A Rare Conversation with Joe English (1979)

 

Joe with fan, Larry in 1976

Wings fans know that Joe English is not someone who talks to the press.  He doesn't give interviews.  He will never appear at a Beatles convention, and he leads a quiet life, being involved in the World of Faith Christian movement.  In the 1980s, he recorded some Christian music.   He has distanced himself from his time in Wings and rarely (if ever) talks about it.   

In 1979, Bill King was able to speak to him about his time in Wings.  This might be Joe's only post-Wings interview.  It was published in the very first issue of Beatlefan magazine.   

(We learned in McCartney Legacy II that Joe's homesickness was part of the reason he left Wings, but the other part had to do with his wife, Dale, being in a terrible accident.)

    Just a little over two years ago, the longest-lasting and most consistent lineup of Wings, which Paul McCartney has ever been able to put together, fell apart when first guitarist Jimmy McCullough and then drummer Joe English left the band Wings.

     Fans around Rochester, New York and Macon, Georgia, who knew English as one of their own were probably shocked more than others. After all, on May 18 and 19th in 1976 when McCartney had introduced English at Atlanta's Omni as being from "just down the road in Juliet, Georgia"(near Forsyth, if that means anything) everyone marveled at how fortunate the longtime Georgia resident was to be playing with Wings the band on the tour.

    That Wings Over America tour, the Rock event of 1976, was a marvelous experience. English recalled in an exclusive interview with Beatlefan, "With the large, professional McCartney organization taking care of almost everything we all had to do. All we had to do was show up and play decently, and the people would go berserk", he said. 

        As a member of Wings, its name has become known worldwide, he even got to do a lead vocal on one of the songs, ("Must Do Something About It" )on the platinum selling Wings at the Speed of Sound album, Not bad for an unknown drummer whose previous claim to fame was playing in a pickup band around Macon with Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band.

    And on his trips home to Georgia, English had seemed happy with his lot and Wings. When Beatlefan first met him at the annual Capricorn Records barbecue in Macon in August 1977, he was very enthused about what turned out to be the London Town recording sessions. "It's going to be another Band on the Run," he said. "We spent a month recording in the Virgin Islands, and we have about 30 cuts from which Paul will pick the best."

     A couple of weeks later, he was off to London to pick up work on the unfinished album. Then word hit in September that McCullough was leaving. English's wife told Beatlefan that Joe had not known it was going to happen, but she wasn't that surprised. "I think he felt kind of constricted, because Paul does run the band the way he wants it, without a doubt," But she indicated that Joe and the rest of Wings would go on without Jimmy. "Joe hopes Paul won't hire another guitarist, but will get someone really good and big to tour with them. It will give them a kick in the ass musically and make them stretch, which they need. But right now, they're just all excited about the new baby, James Louis McCartney."

     Within two months, however, the low-key announcement came in the Wings Club Sandwich that not only had Jimmy left to join Small Faces (which, of course, didn't last) but that Joe English had decided recently to return full-time to his family in America. "Joe feels that his roots are there, and he was not too happy spending the necessary time in Britain." 

 Everyone asked, 'Why would English give up such a good deal?'   "I just had to have a change of musical scene," he told Beatlefan in an interview in an Atlanta recording studio. At the time, he was playing with the jazz-rock band Tall Dogs as percussionist and co-lead vocalist. Tall Dogs is a group that he and Butch Trucks had started. But not long after that, he joined Sea Level, an excellent Macon band which grew out of the Allman Brothers Band.

     He continued, "I enjoyed being in Wings. I learned a lot during the months and months of sitting in recording studios. I wanted to come home and see if I could make it as Joe English and not off Paul McCartney."

     English, a native of Syracuse, New York, had first come to Georgia in the early 1970s but wasn't doing much except living on a farm with no money. "Until I got the call to go record with Paul in New Orleans on Venus and Mars. Tony Dorsey, the leader of the Wings horn section, was from Macon, and he told Paul about me after interim drummer Geoff Britton had been canned."

     English said he approached joining Wings with some trepidation, but "It was easier than I thought. They were all very nice. And coming from doing nothing to playing before 67,000 at the Seattle Kingdome was a real buzz.

     "Contrary to what some people think", he said, "Wings is a real band. In the studio, Paul made it so that if you wanted to come every day and be part of the recording, mixing, ideas, and putting the show together, you could. He really gave everyone a lot of freedom. Of course, if he thought something should be played a certain way, he'd tell you to do it, and 99% of the time, I'd go along, because it was usually the right thing. But if I came up with something better, I'd tell him, and he'd go for it. 

    "That Wing's lineup probably would have stayed together," English said,  "If there had been more gigs, but it was really a hassle going on the road with Paul. It was like taking the whole Shrine Circus on tour. "

    Still, he got a lot out of the many recording sessions. "I feel like I went to school for three years learning about the studio from Paul, and I think I could produce an album now, because I've worked for three years with someone who's one of the top producers in the business. Paul definitely is the hardest working person I've ever encountered. I told him before I left that he had nothing to worry about, and he had a great future ahead of him," English added with a smile. 

    English did have some gripes about his tenure with Wings, however. "For one thing", he said. On stage, the burden rested mostly on his and Paul's shoulders. "Most nights, his bass and my drums had to carry the show", he said, "and that went for harmonies too. Linda's a nice chick, and I really like her, but let's face it, she can't play and she can't sing.. And Denny Laine can sing, but he tends to sing off-key. It took us forever to get those Wings Over America tapes ready for the live album. We had to go into the studio and overdub most of the backing vocals."

     Another thing which bothered him was that "I was continually promised to share the record royalties, but I never received any." He admitted, though, that he was "very well paid and I never had to do anything. It was all taken care of for me."

"But," he added, the lack of responsibility is one reason he decided to leave Wings. It's like, can he make it on his own? Can he rise to the top again? "I want to find out."

     Of course, going from one of the world's supergroups to nine months on his own and then a much smaller group, which still has a long way to go, is a big change. He said, "I keep wondering why I haven't gone into shock, but it's only money, and you can't get hung up on that, because when you only want more and you forget about things like going fishing and having fun and growing old and being happy. That's one reason," he said, "why I live in the south, I refuse to go to Los Angeles and get into all that. When Wings played Atlanta, I took Paul to my home and showed him, and he fell in love with it. Paul has a very strong sense of home, and so he understood why I wanted to come back here."