Paul McCartney's sweet gesture as he paid tribute to music legends
Music icon Paul McCartney made a sweet gesture to legendary pop group Sparks after he impersonated one of the members, Ron Mael, in his 1980 video for his song Coming Up. The star ensured the group had a very special memento of the occasion. Paul played all the instruments on the track and the video saw him singing the song on stage as he and wife Linda adopted a range of disguises to make up the members of the fictional band The Plastic Macs including an homage to Ron, whose toothbrush moustache and slicked back hair created an instantly memorable visual when Sparks broke though in 1974.
The group comprised of brothers Russell and Ron Mael, are huge Beatles fans but despite Paul paying tribute to songwriter Ron they still haven't met him. However they revealed they have a very special signed photo of the star dressed as Ron hanging in their studio.
"We never met, Paul McCartney but we know the guitar player Paul has in his band now. And he we were talking to him one day, and there was a poster of, I think it was a Linda McCartney photo of Paul dressed as Ron in that video.
"So we asked our friend who's in the band 'I wonder if you could get Paul to sign this'. So we do have a signed Paul McCartney taken by Linda McCartney photo in our studio," Russell revealed.
Asked how he felt about Paul impersonating him Ron said: "He performs a lot of different other people. And I was honoured just to be imitated, the keyboard player imitated for that video."
Alongside Ron in the clip Paul also paid tribute to many other influential musicians including Buddy Holly, Andy Mackay of Roxy Music and even the Beatle-mania version of himself.
Source: express.co.uk/Fran Winston
