The McCartney Story from Beatle To Wings (By Hunter Davies)

 

The McCartney Story From Beatle to Wings

By Hunter Davies

The Cincinnati Enquirer

May 16, 1976

 (Former Beatle Paul McCartney and Wings, including his wife Linda, appear at Riverfront Coliseum Thursday, May 27 as part of their first American tour. This is  McCartney's first US visit in 10 years. Before the American tour began,  Sunday Times of London writer Hunter Davies interviewed the McCartneys at their London home. The interview proved to be one of the most thorough ever done with the ex-Beatle. By special arrangement, the Enquirer presents that story.)

    The last time Paul McCartney played in America was 10 years ago with a group called The Beatles. It was in San Francisco on August 29, 1966, their last public performance anywhere in the world. Now, McCartney has returned to play in the USA. He will be with a group called Wings. Will they love him like they used to love him? Will they love Linda McCartney? She is his lady wife, and she plays in the band with him. 

    Will the US critics be snotty about Linda and her lack of musical experience, just as the UK critics were snotty, not to say bitchy, when Mrs. McCartney first burst into flight with wings some four years ago?

     Their London house in  Saint John's Wood is the one that Paul bought 1000 years back in his days of Beatlemania. He's the only one to have stuck to the same house. Just as he's the only one of the four to have stuck to the same wife.

     Paul is a conservative. He doesn't like people saying that, but he is. He's disgusted that Britain is in the Common Market, and he's disgusted that it's gone decimal.

     Mr. and Mrs. McCartney are very much family people, and their three children are very much evidence. There's Stella and Mary, age four and six, and Heather, age 13. The house is nicely scuffed, and the Margrittes, of which there are three, are now surrounded by child art and picture postcards stuck in the side of the frames. 

    Linda can get nervous, despite what some fans think when they see her performing on stage, aggressive and assertive, strutting in her Rod Stewart hairstyle. She is worried about America. He tells her, "There is nothing to worry about." They've turned down many offers to tour America in the past two years, waiting their time, perfecting their act. Now, says Paul, they've got it right. 

    They've got a good band, in fact, an excellent band, despite what the snotty critics once said. Wings have made it. Their album  Band On the Run, won a Grammy Award in 1974 and was voted the best group performance in the world.

     "When the Beatles split up," says Paul, "I felt on the rocks. I've been accused of walking out on them, but I never did. It's something I'd never do. One day, John left, and that was the last straw. It was a signal for the others to leave."

     It's strange that Paul should have been so widely believed to have been the cause of the breakup. When they finished touring, they packed it in, out of boredom, and concentrated on records. Only Paul had been the one who had continually tried to get them on the road again. He kept them together as a group, setting up Apple and moving into film. 

    Perhaps he had been a bit bossy at times, but he certainly wanted the Beatles to continue. "The Beatles were like a blanket of security. Everything just went right ahead, and we never thought of contracts or problems. Then the job folded beneath me. Suddenly, I didn't have a career anymore. I wasn't earning anything, and all my money was at Apple, and I couldn't get it out because I signed it all away."

     He retreated to Scotland, to his cottage near Campbellton. And the fans spread a rumor that he was dead, that he became a recluse, seeing no one and  not doing anything. "I stayed up all night, went on the booze, hit the ciggies. I used to watch the TV and see another 500 Scots being laid off, and for the first time in my life, I could understand their problem. They would have said that I had money, of course, so I wasn't like them. But that wasn't the point. I lost all my security. I had no idea what I was going to do. There seemed no point in joining another group, not after all that. Ladies and gentlemen, follow that. I was out of work, and the ghosts from my past came back from those early days when relations and friends said we'd never do anything anyway, and we should get a proper job. "

    Then the big legal rows began. All of them sorid, all of them nasty as the four Beatles started slanging each other in and out of court, Paul was the main instigator of the legal trouble because he disliked Alan Klein, who had taken over Apple and their contracts. Paul wanted the help of Lee Eastman, an eminent New York lawyer who also happens to be Linda's dad. 

    "That's what really made them angry. They thought I was just trying to get in my in-laws. I couldn't believe it, after what we'd all been through in 10 years, I thought they knew me.  That I'd never do anything for those reasons. I was told to get free. I couldn't sue Klein. I had to sue John, George, and Ringo instead.

     "What a trauma. Unemployed and up to my ears in a high court case. I think we were all pretty weird at the time. I'd ring John and he'd say,' Don't bother me'. I rang George, and he came out with some 'effing and blinding', not at all. Hari Krishna. We weren't normal to each other at the time." 

    The case dragged on for what seemed like years, but eventually Paul got his freedom. "I'd always been very fuddled on the law, but I'm glad I went through it. I now read contracts. I even read Mike's, (Mike McGear of the Scaffold, Paul's brother). I found a clause in one of his contracts, a very small print which said, 'If you sue and we lose, you pay'".

     During the legal trouble, Paul was slowly getting back to music, bringing out albums under his own name, just as the other three were doing.  He was also writing songs for other people and for James Bond films, but he began to realize that he was missing most what he liked the best about the Beatles: singing. "My main thing I like doing is singing. I'm a man who sings. A man who sings every day, is a man who sings every day. That man is a singer. Then I met Denny Laine again, an old mate who used to play in the Moody Blues. We used to have some good laughs. We have the same sort of background, grammar school, but both yobs at school, we decided to start up a new group on our own, and we got another guitarist and drummer, but they weren't right for them, I suppose. But with me into lawsuits and everybody, I was trying to make a sort of comeback."

     They called themselves Wings and produced their first album, Wild Life. "The name Wings just came into my head. When Linda was having Stella, she was in King's College Hospital where she'd had Mary, and I went round with my camp bed, as I'd done before, to watch the birth. This time, it was a cesarean, and I wasn't allowed in. I sat next door in my green apron, praying like mad."

    "Wings of an angel," says Linda, "That's what he was thinking about."

     Later on while they were in their Scottish  cottage, they got talking one night about the next stage in Wings development: live performances.  

    Playing in the studio was one thing. And what a singer likes to do is sing in front of an audience. Yet, how could Paul go back to trailing around the world now that he was a family man, a man who didn't want to leave his wife and family?

     Linda, who used to be a photographer and had never played an instrument or sung in public in her life, wasn't immediately excited when Paul suggested she should tour with the band. "He went on and on about it, saying he was dying to get back to performing, but wanted me to join in. Can you imagine standing on the stage, the curtain going up, the audience still waiting? You made it sound so glamorous that I agreed to have a go."

     Paul got Linda to do little bits of keyboard work on Ram, Wings' next album.  He showed her how to press the keys. He'd never been taught the piano himself, but he felt confident enough to teach his wife. "We had a few rows as he tried to teach me; he really put me through it. When everything went wrong. I used to say, 'I thought you knew how to make a group. ' I never realized how hard it was." Linda said.

     "I did think now and again about getting in professional musicians, getting in Super session men. I could have asked the best in the world to play with me," said Paul, "but I wanted Wings to be our sound. I wanted the amateur approach.  Something we could make ourselves and then work on. Ringo got blown out at our first recording session with The Beatles, and now look at him. "

    There were rows and bickering in the group with further changes of personnel. "I could sense a feeling among the others of Linda holding us back," said Paul, "I could feel this."

     Linda said, "They thought I was getting the best bits without being any good."

     "I didn't worry, really." says Paul, "She'll improve. She's an innocent talent. I like the idea of innocent talent. That's all rock and roll music is, innocent music."

    Came the  time when they felt ready to unveil themselves to the public. In a recording studio any innocent can have the rough edges disguised, or do it 100 times until, by chance, one rendition is right in the flesh. All can be revealed to protect Linda from the ace, reporters from Melody Maker, the New Musical Express, and others.  Paul decided not to reveal their plan. Wing's early singles back in 1972, such as "Mary Had a Little Lamb", weren't greeted with much rapture. 

    John was quoted in the pop papers as saying that Paul sounded like Engelbert Humperdinck, beyond which there is no nastier comparison. "I was in Scotland when I read this in  Melody Maker. I was depressed for days. We got in the van and went up the M1 looking for a university. I thought we'd practice on students first and  play on campus as they say in Africa.

     "Nottingham was the first university we arrived at. So we sent the roadie to the Student Union. He said, 'I've got Paul McCartney and his group in the van outside. Can they play at your next dance?' They said, 'Yes', and put the announcement over the tannoy while we went to get digs in Nottingham for the night. 

    "It was 50 pence at the door, and a guy sat at the table taking the money. The kids danced, and we all had a good time. The students' union took their split and gave us the rest. I'd never seen money for at least 10 years. The Beatles never handled money. I felt like Duke Ellington diving out the money. We walked around Nottingham with 30 pounds of coppers in our pockets."

     Musically, they progressed slowly. The records got more acclaim. They began to move into Europe on small tours. They took the kids with them everywhere, traveling by dormobile. They recorded Band on the Run in Lagos, Nigeria, having asked EMI for a list of their studios in hot climates. They thought the kids would like the sun.

     "Perhaps, I did have doubts now and again about Linda on keyboard. I did once say to her in a row that I could have had Billy Preston. It just came out. I said I was sorry about an hour later.

     "I knew she wasn't going to be liked, and I knew it was my fault for encouraging her to do it. I could have done a smart bit of PR during the time she was being criticized, got ourselves on Parkinson and let the world see what a lovely, modest human being she is. But I thought, 'sod 'em.'. I don't have to explain her away. She's my wife, and I want her to to play.  But she had to take a lot of stick.

     "I decided not to defend Linda. Let them find out what we were trying to do. I said nothing, just as I said nothing during all John's tirades against me, I've had enough press to last me more than a lifetime. They now seem to like us, at least in Britain, they do. I know in America, the press will be sitting in the front three rows, their pencils ready, but it doesn't really matter what they say. I'm not as precious about Wings as I used to be.  If it folds, hard luck. I'll be very upset. I'll say, sod it, but we'll survive.

    " I feel very secure with Wings now. I even sing Beatles songs on tour. I shied away from them at first.  They were too big for us. I knew the audience would be thinking, 'Oh, not as good as the Beatles'. Now I sing about five in every show. "

    He'll probably do five Beatles songs in most of their American concerts over the next two months, the five he usually sings are "Blackbird," "Lady Madonna", "Long and Winding Road", "Just Seen a Face" and "Yesterday."

     It doesn't sound much of a life for three young kids or their mother being trailed all over America. Paul says he gave Heather, the eldest, the choice, and she chose to tour. He, long ago, gave up the one-night hotel stop, which they did in their Beatle days in America. They're hiring three houses, one for the West Coast, one for the East, and one for the middle. Linda will be home each night to do cooking and to be the mom.

     Paul is proud of the quality of his family life, though at times he can sound positively schmaltzy or even perhaps that he protects too much. "It probably is schmaltzy. I'm from that sort of family. We were very close with aunties and uncles, always coming in, singing songs at parties. I saw John and Yoko last time I was in New York, and I happened to mention, for some reason, our family singalongs. He said he never had them. He didn't have the sort of family life I had, being brought up by his aunt, having his mother killed in a car outside his house. Yoko didn't either. She had to make appointments to see her dad. I now realize how lucky I am to have a close, loving family."

     After breakfast, Paul and Linda drive to the recording studio to finish off their latest album, Speed of Sound. They record in EMI Abbey Road studios of blessed memory, where so many Beatles records were produced. The ghosts of Sergeant Pepper still linger on.  Next door is the synagogue where the memorial service for Brian Epstein was held. There is, as ever, a gaggle of girls outside waiting for Paul, perhaps even waiting for Linda, now that she's a star. These days, they're very well behaved, no screaming, shouting, or pushing. They stand like pupils, waiting for a favorite teacher, and then line up quietly for autographs, politely asking Paul to smile for their little cameras. 

    Denny Laine arrives in a fur coat. Paul has written a song for him on the album, "The Note You Never Wrote", giving him a chance to show off his voice. There's a silly love song called "Silly Love Songs". There's a moving one called "Warm and Beautiful" and a jumpy number, "Wino Junko", written by Jimmy McCulloch. Then there's Linda's solo, her first solo song on a Wings album. Paul has written it specifically for her. It's called "Cook of the House." You never know, it could catch on. It might mean that Linda, the nonmusician wife, has finally made it. 

    "What worries me most about America is that we'll have to start again," said Linda. "Rolling Stone will be waiting for me. I'll obviously be criticized, and I'll hate it. I'd love to put the critics up on stage and see them do better. You lose a few years of your life on stage. You live on your adrenaline when it's over. I want to crash out and go and live in Scotland for a while. We've got to do America to prove we can do it. But after that, I hope we'll just stick to occasional concerts, playing at a big festival or a little club. I don't want to spend my life touring."

     "America will be okay," says Paul. "I told you, there's nothing to worry about."

     "There will be all those stupid questions, the same old stupid questions," said Linda.

     "It doesn't matter. John was best with the smart answers. But any jokes go down, well, they'll ask 'What brings in her?', and you'll say you came on a jumbo and they all go 'Ho, ho'.  You don't have to be an Oscar Wilde."

     "It's really tired old questions that get me. Do you ever see John or the Beatles getting back together? I go mad when I hear them 100 times a day."

     For those interested, yes, they do see John when in New York, and yes, they chat like old friends, but that's about it. As for coming together as the Beatles, that seems highly unlikely. They've all moved on to different things, different lives. They see little point in playing in public again.

     Linda naturally gets most upset at the continual harking back to the Beatles days and era she never knew. "I mentally go backwards, I'm going to feel schizophrenic," But Paul, having shied away from it at first, now takes it in his stride, if rather wearily. "I'm pleased with Wings. As I'm happy as when I was playing with the Beatles. Not happier-- as happy. No more, no less. What I have got now is an extra with the family. I had chicks in the Beatles days, and now I have kids. I don't miss the old way of life at all."