Cold Cuts (also known as Hot Hitz/Kold Kutz) is an unreleased album of outtakes by Paul McCartney. The album was originally planned to be released in 1975 and McCartney revisited the project several times over the years, changing the tracklist and adding overdubs to the tracks, until the project was abandoned permanently in the late 1980s. The songs on the album were recorded during his solo career and with Wings in the 1970s and 1980s.
The album was originally conceived as a budget release in 1975, composed of non-album singles and previously unreleased tracks.[1][2] McCartney began work on the album during Wings' recording sessions in Nashville, Tennessee in July 1974, recording several new songs and overdubbing some previously unused tracks. The album, variously referred to as Cold Cuts or Hot Hitz and Kold Kutz, was slated for release in March 1975 but never materialized.[3][4] The project was abandoned when McCartney's label commented “Why have cold cuts on a hot hits album?”[5] The Hot Hitz disc idea was later revisited in 1978 as Wings Greatest.
In January 1981, McCartney and Wings recorded additional overdubs for the unreleased tracks with the album slated for release in early 1981.[6] This time it was to be a standalone album retitled Cold Cuts. However, Columbia Records was not interested in releasing an album of outtakes and the album was shelved.[7] It was also believed that its release soon after the murder of John Lennon would seem inappropriate.[2]
The project was rebooted again in late 1986 and further overdubs to the McCartney II outtake "Blue Sway" were done with arranger-producer Richard Niles.[8][9] The final sessions that attempted an official release of Cold Cuts was in August 1987. McCartney mixed and edited another version of the album with producer Chris Thomas and engineer Bill Price.[10] That album also went unreleased and, after bootleg versions appeared on the market, McCartney abandoned the project permanently.[11]
Below is a list of the possible tracks that were under consideration over the lifetime of the project. Most of these songs have appeared on various bootlegs connected to the album.
To date, an official track listing has never been announced. However, various bootlegs of the different versions have appeared on the market. These bootleg versions show the Cold Cuts project in its various stages of mixing and different overdubs on the recordings over the years.
To date, there is no information about the track selection for the album during this period. Songs recorded during the Nashville sessions in July 1974 include:[25]
Side one:
Side two:
Side three:
Side four:
This version was presented to EMI/Capitol in October 1978 as a hits and rarities compilation to be titled Hot Hitz/Kold Kutz.[26] The Hot Hitz disc was repackaged as Wings Greatest in November 1978.[26] The Kold Kutz disc would be leaked in 1988 as bootleg LP titled Cold Cuts (Another Early Version).
McCartney returned to the project in 1980, this time it was to be a standalone album retitled Cold Cuts. Members of Wings added additional overdubs to the tracks "A Love For You", "Waterspout", "My Carnival" and "Same Time Next Year" in January 1981; but none of those overdubs were later used except for the ones on "A Love For You".[27] This version also removed the Linda McCartney and Denny Laine vocal tracks in order to create a more commercial offering.[28]
Side one:
Side two:
Further overdubs to "A Love For You" were done in 1986. This version would be released on the Deluxe Edition of Ram in 2012 as the "Jon Kelly Mix".[29] In 1987, this version of the album leaked onto the bootleg market as an LP titled Cold Cuts (Club Sandwich SP-11)
The version of "Night Out" features additional vocals not featured on the Red Rose Speedway 2018 reissue version.
Side one:
Side two:
This is the final known version of the album. This time, "Blue Sway" was added to the line-up, with new overdubs from arranger-producer Richard Niles. Also, "A Love for You" was remixed. According to an interview with McCartney in 1994, this version was to feature album art by Saul Steinberg.[30] Steinberg's art would later appear on the "Put It There" single cover.
Paul's new manager, Richard Odgen, recommended that, at this point in McCartney's career, releasing a best-of compilation would be a better idea, so Cold Cuts was scrapped in place of All the Best! "Waterspout" was initially planned to be released on that album but was pulled at the last minute (originally the first track on side 2). All the Best! was released in November 1987.
Richard Niles' overdubs on "Blue Sway" would be officially released on the Deluxe Edition of McCartney II in 2010.