The two surviving members of The Beatles may “come together” for the Rolling Stones’ upcoming album.
Paul McCartney, 80, and Ringo Starr, 82, are reported to both play a part in the currently unannounced Stones album.
According to Variety, McCartney has recorded bass parts during recording sessions that took place in Los Angeles in recent weeks, and Starr is also slated to play drums.
It’s currently unclear whether McCartney and Starr will end up on the same track or which songs will make the final track list. The album, produced by 2021 Grammy Producer of the Year Andrew Watt, is getting close to the mixing phase and has “a lot of tracks done,” Mick Jagger shared in 2021.
Last month, guitarist Keith Richards shared with fans in an Instagram video that “there’s some new music on its way.”
It’s thought that the album will feature recorded parts from the late founding drummer Charlie Watts, who died “peacefully” in August 2021. He passed shortly after stepping down from his role in the band due to an undisclosed medical procedure, just before they were scheduled to relaunch a tour postponed by the pandemic.
Jagger, 79, and Richards, 79, confirmed after Watts’ passing that he had recorded a number of songs prior to his death.
“Let me put it this way,” Richards told the Los Angeles Times in 2021. “You haven’t heard the last of Charlie Watts.”
The Rolling Stones and The Beatles are longtime acquaintances and have a history of friendly rivalry. It’s been almost 60 years since they first met, and they’ve rarely collaborated on music.
The Stones’ first hit was actually a cover of the Beatles’ “I Wanna Be Your Man” in 1963, and John Lennon and McCartney later sang backup on the Stones’ song “We Love You” in 1967.
Also in 1967, the Stones’ Brian Jones played saxophone on The Beatles’ “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number).”
But the friendly battle of the bands intensified in 2021 when McCartney described the Stones as a “blues cover band” — seemingly referencing their album of blues covers.
Jagger later joked at a concert in which McCartney was in attendance that he would “join us in a blues cover.”
Richards later said that McCartney reached out to clarify the comment was taken out of context.
The upcoming record would mark the Rolling Stones’ first album of original material since 2005’s “A Bigger Bang.” (Their most recent album, however, was 2016’s collection of covers, “Blue & Lonesome.”)
The Rolling Stones have put out 30 studio albums over the span of their more than 60 years together as a band.
