Linda: Who Does she think she is? Mrs. Paul McCartney? (1975)

 I am still locating information in my files after reading McCartney Legacy II.  One thing that really interested me was the information about a story written about Linda after a visit with a long-time friend.  The article portrayed Linda in a negative light and seemed like something I needed to read.  And so I dug through my vast archives and found a copy of the article in the May/June 1975 issue of the Write Thing.  

This is NOT a nice article at all!  So, if you want to read something that isn't kind and flattering, then skip this one. 

From TWT: The whole town's talking about the article about Linda McCartney in this week's Village Voice written by Blair Sabol apparently Miss Sabol, (a tasteful, stylish, witty writer) knew Linda in the old days, and finally figured "the hell with it" and came out to publicly print what many have been whispering behind backs all these years. 

Some people feel that Sabol was merely airing a personal grudge towards Linda for dropping her old friend after the marriage, only to pick up on some of it eight years later when she wanted something from them. Many of her old friends are currently the editors of rock magazines, the possessors of big bylines and major fashion magazines, and so forth. Other insiders have breathed sighs of satisfaction that Sabol went ahead and wrote the story, none of them ever having the nerve to write it themselves.

 The picture painted of Mrs. McCartney is that of a slightly selfish and embarrassing lady. Paul fares far better in this feature; he makes an attempt to be polite. Seems totally mesmerized by the music he makes, and he's better dressed than Linda. The implication here is that Linda finally figured out that she has married a music maniac, and if she couldn't beat him, she'd join him. She has noted with some pride that the band is called Linda and Paul McCartney and Wings, and the title of their new LP is Venus and Mars.

Linda: Who Does She Think she Is? Mrs. Paul McCartney?

By Blair Sabol

The Village Voice

1975

     On March 4, Linda McCartney was busted while driving with Paul in West Los Angeles at 1 a.m. for carrying two small joints at the bottom of her shoulder bag. On March. 5, at 1pm she called me for the first time in eight years. Did she need money? No. She wanted to go shopping in Beverly Hills. 

    Now, you must understand that the last time I knew Linda was during her groping groupie days. I met her on an interview with Warren Beatty after his success with Bonnie and Clyde, when he was into giving nonverbal explanations, and Linda was into photographing stars with little or no film in her camera.

     I remember how impressed I was with her come-on, hard-on talents as she sat in front of Mr. B. in a mini skirt and her legs in full wide-angle, split for at least six rolls of Ektachrome. Warren ended up ushering me out of his Delmonico suite within 30 minutes and kept Linda for two days. Her pictures turned out to be mediocre to poor, but we became fast friends.

     Actually, to know Linda was not to know her at all. Beneath her Peter Pan collar shirts and the Peck and Peck tweed skirt, there was something not quite tangible, not quite real, not quite there. I hate to say she was vacuous, because I did seem to communicate with her closely for two years. I would hate to think that I had become tight with nothing more than a helium balloon all the time.

     I was shocked at the disappearing act she pulled on all of her New York City friends when she left for England in 1967 for the eventual McCartney score. The late beloved Rock Duchess and giant Linda supporter. Lillian Roxon and I would spend endless hours discussing how she could pull such a brutal break with all of us. Didn't she think us worthy of her regal rock role? Why were we considered cast offs? Couldn't we keep good enough time? It was a puzzle that plagued us and crushed Lillian to her dying day. 

    Meanwhile, I kept up with Linda's developments through Modern Screen and  Rolling Stone's rancid notes. The counts never meshed with the Linda I knew. And as far as I was concerned, she might as well have died. That's what happens when your own friends become victims of the media. When Screw did their in-depth piece on Linda, it provided blow-by-blow accounts at all. I was revolted when Julie Baumol made a heroic attempt in McCall to give Linda a sense of charismatic power (and those were back in the days when Linda refused to give interviews) as a Beatle wife along with low key Pattie Harrison, almost non existent, Mrs. Ringo Starr and the ever present Yoko Ono, I had to chuckle, but like I say, the problem lies in the fact that there is nothing terribly novel about Linda.

    So, back in her SOS shopping call. She caught me totally off guard, and I did not even feel like asking her what she'd been up to for the past seven years, but I did. How else to fill in the endless silent pause? "Oh, man, I can't tell you..." an afflicted Liverpudlian accent when Paul is around, when he's not, she slips into perfect, upper-class, upper Lexington Avenue. "I mean, man, I can't stand this town." I figured times must be boring in her Cold Water Canyon rental if she tracked me and my unlisted phone number down. We continued to chat about nothing except her recording their new album, Venus and Mars. Since I admitted to not having been in the music scene since the Jefferson Airplane played their Thanksgiving ritual at the Fillmore in 1969, it was hard for me to relate to a lot of what she was talking about. She seems to have gotten the rock musician lingo down perfectly. I managed to congratulate her and Paul on their recent Grammy and secretly congratulated myself for remembering that fact. 

    She asked me to stop by the Wally Heider studio anytime in the next week, in the late afternoon, to see them. "I mean, this place is so strange, man. We've been recording this record for the last two months, and we're in the home stretch now. All we want to do is finish laying these tracks and split back for Scotland." The bust didn't seem to affect her. "Well, you know, it happens to everybody, and it's time-consuming with the lawyers, but we'll get it taken care of, and we do want to get out of here as fast as possible." Meanwhile, the screaming voices of three little girls could be heard in the background. I forgot that Linda was a mother of three and had to deal with tutors, sitters, and household hassles. Actually, she rarely had to deal with it all, since most of their band members' girlfriends ended up doing the job for no pay and for whatever glory goes with waiting on stars. 

    Linda, however, has come a long way from the days she used to leave Heather, her daughter (with a former marriage), alone at night with the doorman while Linda went off for a night of shooting and scoring at the Scene or at Fillmore. Now, Linda considers herself very much the rock star, and I have to give her credit for having the nerve to get up and perform on stage with Paul. "I always knew I could sing, you know, and playing the guitar was a cinch. I had the best teacher, after all. I also enjoy doing all the backups, you know, all the little details. It's a trip, believe me." I believed her, especially since I last left her in 1967 in the middle of her Castro convertible, sorting out her stacks of 45s and show me the gifts of guitar picks that Mike Bloomfield just left her.

     I arrived at Wally Heiders, which was a very cozy two-room operation. The control room had remnants of a party the night before: a refrigerator filled with Coors, crepe paper streamers, and balloons hanging from the master control knobs and tape deck. Apparently, Elton had done a walk-on late in the evening, and it was reason for instant celebration.

     I sat reading People Magazine four or five times through while waiting an hour for Linda and Paul. Various members of the band all looked very much like Paul, with the big panda eyes, thick hair, and shaggy heads came in and out with inane, warm intros. No one seemed to care who or what I was, but I find that to be a commonplace manner among the rock crowd. Finally, Linda made her entrance, in tight-fitting pink crepe stove pipe pink pants, a white shirt with puffy sleeves, and a tight-fitting pink knit vest, which enhanced her wired bra outlines. Linda definitely needed some clothing consultation, particularly when I noted that she was wearing a pair of Clearasil-colored muck boots as bedroom slippers. Was this a sample of sound studio chic?

     Paul's entrance went almost unnoticed, since he was walking behind Linda. He was much shorter than I had imagined, dressed in all black with a fantastic black satin oriental smoking jacket with a gold dragon emblazoned on the back. He at least showed some taste in the shoe department by wearing a pair of black velvet, gold-crested lounge slippers, and he surprised me with his buoyant greeting of "Linda told me so much about you; I'm really glad to meet you." Whether this was true or not, didn't matter. At least the man showed some style in making an opening gesture. 

    The two hours I spent at Wally Heiders consisted of watching Linda order some of the roadies out for fresh strawberry juice at the farmer's market. She showed me her photos for the album cover at least four times, and raved on about her work. I always admired her confidence and self-assertiveness. By the way, her album shot consists of two billiard balls, one red and one yellow, on a black velvet background. It's not exactly the hottest eye catcher of an idea for a cover photo, but let's face it, can a cover really make or break a McCartney album? 

    Linda then requested I watch her as she played or dabbled at the Celesta. She sat down, struck two notes, jumped off, and was on to the Moog. She hit four Moog moans and then went on to a guitar. She didn't complete one riff on one instrument, nor did she complete one explanatory sentence. Meanwhile, Paul disappeared into total music meditation in the glass-enclosed booth. Earphones adjusted, he would sit there all night, mainlining track after track and not paying too much attention to Linda's childish auditions. Obviously, McCartney takes his music seriously, while Linda is just along for the ride. And after all, who can criticize her? Who does she think she is anyway? Mrs. Paul McCartney?

    Paul is a wonderful study of a person who lives for sound. He talks and breathes, mixing and looping. Linda, on the other hand, craves some kind of unique attention, and as obnoxious as her manipulation of Paul and the band may be, again, I have to give her credit, it is as if she woke up one day and realized that although she married a Beatle, she was also married a 24 hour a day music maniac, and if you can't lick them, join them. So Linda decided to become part of his act, if only to talk to him about something. "You know, it really hasn't been easy," she said. "I mean, until I got into performing, it was kind of strange. Now that I'm involved with the whole operation, Paul and I find that we are closer than ever. We get so high and off each other's music. It's great."

     Two minutes later, she was asking me if I had seen Warren, and said that she would like to pay him a visit.  "Do you have his home number?" Shades of old Linda? "I still like taking pics, too. I mean, I like to do as many things as I can." Whenever she does them all well, it doesn't matter, because now Linda considers herself an equal, an equal star, that is, with Paul. "Don't forget, the act reads 'Linda and Paul McCartney and Wings', not Paul McCartney and Linda in Wings." Somehow, from the tone in her voice that afternoon, I wouldn't have put it past Linda to secretly believe that she's a bit better than Paul. "He really digs my backups. There's no one more sensible than me to do it for him."

     I quickly ended my visit when Paul decided to play 45 minutes of assorted types of cat calls and elephant roars with the volume turned up to surround sound level. It made me nauseated, which I'm sure was his point, and I split. Linda seemed to think that I would stick around and watch her lay a track, but I explained that sitting in a room with no windows or ventilation made me feel ill. Besides, how many auto tennis games could I stand to play with the lead guitarist and technician? You can only get off on hanging out at studios if you're recording; otherwise, it seems like a never-ending evening of takeout pizza orders.

     Linda did invite me to her Bon Voyage party aboard the Queen Mary. "It's going to be very private, no press and just our immediate good friends, you know, nice and quiet, no flash bulbs or Rona Barrett."

    The party for Paul and Linda's immediate 350 pals did turn out to be quite an evening for the rock regalia. Everyone from the industry, it seemed, arrived and got piped and saluted on board by 12 uniformed officers. There were about 40 round tables scattered around the formal dining room and dance floor, complete with elaborate centerpieces and matches reading "Venus and Mars". Someone said the rock title is supposed to stand for Paula Linda. So much for their contribution to cosmology.

     The guest list included everyone from the Jackson Five to Dean Martin (who sat at the table next to Linda and Paul and kept booze bellowing. "Who the hell is giving this party? Do I know these people?") Since most of the guests were stars who wouldn't normally go to a private party, but only press promotionals for themselves. It was, I guess, hard for them to relate to one another. The atmosphere seemed stilted and strained. At first, no one was talking.  I already knew rock etiquette was non-existent. There were too many colleagues, lights bumping into one another, and it made for discomfort. 

    Since I wasn't friendly with a soul, I ended up sitting at an empty table next to the McCartneys, who were the first to sit down and eat. Linda was cordial enough. She gushed up to me, "Oh, far out. You really came." Do people still say 'far out' anymore? Linda McCartney does. "Did you remember to bring the cream for my herpes?"  It seems four days previously, Linda broke out ear to ear with a heavy rash. I told her I had some medicine for it, and she told me to bring it to her party.(By the way, that was the only drug I saw her deal the whole night.) I told her I forgot, and she dropped me like a broken guitar string. I never saw her the rest of the night. 

    As for her party attire, clunky black patent sandals, a la foot savers, no stockings, a black shirt with a black lace corset tied over it. (Do you think she was trying to look S& M in league ?) and a black short skirt.  Paul was wearing the same black kimono coat and lounging slippers I saw him in before. 14-year-old daughter Heather looked the way Tatum O'Neill should look with a boarding school pinafore and Mary James. 

    The night eventually took off when a rhythm and blues band from New Orleans, who Paul is mad for, called the Meters, caught fire with some decent dance music. It was everyone to their feet, Paul and Linda jerked up and down on the center floor, but Paul stopped after a while, remaining transfixed by the group. He didn't once notice Linda's humping motions. 

    Dylan and his wife, Sara, did show, as did George Harrison with his new artichoke haircut (Now you really notice his lousy teeth) in a wrinkled Leisure Suit and a girlfriend whom he never introduced naturally. Everyone paid their last respects to the McCartneys, and Cher came late with her girlfriend-secretary ( not Geffen or Greg) and talked to Dylan and Linda. What these people had to say to one another seems questionable. Whenever I listened in on conversations, they were about what labels they were all getting kicked off of, or what TV series they're all getting canceled on. The rest of it was like dangling inanimate dialogue. 

    By 2am, people were winding their way back on the freeway. Linda and Paul were the last ones seen, streaming off the ship. Linda took the yellow and red carnation centerpiece, which just goes to show you can take the girl out of the bar mitzvah, but you can't take the bar mitzvah out of the girl.