Standing Up for Paul McCartney
By Dave Gelly
The Observer (London)
September 21, 1975
The pop press has not done its credibility any good, but the attitude it has taken toward Paul McCartney in recent years, certainly a man who is both happy and successful in his work, doesn't offer scope for the kind of pseudo-psychology which passes muster as criticism these days. Nor can gossip writers get much mileage out of a life that goes manifestly cozy and well-ordered. The news that he is taking his family on tour with him is construed as some kind of camp gesture, whereas the simple truth is that he hates to be separated from his kids. His wife, Linda, plays and sings in the band and has received cruel treatment, although she does the job perfectly well and takes it seriously.
The McCartneys have been given journalistic stick, not for what they do, but for what they are. And yet, despite all this, Paul McCartney is the only ex-Beatle who can still lay claim to a real pop audience. The packed crowds flock to his current Wings tour range from early teens to mid-30s and beyond. They come knowing that Paul will play for them, that for two hours they will be given the fruits of weeks of careful preparation, and that the aim of the whole thing will have been their delight. It is all so straightforward and admirable that one can feel only a mild pity for those who failed to see the point.
Although he keeps insisting that the band should be known simply as Wings. ("It wasn't Paul McCartney and the Beatles. Was it?" he demands irritably) His personality, his musicianship, and above all, his sheer style, dominate the evening. As a natural stage performer, McCartney exudes the kind of energy that draws an audience to him, even when he is simply playing the accompaniment to one of the other Wings. His creation and his signature are stamped on every note they produce. It is easy, after so long and a competence, to spot a McCartney tune a mile off: those broad melodies with their stance model twists are a major part of the currency of popular music.
When he sits at the piano and sings, "Maybe I'm amazed", or "Blackbird", one realizes the degree to which he has defined the terms which we now all accept, and as the show unfolds. The breadth of his musical imagination is a constant source of surprise, from Venus and Mars to Band on the Run by way of "Yesterday" and "Lady Madonna"; the mood and tone of voice vary constantly, but characteristically it is all the product of a single mind. He is a complicated artist, for all his outward simplicity, with an unusual intuitive grasp of the popular tradition. "You Gave Me the Answer", for instance, is an ineffective path, thick with 30s style, entirely without irony or satirical intent, yet full of good humor. At the same time, "Magneto and Titanium Man" celebrates the utterly different worlds of comic strips with wide-eyed childish delight.
Perhaps this is why McCartney baffles the commentators. They are looking for a simple personal manifesto. At the same time, he hides inside his work, curiously, apart from the activity that surrounds his progress around the world, the tons of equipment, and the millions of words.
Still, for the paying customers, it is probably his voice that generates the spark. Nature has endowed him with flexibility and vocal range, but the magic lies in the closeness of his singing tones to his natural speech. He slips from one to the other without any sense of strain, no matter what the song. He doesn't put on especially rough or in grading sound, he simply sings. The fact is intimate rather than rhetorical; even when delivered to 3000 people.
The Wings tour has reached Scotland. They are in Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee. If you miss them or can't buy a ticket, you should get hold of their latest album, Venus and Mars, because it contains the best of Paul McCartney's recent work.
The shows are enormously fun, and to our great high grade euphoria is a valuable commodity these days, but the songs only reveal their full charm after repeated listening.
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