McCartney Best 'Solo' of Old Gang (1975)

 McCartney Best 'Solo' of Old Gang

by Keith Newham

London Express Service

November 13, 1975

        "I just want people to enjoy themselves," said Paul McCartney. "I like music, and we are in depressed times.  If music cheers people up, that must be good."

      Paul McCartney's simple philosophy was delivered during his band, Wings' current sell-out Tour of Britain. It's his most successful tour since the breakup of the Beatles, a name that says his press agent may annoy him if you mention it in his hearing.  

         The apparent simplicity of McCartney's lyrics, melodies, singing, style, and showmanship disguises a highly complex person. His songs are so easy on the ear, but are among the most difficult in the pop classic repertoire to play. Ask any would-be guitarist with a limited number of chords, who can get by with Dylan and Stones' numbers, but finds himself hopelessly inadequate when it comes to a McCartney composition.

         Paul has survived the McCartney bashers to emerge in the autumn of 1975 as musically the most successful solo Beatle of them all. To begin with, he endured the snipping of the pop music critics for just about everything he did: using his wife Linda in the band, his choice of material, especially the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and the type of audiences he appeared to be attracting. He endured it all uncomplainingly and has triumphed.

     The album, Band on the Run, recorded in Nigeria, became a smash hit throughout the world in the winter of 1974 and the spring of 1975, turning the fortunes of Wings .

    "That made me pretty happy. It was hard to follow a band like the Beatles with anything that would make an impression, but we managed it. That's why we have the band. I still love touring, and I will keep doing it until I am 99."

     So sure now is McCartney, 33, of Wings' individual identity that at last he has felt free to use some of the Beatles classics in his stage act, most notably "Yesterday", on his current British tour.  The moment when Paul is alone on stage with his guitar to sing that classic proves  the absolute high spot of the night to fans who remember him as one of the Fab Four, and also to those too young to have been around when the Beatles were at the top.

         "When these kids come up to me after a show for my autograph, I feel more like their Uncle Paul than their idol," he says, grinning. "My own kids saw a Beatles film on telly a while back, and they were very excited about their dad being in it. Then they asked me who the other chaps were and whether they were mates of mine."

         The breakup of Paul and his mates is now part of pop history. And all he wants to say about it is this: "There is no animosity between me and John, George, and Ringo anymore. We just keep in loose touch, and I wouldn't object to us playing on the same stage again, if the time was right, but most of all, I've got the lady I love, and that's what it's all about, really, isn't it? "

        It was Paul's 'Lady He loves' that caused so much bad publicity after the breakup of the Beatles. Linda puts it this way: "When I married Paul, I was suddenly slagged off, which had never happened to me before."

         Critics lashed out at her for being part of Wings; she couldn't play, her background was photography, not music, and her contribution to the new band was way below the level of the others. She admits that she couldn't play before she joined Wings as pianist. "We were up in Scotland. Paul wanted to play but couldn't think who to play with now that the lads had split. Paul said, 'Why don't you learn and then we can play together?' So I did, and he asked me to join the band and sing with them."

     You can see why they survived the insults. They still look like lovers on a first date and are inseparable. "I wonder if you can be together so much you get on each other's nerves", wonders Paul, then smiles and says, "We have it yet".