In 1989, Robbie McIntosh formally joined Paul McCartney’s live band, having worked on a number of sessions for the Beatle’s solo record, Flowers in the Dirt.
Though that first session would have been memorable by the very nature of the fact McIntosh was playing with one of the Fab Four, it was made even more special when McCartney ended up giving him a guitar lesson.
And it wasn’t any old guitar lesson, either: Macca showed McIntosh how to play his iconic Blackbird acoustic guitar riff properly, after the former Pretenders guitarist spent years navigating the fretboard-twister incorrectly.
As McIntosh recalls in a new interview with dopeYEAH, “The first session I did, he [McCartney] knew I was a fan. I remember talking about Blackbird, because I learned to play it when I was probably 12 and taught myself to play it.
“There’s one bit where it climbs up [the neck] and I used to play it with a bit of a stretch. I could play it, and it sounded fine, but he went, ‘Oh, no, I play it like this.’ I thought, ‘Of course that’s an easier way to play it.’”
Using a Brian May BMG Red Special, McIntosh demonstrates the difference between how he used to play Blackbird, and how McCartney taught him. For the short chromatic run that moves up from C to E, McIntosh used to stretch across with his pinky finger to fret the melody notes exclusively on the B string.
McCartney, on the other hand, told him he was making it needlessly difficult for himself. Rather, the Beatle revealed he could simply incorporate the high E string, too, and remove the need for unnecessary reaches.
As McIntosh himself explains, it was a far more intuitive way to tackle the song, and it’s the way that most players who have ever searched up the Blackbird tab online will no doubt be familiar with.
Still, it was valuable insight for a self-taught Blackbird fan, and something that would end up coming full circle a few years later.
McIntosh adds, “When we did the Unplugged record for MTV, he did Blackbird but he got me to play it with him. That was fantastic. He could have played it on his own but it was one of the first things we ever talked about when I worked with him. He said, ‘Let’s play it together.’”
Speaking of his time in McCartney’s band last year, McIntosh discussed his favorite songs he’d played with Guitar World, saying, “The Abbey Road medley was fantastic. And we did Sgt. Pepper. I’d grown up with The Beatles so I was familiar with their stuff. We did a lot of stuff from Flowers in the Dirt and Band on the Run. I’d suggest things like Fixing a Hole, and we did Let Me Roll It and All My Loving.”
