WINGS – Beatles Magazine

ON THIS DAY: WINGS CONCERT THE GAUMONT, SOUTHAMPTON

By Beatles Magazine Wednesday, September 9, 2020 In PAUL MCCARTNEY, WINGS 0 No tags 10

Wings took almost two years off after completing their UK tour in 1973 on July 10th in Newcastle. In the intervening years there were several changes in band personal (original Wings drummer Denny Seiwell was replaced by Geoffry Britton and then by Joe English and guitarist Henry McCollough was replaced by Jimmy McCulloch).
Trips to Lagos, Nigeria, Nashville and New Orleans would yield two critically acclaimed LPs Band On The Run and Venus And Mars. In 1975 Wings scheduled and began rehearsing for what would be their first world tour and what would be one of the biggest rock and roll tours to date.
McCartney catered the show to the current demands of arena rock, something which the early Wings tours eschewed even though McCartney had a hand in creating the phenomena with the Beatles in the first place.
Two album’s worth of new material was rehearsed, some older solo and Wings tunes, and a couple of Beatle tunes for the first time. The setlist was designed the current trend to have an acoustic set in the middle along with the massive sound and light show and, for the first time, playing with a full horn section.
The first date on this massive tour was on September 9th at the 2,300 capacity Gaumont Theater in Southampton.

This was the 1st concert played at Gaumont Theatre.

Southampton, Tuesday, September 9, 1975

Setlist for the concert

1.Venus And Mars
2.Rock Show
3.Jet
4.Let Me Roll It
5.Spirits of Ancient Egypt
6.Little Woman Love
7.C Moon
8.Maybe I’m Amazed
9.Lady Madonna
10.The Long And Winding Road
11.Medicine Jar
12.Soily
13.Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)
14.Richard Cory
15.Bluebird
16.I’ve Just Seen A Face
17.Blackbird
18.Yesterday
19.You Gave Me The Answer
20.Magneto And Titanium Man
21.Go Now
22.Junior’s Farm
23.Letting Go
24.Live And Let Die
25.Call Me Back Again
26.My Love
27.Listen To What The Man Said

ON THIS DAY: “JET” WAS ISSUED AS A SINGLE IN THE UK

By Beatles Magazine Monday, February 18, 2019 In PAUL MCCARTNEY, WINGS 0 PAUL MCCARTNEY, WINGS 3

On this day: 18 February , 1974: “Jet” was issued as a single in the UK.

“Jet” is a song by Paul McCartney and Wings from their album Band on the Run. It was the first British and American single to be released from the album. The song’s title was inspired by McCartney’s jet-black Labrador.

The song peaked at number 7 on both the British and American charts on 30 March 1974, also charting in multiple countries in Europe. It has since been released on numerous compilation albums, and has since become one of the band’s best-known tracks.Reviewers have reported that the song’s title was inspired by McCartney’s Labrador Retriever dog named “Jet”. McCartney has also substantiated this claim.We’ve got a Labrador puppy who is a runt, the runt of a litter. We bought her along a roadside in a little pet shop, out in the country one day. She was a bit of a wild dog, a wild girl who wouldn’t stay in. We have a big wall around our house in London, and she wouldn’t stay in, she always used to jump the wall. She’d go out on the town for the evening, like Lady and the Tramp. She must have met up with some big black Labrador or something. She came back one day pregnant. She proceeded to walk into the garage and have this litter… Seven little black puppies, perfect little black Labradors, and she’s not black, she’s tan. So we worked out it must have been a black Labrador. What we do is if either of the dogs we have has a litter, we try to keep them for the puppy stage, so we get the best bit of them, and then when they get a bit unmanageable we ask people if they want to have a puppy. So Jet was one of the puppies. We give them all names. We’ve had some great names, there was one puppy called Golden Molasses. I rather like that. Then there was one called Brown Megs, named after a Capitol executive. They’ve all gone now. The people change the names if they don’t like them.

However, in a 2010 interview on the UK television channel ITV1 for the programme Wings: Band on the Run (to promote the November 2010 CD/DVD re-release of the album) McCartney explained that Jet was the name of a pony he had owned, although many of the lyrics bore little relation to the subject; indeed, the true meaning of the lyrics has defied all attempts at decryption.

The song’s use of the word “suffragette” was described by McCartney as “crazy” and “silly”, not having any deep inspiration.

Recording

Whereas most of the Band on the Run album was recorded in Lagos, Nigeria, “Jet” was recorded entirely at EMI Studios in London after the group’s return (according to engineer Geoff Emerick in his book Here There and Everywhere). Instrumentation used in the song includes electric guitars, bass, Moog, drums, piano, horns and strings. A closer listening reveals the Moog is used for the bass line during the verse and is simply Linda holding the root note.

Release and reception

“Jet” was released as the debut single from Band on the Run in January 1974 (although in some countries, the Non-UK/US single “Mrs. Vandebilt” was released first). The single was a Top 10 hit for Paul McCartney and Wings, peaking at number 7 in both America and Britain. The single was backed with “Let Me Roll It” in Britain. When first released, in America the single’s B-side was “Mamunia”, another track from Band on the Run, but it was soon replaced with the British B-side. The song peaked at number 7 on both the British and American charts on 30 March 1974, also charting in multiple countries in Europe. “Jet” has since been released on multiple compilation albums, including Wings Greatest (1978) and All the Best! (1987).

Prominent music critic Dave Marsh named the song number 793 in his list of the 1001 greatest singles ever made. He referred to it as a “grand pop confection” that represented the only time McCartney approached the “drive and density” of his tenure with the Beatles.^[11] Writer Graham Reid has described it as a power pop “gem”.

The Australian rock band Jet drew their name from the song title.

Personnel

Paul McCartney – lead vocals, guitar, bass guitar, drums
Linda McCartney – backing vocals, keyboards
Denny Laine – backing vocals, guitar
Howie Casey – saxophone

ON THIS DAY: GUITARIST HENRY McCULLOUGH JOINED WINGS

By Beatles Magazine Tuesday, January 29, 2019 In PAUL MCCARTNEY, WINGS 0 HENRY McCULLOUGH, PAUL MCCARTNEY 0

ON THIS DAY 29 January, 1972 : guitarist Henry McCullough joined Wings.

Paul McCartney asked McCullough to join his new band, Wings, alongside Denny Laine and Denny Seiwell. Henry, a session musician (Jesus Christ Superstar) and band member (Joe Cocker’s Grease Band) he also frequently referred to himself as the only Irishman to have played Woodstock. Musical differences with McCartney, however, saw McCullough leave on the eve of the Band on the Run sessions. He had spent two years in the band, playing lead guitar on “Hi, Hi, Hi”, “Live and Let Die” as well as “My Love”.

On 24 January 1972, Paul added to the Wings line-up guitarist Henry McCullough, after he had tried out for the band. The new line-up immediately mounted an impromptu tour of UK universities (with the group driving around in a van), followed by a tour of small European venues. Although this was the first tour including an ex-Beatle after the Beatles broke up, Wings played no Beatles numbers during the tour, to show that it was a new band in its own right.

In February 1972, Wings released a single called “Give Ireland Back to the Irish”, a response to the events of Bloody Sunday. The song was banned by the BBC for its anti-Unionist political stance and only mentioned in chart rundowns on BBC Radio 1 as “a record by Wings”. Despite limited airplay, it reached number 16 in the UK, as well as number 1 in both the Republic of Ireland and Spain. Wings released a children’s song, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, as its next single, which reached the top 10 in the UK. Although some critics interpreted it as a sarcastic reaction to the ban on “Give Ireland Back to the Irish”, it was in fact a serious effort by McCartney to record a song for children. Wings followed it with December 1972’s “Hi, Hi, Hi”, which was again banned by the BBC, this time for its alleged drug and sexual references. The B-side, “C Moon”, was played instead. The single peaked at number 5 in the UK.

The band were renamed “Paul McCartney and Wings” for the 1973 album Red Rose Speedway, which yielded their first US number 1 hit, “My Love”. The album included two tracks left over from the Ram sessions and was originally intended as a two-record set. After producer Glyn Johns had walked out on the project, however, McCartney conceded to EMI’s opinion that the material was “substandard” and cut it down to a single disc. Among the unreleased songs from the seven-month sessions was the Linda composition “Seaside Woman”, which was finally issued in 1977, credited to “Suzy and the Red Stripes”.

Near the end of the Red Rose Speedway sessions, in October 1972, Wings recorded the theme song to the James Bond film Live and Let Die, which reunited McCartney with Beatles producer/arranger George Martin. Issued as a non-album single in mid-1973, “Live and Let Die” became a worldwide hit and has remained a highlight of McCartney’s post-Wings concert performances (often accompanied by pyrotechnics). That same year, McCartney and Wings filmed a TV special, the critically maligned James Paul McCartney, which featured footage of the group performing in outdoor settings and in front of a studio audience.

After a successful British tour in May–June 1973, Wings went into rehearsals for their next album. McCullough and Seiwell abruptly left the band in August, however, at the end of rehearsals. Both musicians were disenchanted with the group’s musical direction and Linda’s inclusion; McCullough also objected to McCartney’s domineering attitude towards him as a guitar player, while Seiwell had long felt aggrieved at the lack of a formalised financial arrangement and his status as a lowly paid sideman.

With the band reduced to a trio, the McCartneys and Laine cut what turned out to be Wings’ most successful album, Band on the Run, at EMI’s primitive eight-track recording studio in Lagos, Nigeria.

LAURENCE JUBER RELEASING DIGITAL VERSION OF DEBUT SOLO ALBUM, FEATURING “MAISIE” WAS RECORDED IN 1978 WITH PAUL AND WINGS

By Beatles Magazine Thursday, February 1, 2018 In PAUL MCCARTNEY, WINGS 0 LAURENCE JUBER 24

Former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber‘s debut solo album, Standard Time, which was first issued in 1982, will be released as a digital download for the first time ever this Friday, January 26. The instrumental collection features two original Juber compositions, one of which, “Maisie,” was recorded in 1978 with Paul McCartney on bass and fellow Wings members Denny Laine and Steve Holley on harmonica and drums, respectively, while the band was working on its final record, Back to the Egg.

Juber has posted a video of “Maisie”, that features text telling the story behind the recording of the track, as well as archival photos of him and his Wings band mates:

Paul and Laurence Juber reunite backstage at Anaheim Stadium in Anaheim, California, on April 17, 1993, during Paul’s solo New World Tour

“Maisie” was my songwriting contribution to the album. It was really my first finger-style guitar piece. It was recorded with Paul, Steve Holley [drums], and Denny Laine [rhythm guitarist] — he’s playing harmonica on the track — so it’s essentially a Wings song.

The album also includes covers of various standards, among them “Stormy Weather,” “Autumn Leaves,” “After You’ve Gone” and “There Never Will Be Another You.” Standard Time came about after McCartney asked Juber to record songs owned by Paul’s publishing company. The original version of Standard Time, which was only issued on vinyl, featured six songs, while the new digital edition boasts 10 tracks.

Here’s the track list of the digital edition of Standard Time:

“You’re No Good”
“Dinah”
“Don’t Let Go”
“Maisie”
“There Will Never Be Another You”
“Stormy Weather”
“Autumn Leaves”
“Four Brothers”
“After You’ve Gone”
“The Christmas Song”

source:ABCRadio

THE LONDON TOWN ALBUM – ARTWORK

By Beatles Magazine Tuesday, August 15, 2017 In ALBUMS, PAUL MCCARTNEY, WINGS 0 ALBUMS, PAUL MCCARTNEY 11

London Town is the sixth studio album by Wings, released in 1978. The album had a long and tumultuous gestation which saw the loss of two band members, the birth of James and the release of the then best-selling single in British history.

In February 1977, Wings began recording sessions at Abbey Road Studios, which continued until the end of March. Here, Wings recorded five songs: “Girls’ School”, “Name and Address”, “London Town”, “Children, Children” and Linda McCartney’s “B-Side to Seaside”, later issued as the flip-side of the Wings single “Seaside Woman” (issued under the name “Suzy and the Red Stripes”).The initial plan of touring the US again was thwarted by Linda’s discovery that she was pregnant with her and Paul’s third child. With the knowledge that they were not going to tour and had time at their disposal – and once again looking for different locales to record in – Wings found themselves moored on a yacht called “Fair Carol” in the Virgin Islands during the month of May where several new songs were recorded. Reflecting the nautical locale, the album’s initial working title was Water Wings. As Linda’s pregnancy progressed, the band halted the sessions for the album, save for the recording of a new track called “Mull of Kintyre” that August and the completion of the already begun “Girls’ School”, which would be released as a single – Wings’ one and only release in 1977.

Before the single’s release came two defections from Wings: drummer Joe English had become homesick for America and returned home, and lead guitarist Jimmy McCulloch left to join the Small Faces that September. For the first time since 1973’s Band on the Run, Wings were down to the core three of Paul, Linda and Denny Laine, reflected on the picture sleeve of the single, which showed the three remaining members. In November, two months after the birth of son James, and shortly after sessions for London Town resumed, the Scottish tribute “Mull of Kintyre” was released to enormous commercial success, becoming the UK’s biggest-selling single (outstripping The Beatles’ largest seller “She Loves You”). Although it would be topped in 1984 by Band Aid, “Mull of Kintyre” still ranks as the UK’s fourth biggest selling single and the largest selling non-charity single.

After some final overdubbing in January 1978, London Town was completed and preceded by the US No. 1 “With a Little Luck” that March, while the album was released a week later.

London Town LP artwork

Uncropped photo of the London Town LP cover.

This is the original un-cropped photo that was used for the cover of the London Town album.

Original background used for the cover and labels :

The official album:

Vinyl :

Personnel

Paul McCartney – vocal, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, percussion, violin, flageolet, recorder
Denny Laine – vocal, guitar, bass, flageolet, recorder, percussion
Linda McCartney – vocal, keyboards, percussion
Jimmy McCulloch – guitar, percussion
Joe English – vocal, drums, percussion, harmonica