The Paul McCartney album “Run Devil Run” was inspired by a herbal medicine (Pagan) shop in what McCartney called the “funky” part of Atlanta, Georgia.
McCartney’s inspiration for both the title song “Run Devil Run” the album title occurred when he and his son James stopped by Miller’s Rexall Drugs shop in January of 1999. As he explained,
“We went down there and were just wandering around the block and we came across this sort of voodoo shop selling cures for everything. I was looking in the shop window and I saw this bottle of bath salts called ‘Run Devil Run”
McCartney took some photos of the storefront but eventually asked a professional photographer to take some more shots for the album cover. Here is a photo of the shop. It is located at 87 Broad Street SW, Atlanta Georgia.
Although it’s called Miller’s Rexall Drugs, the back cover of the album changed the shops name to Earl’s Quick E Drugs. The title “Run Devil Run” was also added to the awning. Besides those changes the rest of the storefront stayed the same right down to the Herbal Viagra advertisements.
Released on October 4, 1999, the album features covers of familiar and obscure 1950’s Rock N’ Roll songs, along with three new McCartney songs written in the same style.