June 8, 1971
An online Beatles fan club for and about Beatle fans
Monday, June 8, 2026
Sunset Blvd.
From Jim McCullaugh:
Watching Colbert's farewell with Paul McCartney last night sent me down a long road of memory. This was taken at the Billboard Magazine offices on Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles. John Lennon was in town promoting his Walls and Bridges LP and stopped by, which wasn't something artists of that stature typically did with trade publications. I told him I'd been listening to him DJ on KHJ that very morning on my way in. He said if music hadn't worked out, radio was the plan. I've thought about that a lot over the years.
He Seeks Wings Emergence From Wings Chrysalis (St. Paul 1976)
He Seeks Wings Emergence From Wings Chrysalis
By Jon Bream
The Minneapolis Star
June 8, 1976
His eyes look the same-- big, brown, and expressive. His handsome, boyish face has grown fleshier, but his chin remains firm. His short, cropped hair is Beatle bang length on top and long in back. He is wearing a well-worn Hawaiian print shirt and blue jeans. Around his neck is a choker with ivory wings.
Paul McCartney is a Wing, not a Beatle. It's Friday night, 15 minutes earlier, his group, Wings, finished a triumphant two-and-1/4-hour concert. McCartney is sitting on a couch in a dressing room at the St. Paul Civic Center Arena, smoking a cigarette.
For McCartney, it is a greater burden to be a former Beatle than it was to be a Beatle. He says, "A lot of people think that whatever happens can never be as good as the Beatles was. It's the kind of thing that's difficult to think about generally. Now I think it's there, and I'll go along with the people to a certain extent, but when it really gets to me, I finally remind them that I'm not in the Beatles anymore. You can't keep assuming I am, because then you're then living the myth, not me."
McCartney is cordial, polite, and attentive. His brow furrows when he makes a point. He displays touches of the kind of silly humor seen in the Beatles movie Help and A Hard Day's Night. Since the Beatles dissolved in 1970, McCartney, the group's cute romantic melodist, has enjoyed the most commercially and critically successful career of the four Beatles.
John Lennon, the dark poet, formed the ad hoc Plastic Ono Band before going solo, singing politically oriented songs, and in the last couple of years, he has spent more time in court with various legal predicaments than with music.
George Harrison, the shy mystic, has continued on his introspective ways in his solo career. His U.S. concert tour in 1974 was largely a disaster. Ringo Starr, the Good Timer, has had limited success recording novelty songs.
Only McCartney seriously pursued work in the context of a new band. Wings first appeared in 1971 on Wildfire, [sic] the third of seven albums McCartney has recorded since the Beatles broke up.
Wings frequently has changed personnel, except for McCartney and his wife, Linda Eastman McCartney, whom he married in 1969 and encouraged to pursue a musical career. McCartney has been preparing for his return to the States. In 1972 and 1973, Wings performed in Europe. In 1975, the band toured Great Britain, and earlier this year, it played in Australia [sic] and Europe.
"We had to gear it up for America," McCartney says. "American people don't seem to think of their country as big. It is the biggest place to tour on earth. We just did Europe with about 1/3 of this equipment."
The current Wings tour marks McCartney's first U.S. performance since the Beatles' last concert in 1966 in San Francisco. The two-month tour will play 34 concerts before 600,000 persons and gross $5 million.
McCartney is determined that Wings be recognized as a band on its own merits, not as ex-Beatle McCartney's new backup band. The tour's billed as Wings Over America. On its record, the band is now identified as 'Wings', no longer 'Paul McCartney and Wings.'
The singer-songwriter bassist has assembled a capable band that has more impact on stage than on record. In concert, the well-oiled pop recording group rocks in the good time spirit of Elton John.
McCartney has a formidable sideman and New York drummer Joe English, British guitarist Jimmy McCulloch, formerly of Thunderclap Newman and Stone the Crows, and Denny Laine, co-founder of the Moody Blues, who also plays bass and keyboards on stage. Linda McCartney sings adequate schoolgirl harmonies and plays minimal keyboard fills. Her presence as a cheerleader for both the audience and the band seems to outweigh her musical contributions. McCartney is a personable, friendly, enthusiastic band leader on stage. He is a first-class showman who employs a tasteful array of stage effects, including laser, strobe lights, stage fog, bubbles, film, and smoke bombs. He has put together a top-flight show featuring Wings songs, Paul Simon's "Richard Cory" and five Beatles songs, including his classic "Yesterday."
McCartney is plugging for Wings "because I'm in it. I have to want anything I'm in to be good."
The last three of the five Wings albums, Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, and At the Speed of Sound, each have sold more than 1 million copies. At the concerts, concessionaries hawk Wings T-shirts, posters, and souvenir programs. A crew is filming the tour for a possible movie, yet McCartney emphatically does not want Wingsmania in the 70s to become the phenomenon that Beatlemania was in the 60s. "I'm sure it won't, and I hope it doesn't, and it really shouldn't, because I think we've moved ahead. It's a new time. The symptoms of these years are different, and the audiences are different. I wouldn't want to recreate the old audience and get it back to the '60s. That's been and gone. It was great. You don't really want to be back there. I don't, I don't think most people do like this sort of advancement."
McCartney acknowledges that the Beatles were catalysts, partly responsible for the advancement of culture in the '60s. He feels it was unintentional, though. "I only came into it to make music," he says, "I don't think about it thematically, I just think about writing songs, writing tunes, writing music, getting into stuff I like. I have no control over how people take my songs."
For instance, McCartney explains his purpose behind "Helter Skelter", a Beatles song he wrote that inspired the hideous crimes of the Charles Manson family. "I was writing sort of a down blues, and I wanted to get into a funky screaming thing as just sort of a release, but Manson took it very differently. I certainly didn't mean any of the things he says I meant, but I say (he raises his voice) tt has nothing to do with me, man!
McCartney's goal for his life and career are simple: "just to feel that what I'm doing is right. I like to be happy," he says, "to satisfy my own personal standards."
Since the Beatles' disbandment, McCartney, 33, has become a family man. His three daughters, Heather, 13, by Linda's first marriage, Mary, six, and Stella, four, are accompanying him and Linda on the tour. Critics have charged that all of McCartney's post-Beatles albums, except for the brilliant Band on the Run in 1974, have fallen victim to his marital bliss. Each of his first four albums had a strong single, but the albums are unmemorable. His singles, including non-album cuts like "Live and Let Die" and "Junior's Farm", have sold well consistently.
One critic recently asserted that the pretty sweet balladeer harbors an ambivalence towards the culture to help deliver. "I don't agree," McCartney responds. "People spout off and think they've got the gist of it, and I don't pretend anyone's got the gist of it.
"I like what happened and believe in what went on in the 6'0s, and still want to see wars come to an end. I want to see the kind of wrong things in life changed, but I don't necessarily want to see it change the way some other people do. So we differ."
He is aware that to some people he's a hero and a legend, but McCartney feels no obligation because of that. "There is the hero side. It exists in the papers at arm's length. It's nothing I really get into. I don't want to have to behave like a hero all the time, cause I also know myself as a person, that's the real thing, so he contented.
McCartney sings in his current hit, "Silly Love Songs:" "Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs, and what's wrong with that? I'd like to know, because here I go again...."
On record, it's an infectious discotheque romp. In concert, "Silly Love Songs" becomes an exuberant rocker showcasing the superb melodist's exceptional gift for arranging. "It's just sort of an up song for love. I just write them, don't ask me to explain them." Today it's Silly Love Songs for McCartney. Tomorrow, there's another Wings album, some more Wings tours, and more unfounded rumors of a Beatles reunion.
Swinging with a Star
Posted on Facebook by Henry Brian Epstein: This is a Polaroid of my grandparents in Seville. Spain with Brian, George and Patty
Sunday, June 7, 2026
Brian's first American group
The Cyrkle , with Brian and Nat Weiss hold a press conference on June 7, 1966 ,
They Don't Make Rock Stars like McCartney Any More (Denver 1976)
They Don't Make Rock Stars Like McCartney Any More
By John Seelmeyer
Greeley Daily Tribune
June 9, 1976
They just don't make rock stars like Paul McCartney anymore. Although this summer's tour has been billed as 'Wings Over America', and McCartney has soft-pedaled his role in the group, Monday's concert in Denver made it clear the group is mostly McCartney and four other people.
Even when McCartney was in the musical background, the eyes of the 19,000 fans at McNichols Arena followed him through the shadows, and that friends is what makes a big-time rock star. As a former Beatle, McCartney is in a precarious position as a performer. Fans demand a lot. Monday, McCartney delivered in a two-hour set.
It's hard to imagine that "I've Just Seen a Face" has been around for a decade, yet McCartney gave the song a touch of country and western, and it came out sounding better than ever. Of the four remaining Beatles songs in McCartney's show, it was clearly "Yesterday" that most moved the audience. For once, a rock crowd was nearly silent as he sang. Filling out "Yesterday" was McCartney's four-piece brass section, which ably imitated the cello of the original recording.
On the more raucous side of Wings, "Live and Let Die" tore the house down through imaginative use of lights. A machine gun-like spray of light splattered across the audience as Wings burned through last summer's hit.
"Hi, Hi, Hi," one of the group's encores, along with "Soily", was another of those jump up and down numbers.
McCartney has garnered numerous non-fans since the Beatles broke up. Generally, they complain his sound is too lush, too romantic, and too sloppy. In Monday's concert, the middle-of-the-road quality was gone from Wings' work, and it's been replaced by a hard edge that isn't apparent in the recordings, but makes the music more enjoyable.
McCartney's wife, Linda, has sometimes faced charges of being a supergroupie with minimal musical talent. She did much to dispel those claims on Monday as she ably handled keyboards and synthesizers.
While most people will remember McCartney mostly for his voice, he played some nice bass lines on Monday. He was clearly enjoying himself, and he transferred that sparkle to his music.
It's rumored that McCartney is losing money on this tour. With the light show, specially constructed stage, and magnificent sound system, the rumor is at least plausible. Still, the combination of those elements and the care Wings took in preparing for the tour bring it several steps above most tours.
In the final analysis, though, it's difficult to objectively view the concert. As a former Beatle, McCartney carries a certain magic for all rock fans, particularly those who grew up in the mid-1960s. With that magic, McCartney could possibly stand on stage whistling sailor ditties to overwhelming applause. No matter how hard he tries to escape that magic, it's always with him, and that two friends is .what makes a big time rock star.
Thursday, June 4, 2026
Paul McCartney Still Inspires Beatlemania (St. Paul 1976)
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| That is "Blond Brenda" in the lower right corner |
Paul McCartney Still Inspires Beatlemania
By Mike Newgren
Post Bulletin
June 7, 1976
Having grown up during the apex of Beatlemania, listening to "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for hours on end led me to consider Paul McCartney more than just another rock star. That would easily explain why I've spent the last month eagerly awaiting Friday night's Paul McCartney and Wings concert at the St. Paul Civic Center. My wait was well worth its duration after watching the former Beatle perform for two hours.
Oh, the voice is fading, and there are a few wrinkles on his boyish-looking face, but that didn't matter. It was Paul McCartney, resplendent in a yellow t-shirt, black satin suit, and white-and-black shoes, and that in itself was enough.
I arrived at the Civic Center at 5:28pm, two and a half hours before the concert was scheduled to begin, thinking that would give me plenty of time to avoid the rush before the doors opened at six. I was wrong. There were 1000s of people milling around the building when I found my way to one of the doors marked 'entrance'. Some had sleeping bags tucked under their arms, and one man in his mid 20s said he had driven down from Montreal to see the concert. It was obvious that I wasn't the only person who remembered how the shaggy-haired, blue-eyed boy from Liverpool set hearts fluttering over a decade ago, when he, John, George, and Ringo were the idols of millions of teenagers.
The doors opened at 6:03, and there was a mad rush to get inside to grab a seat as close to the stage as possible. By 6:30, the place was half full. Approximately 17,000 people attended the concert. As the minutes slowly ticked away towards 8 o'clock, the rumors began to trickle through the civic center.
Someone said they saw John Lennon. "I hear Ringo Starr's going to sit in on drums for a couple of numbers," a teenage boy kept repeating. Lennon and Starr never showed, but it made little difference whatsoever to the audience. It came to see McCartney the leader of Wings, a band that includes his wife, Linda, didn't let his fans down.
He pranced out on the stage at 8:04 and sang two songs, "Venus and Mars" and "Jet", before uttering a word, but when he did speak, the crowd went wild. "Thanks a lot, St. Paul", he said, almost being drowned out by a thunderous ovation. "You're great. How are you doing? All right", and then he flashed a big smile, gave the peace sign, and shouted, "Welcome to Minnesota!"
"Listen", he added, after singing, "Maybe I'm Amazed," "It's really nice for us to be here this evening, so just enjoy yourself, because I know we will."
And enjoy himself is exactly what McCartney did. It was evident that he was having a good time, as he joked with the audience, gave numerous thumbs up and number one signals to the crowd, and stomped his feet on the stage after most of the songs.
In addition to his most recent hit records with Wings, McCartney also sang five numbers that were recorded by the Beatles. "Lady Madonna", "I've just seen a face," "Yesterday, "" Blackbird, and "The Long and Winding Road."
"This is where we have a little sit down and play our acoustic guitars," McCartney said shortly before breaking into "Yesterday", which is perhaps the most popular song ever recorded by the Beatles. When he finished, he held two guitars high in the air to acknowledge the standing ovation from the audience.
"I can see those big blue eyes all the way up here!" one woman sighed from the balcony.
"Say, listen," McCartney explained at 9:58. "We're getting near the end of the show, and you've been a grand wee bunch. Thanks for coming." With that, Wings played "Band on the Run", and the concert was over.
"I don't care if the Beatles ever get back together again", one girl told her friend as they left the Civic Center and headed for the parking lot. "Paul McCartney will always be a Beatle, as far as I'm concerned."
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