Paul McCartney on his band 'Wings,' plus the story of indie label Bloodshot Records

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

Two new memoirs zoom in on important moments in music history. First, Paul McCartney’s new book Wings reflects on the life of his post-Beatles band, which he formed in London in 1971. In today’s episode, McCartney speaks with NPR’s A Martínez about establishing a distinct identity in The Beatles’ shadow. Then, Rob Miller founded Bloodshot Records in the 1990s when a new sound – “insurgent country” or “alt-country” – was just emerging. Miller joined NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation about his memoir The Hours Are Long, But the Pay Is Low, which tells the story behind the label.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. And if you are a regular listener,
0:07.7	you know we love Friday music pairings run here. So in a bit, the one and only Paul McCartney
0:13.4	is on the pod. His new book is all about his post-Beatles band Wings. But first,
0:18.3	if you are paying any attention right now to current day indie rock,
0:23.0	you know that a lot of it is tinged with Americana, country, folk. This is not the first time
0:28.9	that the punks have picked up the pedal steel. There was a wave of alt country music back in the
0:33.8	90s, particularly out of Chicago, and much of it coming out of one indie label, Bloodshot
0:39.0	Records. Rob Miller is a co-founder of the label, and his new book is about the music scene he helped
0:44.3	cultivate. It's called The Hours Are Long, but the Pay is Low. He talks to NPR Scott Simon
0:49.2	about the book, and whether labels are still necessary today. That's after the break.
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1:18.9	of public radio and seeks to help NPR be the model for high-quality journalism in the 21st century.
1:26.6	In the early 1990s, there was a new sound in music.
1:33.5	Not quite country, not quite rock, not quite punk.
1:41.7	It was dubbed Alt-Country or even the the alternative bubbling up alongside alternative rock and grunge.
1:50.0	Rob Miller called it Insurgent Country and in the 1993 he co-founded Bloodshot Records,
1:56.0	an independent label in Chicago.
1:58.0	The label put out albums by the old 97s, the bottle rockets, and many more.
	...

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