spent time keeping a diary, sketching, and painting the band.
He's mentioned in an article titled 'The Cat Got Your Tongue, Paul?' by Stan Mieses in the Daily News from 30 May 1976, when Stan interviewed Paul and Linda about their Nassau Coliseum show.
There's a clipping below, but for ease of reading it has been written up HERE. (The article has a weird tone and the reporter does not seem to like Paul.)
And here's some enjoyable quotes about Humphrey from the article (eg. him matching the McCartney's weird):
Humphrey was introduced lavishly by Linda as "our friend."Ā A skinny young man of medium height. He wore pink plastic sunglasses, the drugstore counter kind, which were much too narrow for his narrow face, a seersucker sports jacket with a contrasting plaid shirt, and a further offsetting patterned narrow tie. His pants were too short and his socks didn't match.Ā All that was missing were shoes with bells on them.Ā
***
"Hold it!" shouted Linda, cocking the Polaroid (she was once a photographer). (WAS ONCE ??)
"What we need here is some balance!" cried Humphrey, leaping to his feet, he ran over to the table at the center of the room and picked up a half filled cup of Coke, placed it on the back of his hand, and walked it around the room until it teetered and fell to the applause of the McCartneys.
"This is the kind of regularity we seek", he said, with a charming grin. "Your time off on a tour is rather important. On days off, we take our shoes off and sit around, kind of like Archie Bunker."
'The Cat Got Your Tongue, Paul?' by Stan Mieses in the Daily News from 30 May 1976
The drawings were eventually released in a book called 'The Ocean View' in December 1982.
I believe most of it has been uploaded HERE. But here are some of my favourites:
In 1983 Humphrey was then commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to do a portrait of Paul, which was unveiled in February 1984.
Paul's 2007 album, Memory Almost Full also features Humphrey's artwork as the front cover, one of the drawings from Humphrey's Chair Series (full series available HERE):
Memory Almost Full album cover (left), Black Stripey Love Chair (right)
About the artwork, Paul said on his website HERE:
After completing the album I then started thinking about the album artwork and how Iād want it to look. I really wanted to make the CD a desirable object. Something that I know Iād want to pick up from the shelf, something that would make people curious. I hope our final concept has done that. The album sleeve itself includes an etching by a friend of mine, Humphrey Ocean. As with the album lyrics, Iām looking forward to seeing how people might interpret the artwork.
There's an interesting conversation with Humphrey HERE, where he talks about art, the genesis of ideas, and colour, and I think you can really tell what would have drawn Paul to him, plus the fact they must have bonded over bass playing!
Also despite MAF being my favourite Paul album, I've always felt the artwork is one of the weakest, but knowing it was an etching done by someone who's clearly a close friend, it's really endeared me to it!
I'll finish up by sharing this 5 min interview HERE if you want a quick overview of him.
McCartney is, however, an especially ādifficultā boss, he says.
āHe is a well-rounded entertainer excelling in all fields ranging from music to photography to art,ā he uttered. āMeeting his high standards is extremely tough and that sometimes gets people in a cold sweat. But if they can satisfy him with their work, he is such a warm-hearted person to team up with. In my case, he always cares a lot about my family, frequently inviting them to his concerts and asking them questions about their everyday life. He has also paid tuition for my children.ā
Even when Kim was in a slump, the former Beatles bassist did not fire him.
āAfter working with McCartney for several years, I was resting on my laurels,ā Kim revealed. āI was envious of other photographers working in different areas and could not please myself with my photos. As a consequence, the quality of my work deterioratedā¦ McCartney, however, did not immediately dismiss me. Instead, he looked me straight in the eye and said, 'MJ, your photos no longer thrill me.'ā
His words were like a wake-up call for Kim.
āRealizing that McCartney gave me a second chance, I began to change myself,ā Kim said.
Photographer MJ Kim on working with Paul McCartney in an interview with Korea Times, 2021.
ā(Just Like) Starting Overā is very McLennon coded and is about flying away and going on a trip somewhere to rekindle a love between two people who have grown and known each other for a long time to be ātogether all alone againā like they āused to in the early daysā
It makes you wonder if the song is referring to the trip to Paris that John and Paul went on in the early days of the Beatles. It was also written during a time when John and Paul were not on the best terms and were very much in need of starting over.
But THEN, I just came across something that SUPER confirms this.
āStarting Overā In āJohn Lennon: The Collected Artworkā.
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