Lucky Luxy & Lovely Linda
This is an interview of Tony Prince with Linda McCartney
recorded in March 1976 in the Elmtree Studios where Wings were rehearsing for
their tour.
TP: Welcome to Radio
Luxemburg Linda for the first time in your own right, minus Paul, with your own
show!
Linda: ‘plause ‘plause!
TP: Now I’d like to
talk first, for the benefit of the listeners, about your new LP, which we hope
to feature along with this interview tonight.
Can you tell us something about it?
Linda: It’s a great
album. It’s called “Speed of Sound.” And it’s very much a group album, this one,
and I think everybody will like it, so play a lot of it.
TP: A few questions I
want to ask you about touring. The
problems of a mum and a wife on a tour, a world tour of the length that you’re
going into. Now, what are the basic problems
you have to cope with?
Linda: The real
problems for me are seeing enough of the children because I don’t want other
people to influence them. I want them to
have as normal a life as possible. So it’s
really: you get home and you’re a bit
tired and getting up early to be with the kids and keeping them under our ‘wings’
as they say.
TP: But they’re going
with you on the tour?
Linda: Yeah, we start
in Copenhagen and then we go to America, I think in April. So they’ll come all the way with us.
TP: It’s an incredible
long tour, isn’t it?
Linda: Yeah, it’s over
two months.
TP: How many bags do
you have? How many suitcases do you have
to take on such an event?
Linda: Well,
lots. I look, I think, too much to
Australia; so we’re trying to keep it pretty basic this time and not get overcomplicated
with so much you cannot even think straight, you know? We’ve gotta take a lot for five people. That’s for sure.
TP: What about the
children’s education? How’s that coming
along? Are you quite pleased with the
way things are going?
Linda: I’m quite
pleased. I’m not THAT involved with
education. I don’t believe THAT strongly
in it. I mean, Heather will have to have
a tutor with her this time. But I think
pretty much, if you get experience in life and if you understand people more,
than what you learn in school. I wasn’t
very good at school, in school (see that?), and my parents wanted me to be good
in school and with our kids kit’s sort of they don’t have the pressure of
parents being worried about that so much.
TP: So you do say
that travelling around the world is as good as school anyway, because they meet
so many different people?
Linda: Well, that’s
what we’ve discussed with the schooler.
Heather is very worldly, just having gone with us everywhere we’ve gone.
TP: They’re beautiful
children, extremely beautiful.
Linda: I’m not
prejudiced, but I agree with you.
TP: Well I remember my
wife, when we came to see you at Wembley stadium, the Beach Boys concert, and
you had the children with you then, didn’t you.
My wife afterwards said “I couldn’t keep my eyes off those
children. They were so gorgeous.”
Linda: Yes, they’re
really nice and that’s it. They’re very
normal ordinary kids. They’re not at all
affected, posh or anything.
TP: Do you always
keep your cameras around, always keep it loaded, ready to shoot wherever something
comes up?
Linda: Yeah. I’ve got it down to one camera now.
TP: Oh really? Your favorite?
Linda: Yeah. Just one that I can hang around a bit and
still take good pictures, you know.
TP: A lot of people
think that your Dad’s Kodak and all that, but it’s not…
Linda: He’s not, no,
that was a press rumor. I’ve got nothing
to do with Eastman-Kodak, except I use their film.
TP: You couldn’t have
free film if he would have been your Dad.
Linda: Oh, definitely
and a few cameras as well.
TP: And your Dad in
fact is a….
Linda: A lawyer in
America.
TP: In New York?
Linda: Yeah. New York City.
TP: That must be
quite a job.
Linda: For him, not
for me. He’s quite a good lawyer. He’s
very much for the artists, which is nice.
Nice change.
TP: When Paul was
leaving The Beatles, he was talking of your father being involved. What, from the management point of view or
would that have been….
Linda: No, not management
at all. Actually it wasn’t really too
much to do with the Beatles. I know Paul
wanted him to handle his business affairs, not manage The Beatles or anything,
but sort of straighten them out and help them out. But when the others didn’t want my Dad to do
that, Paul still wanted him to do just him.
TP: And does he today
still, in fact gets involved.
Linda: Yeah, well, he’s
involved to the point where he takes care of us, you know. Make sure we’re pretty straight
TP: About the diaries. First of all a couple of years ago you had a
nice diary out, which was sent as Christmas presents to people in the
industry. And then this year the diary
came out in colour. And in fact it went
on the market for people. I saw an ad in
the Daily Mirror for it and people could buy it. And now your own book’s coming out. How did the diary go? Are you quite pleased with it?
Linda: Yeah. It was a real last minute thing, ‘cause like
when I did the Nashville Diary, which was photographs I’d taken in Nashville of
the group, I gave it away as a present and I started getting letters saying why
can’t we buy it. So this year I did one
of Polaroid pictures I had taken and about a week before Christmas we said ‘let’s
sell it.” You know, a bit of mail
order. Did very well actually, I must
say, for a last minute thing. I’d like to
see it’d be more available. We’ll see. Each year it gets better.
TP: And the book’s
coming out…..
Linda: In September
or October.
TP: What will it be
called?
Linda: It’ll be
called ‘Linda’s pictures.’
TP?: Your
photographic career, I could call it that couldn’t I? It goes back before you met Paul doesn’t
it? That was in fact your first job,
wasn’t it?
Linda: Yeah, it
was. It was way before I met Paul. I was working for a magazine in New York,
which I really didn’t like very much, didn’t have a very good job there and I’d
taken up photography in Arizona where I lived for a few years. And through the magazine I got to photograph
the Rolling Stones. For some reason they
said I would be the only photographer in this boat they’d rented. Being a girl, I’d say. So when I got off this boat, they’d rented a
yacht for a press party, a lot of journalists and me, the photographer. So actually, all the journalists needed pictures,
so they asked me if they could use mine.
And I decided then and there to be a photographer.
TP: That was the
start of your career. And you’d not done
a job before?
Linda: No, just on
the magazine. I hadn’t done a
photography job at all.
TP: What about the
first time you met Paul. Do you remember
that distinctly?
Linda: I do indeed. We were at the Bag O’Nail. I went with Chas Chandler and a few of the
Animals, just a group of people. We
went down to see Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames. Fantastic they were. Speedy they were. Just great.
Paul was at a table almost next to us.
You know it’s the old story. A
little flash from him, a little flash from me.
Love at first sight. It was something
at first sight. I don’t’ know if it was
love.
TP: Did you go out
with each other right away? Did he come
and sit with you?
Linda: Well yeah that
night we went over to a few more clubs and stuff. There’s a lot of time in-between. We saw each other again in New York and well
but at least a few year went by before we got really serious, or a year or so.
TP: You’ve actually
got a track on the LP I hear.
Linda: This is what
we find, yeah.
TP: What about this
track. You did not write it did you?
Linda: No, Paul wrote
it. He wrote it in Adelaide, Australia,
after one of our shows. And it’s called ‘Cook
of the House.’
TP: Why is it called ‘Cook
of the House?’
Linda: Eh, it’s about
food and cooking and the pleasure one gets and how I enjoy cooking.
TP: In the early
days, I guess you came under a lot of criticism, as did everybody in that early,
awful, formal break-up period of The Beatles and all that. How did you handle that mentally yourself? I mean,
did Paul say, oh forget it, they’re only, you know, oh, let it go. What was your attitude to all the critics?
Linda: Well, I had to
worry more about learning to play piano and keyboards, so most of my time went
really to that. I wasn’t too worried
about what critics said, because in a way they were right. They caught me at a learning stage and I can
see it was such a contrast to what people expected. I can only see why they put me down.
TP: I only hope that
now they will come to the party and you know, you have really come on incredible as a
musician. Did you feel you have, I was just
watching you, you know….
Linda: Well, I got so
much pleasure out of it. I think that at
first when you don’t know anything you cannot really get pleasure out of it,
but now that I really do know chords and I have a feel for music, I really love
it. I can only see me growing.
TP: You must be the
ultimate in what we say, if you’re getting on with your husband, getting
involved in his affairs. I mean you
actually came into t he picture and Paul said, all right you’re gonna be a
member of my band and you had to do it.
Linda: That’s
true. I think, also that can be a disadvantage. If you’re around your husband for work and
pleasure. Sometimes, you’ve been working
all day and if you hadn’t been working with your husband he’d come home and you’d
be all fresh and he’d be all tired and you could build up his moral. But sometimes we come home, we’re both
exhausted. But it’s better than not.
TP: Right. I mean seven years of marriage; what about barmies? I guess you must have barmies like everybody
else?
Linda: Oh yeah. We’re very, very normal. I mean we try not to, but you cannot help
it. But, the older I get, the less I
wanna get involved with bickering with people, but sometimes you just cannot
help it.
TP: Right, it clears
the air anyway. What about the last tour, when you went to
Scandinavia, in the bus and everything?
How did you enjoy that? Did it
not work out?
Linda: Well, I was a
bit nervous then, definitely, ‘cause that was really the beginning of learning
to play piano. I don’t think I was that
good, don’t think the band was that good.
The best bit was the bus, getting the sun on top of the bus. But it has changed so much, now that we have
Joe as a drummer and Jimmy in the group and everything. It’s just great now. It really is good.
TP: Well, not just
you have become a better musician. I
think even Jimmy or Denny have taken vibes.
Linda:
Definitely. Jimmy has come on a
treat, you know.
TP: I get the impression
Paul vibes on Joe the drummer as well.
Linda: Yeah. He’s a great drummer.
TP: He’s been looking
for that drummer for years.
Linda: We’ve had a
lot of drummer troubles. When we had our
last drummer Jimmy wasn’t that struck and Denny said “well, let’s try, let’s
keep trying.” But then when we met Joe, well that was it.
TP: How do you see
the future, Linda? Do you just see it
continuing as it is now, being a family woman, doing the photography and tour
after tour, album after album?
Linda: Oh no, I don’t
think it’ll stay that regimented; tour, album, tour. No. I’d
like to see us get into a few films, a bit of television. Just so many things we can do. But definitely grow. I don’t want to get just a boring life. I think we should……well……I mean, if anybody
wrote a great script for us, we’d take it on your know, the whole band.
TP: You mean acting
parts and all that?
Linda: Yeah
TP: Just to increase
life’s interest, hey?
Linda: Yeah and also
because we like a great movie and we like good telly. And there’s not that much good on now at the
moment anyway. But it’s still very hard,
‘cause at the moment Paul still has to write everything for us and it would be
nice to get other artistic hands in there, you know. Great script-writers definitely would help.
TP: In this day and
age all superstars leaving Great Britain because of tax-reasons; going to live
in the States. Why haven’t you and Paul?
Linda: Well, we were
just talk about this on the way out. ‘Cause
I mean, I think the government of England is very silly because it’s making pop
stars leave and therefore losing all industry.
The studios will be idle here.
Soon be idle here. Because, you
know, everybody is recording in Germany or America. WE haven’t left because I don’t believe money
should rule your life. I like England and
Scotland. I like to live here, but I think
it’s outrageous, you know. We were
saying one day we should talk to Harold Wilson and tell him how he is driving
away a great income for Great Britain, you know?
TP: I think that he
is aware. There are rumours that they’re
trying to make a deal for pop stars.
Well, I hope it comes off.
Linda: Well, also people
in music stimulate a lot of work and do have a lot of money flow through and if
all of them go to America, England is really gonna lose that. At the moment most of them have left already.
TP: What is it about Britain
you like in comparison to what you don’t like in America?
Linda: I don’t
know. I’ve not always wanted to live
here, but for a long time I have like it.
I think it’s the sort of country-side.
I like the people. They’re very
sort of ordinary people, rather than laid-back people. I’m normally a laid-back person myself.
TP: What about when
you got a night off, yourself and Paul.
I don’t suppose it happens very often, does it?
Linda: Yeah, we get
quite a few nights off. I mean, we take ‘em. Well, if you wanna know the truth, we do what
most people do. Watch telly, have a good
meal, put your feet up, relax.
TP: What about up in
Scotland? Do you go down the village pub
or anything like that?
Linda: Not
really. We’re pretty far from the pub. We’re back in the hills. No, we listen to music, watch telly, paint a
bit, draw a bit. Just talk. Go out for a walk. It’s beautiful over there.
TP: Do you have
discussions of The Beatles?
Linda: Oh yeah. In fact we talked to John last night. You know, there’s always rumours about whether
they will get together. The funny this
is, the press has it, it’s on, it’s on definitely lad. Well to tell you the truth, nobody has talked
to anybody about it. We talked to John; Paul
talked to John. IT wasn’t even
mentioned. Just saying: how are you doing, just great, yeah really,
and the baby, you know, all that.
TP: It’s quite
amicable, then?
Linda: Oh yeah, it’s
really amicable. But as for a concert in
the future…..
TP: you know what a
gossipy business this is. The rumours
fly…about the Beatles. Now the current
rumor is that John and Paul are mates but George and Ringo aren’t seeing eye to
eye.
Linda: I thought that
was about a year ago, that rumor.
TP: Was it? Oh, now, I just got it.
Linda: Well, I don’t
know. The way I feel is everyone is sort
of friendly. I think the press makes too
much of it, to tell you the truth.
Because the truth is, it’s pretty much the way it was. It’s all friendly and nice.
TP: What about
Yoko? How did you get on with her?
Linda: Oh, I get on
with her great! Much to people’s
surprise. I think she was really a nice,
good person. She’s amazing when you see
her now with her baby. She’s not at all
pushy or anything. She is just very much
like a woman, you know? And they’re very
happy. John has settled down a lot and
well, so ordinary that it’s funny that it should still go on.
TP: And when they
left for a year? When Yoko came to New
York and John stayed in L.A. I thought it
was all over didn’t you?
Linda: Well, we’d
seen a lot of both of them in that period and you could tell it wasn’t all over. You could tell John loved her and she loved
him and they just had a few problems.
But Paul and John had a few good talks and it and it just worked
out. They got back together again.
TP: Anyway, Linda, I
think Paul needs you for this continuing rehearsal. I wanna just once more congratulations with
your seven years of marriage with Paul and the music industry and I’m really
delighted, as are all the fans of Paul and the Wings, you know, that you’ve
come on so well musically. Good luck
with the book.
Linda: Thank you and
I hope you’ll play a lot of the new album.
TP: We will
indeed. Thank you, Linda.
Linda: O.K. Tony and
keep going Luxy.
seriously - education is very important
ReplyDeleteIn addition to spotty schooling, the lack of peer companionship must have also been hard for Heather during those years.
ReplyDeleteall the traveling & being cooped up most of the time must have been very hard on Heather and the little ones as well - would not really call it educational
ReplyDelete