Side By Side (Linda 1973)

 Side by Side

By Caroline Boucher

Disc

December 1, 1973

    Linda McCartney, fortunately, is a strong woman, because, though enviable, her position is one that not many people could have taken on and coped as successfully as she has. Looking back now to March 12, 1969, Linda says she never realized quite what she was taking on and how much hatred could ensue.

     "It wasn't as if I was a teeny saying, 'Oh, wow, I married Paul McCartney.' I was independent, with a career, but suddenly people who didn't know the first thing about me started writing things about me, about what sort of person Paul had married. Everyone was suddenly saying, 'Who is she?'

     "When we were in New York making Ram, 20 kids would follow us everywhere we went, everywhere, hotel, restaurant, studio. After a while, I asked them to lay off, and one of them turned and said, 'Well, what the hell did you expect?' I hadn't expected that!"

     Since then, she suffered a great many more slings and arrows. As a musician ("How dare she take up piano in his band?" They cried.) As a songwriter: ("She can't they riposted). As a film star from the TV special, and any other excuses that cropped up. But Linda, admirably, has soldiered on, stubbornly pursuing her rather bizarre taste in clothes and hairstyle, brushing up her piano playing and her songwriting. 

    "At the beginning, people said, 'Oh, good grief, she can't play the piano, and that I wasn't good. But then I hadn't jumped up and down and said, 'Hey, Paul, let me be in your band!' I was there because he had asked me to join. And gradually, I got into it and began to enjoy it.

     "But I could remember crying my eyes out in a dressing room in Europe because I was so scared. Now I know you can get up there and have a good time. Technically, nobody has ever said, 'Do this or do that', but I know chords now, and I know the scale, and so I can work things out and write songs from there.

     "It's like my photography.  Nobody ever told me the technicalities of it, shutter speeds, all that kind of thing; I know instinctively in my head now what works when.  But I just learned by actually getting out and taking the pictures." Linda took the inside poster on the next album, and does most of her photography now with a Polaroid, one of the "cheap, £12  ones." She would still like to do assignments, but since she married Paul, people seem to have stopped regarding her as a professional photographer and stopped asking. Two of the Hendrix poster pictures and one of Warren Beatty are still being sold in a Disc poster ad most weeks. 

    "Warren told me I was the first photographer who had clicked at that right moment. It's very important that-- you can so easily miss it."

     Linda's songwriting is going well. To date, she has written three A sides, including "Seaside Woman" on the album, and the other two have yet to see the light of day. They're called "Wild Prairie" and "Oriental Night Fish." The latter is like a Shangri-La's number with lots of talk over. "Wild Prairie" turned into an 11-minute number, a sort of country and western and jazz blend.

     At the moment, Paul is banned from America because of his drug bust. This is difficult for Linda, who misses her family. And while she and the kids are quite free to go there, she doesn't really want to leave Paul behind. She's anti-Nixon because he doesn't have the interests of the people at heart. Women's Lib, on the whole, passes her by. 

    "I was always lucky. I got amazing jobs because I was a girl. I do think women should get equal pay for jobs, but I don't like the dykey bit that goes with the movement. At the moment, I don't think the women's lib women are really representing the main body of ladies; rather, like Nixon, doesn't represent what the main body of the American people feel."

     Contrary to what a lot of people might think, Linda doesn't have a house overflowing with nannies, cooks, housekeepers, etc. "I've never really thought to live rich. I didn't come from a poor home, but my dad was poor and worked his way up through Harvard Law School. I think I learned a lot from him. He's a very moral man, and my mum is very down to earth. Paul and I just wanted a very close, simple family.

     "The kids come everywhere with us, and Heather, who's 11, really loves the other two, and she can watch them for me on tour. I always put them to bed and give them their dinner, and then somebody watches them for me. I think you could be too doting, too involved. Kids should be independent. I like the wild side of life,  but you've got to have a nucleus of love and security. I'm a bit of a fatalist, really. I play life by ear."

Ringo & George

 

George Harrison Remembers Marcos (1986)

 

George Harrison Remembers Marcos

Associated Press

April 12, 1986

    Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos is an "old twit" who incited Manila residents to attack the Beatles after the British pop group played a concert in the Philippines in the '60s, George Harrison recalls.

     Harrison, in an interview to be broadcast Wednesday on NBC TV Today Show, said Marcos was angered by a mix up in which the Beatles did not appear at the Manila presidential palace to meet the Marcoses after a concert during the height of Beatlemania.

     "We didn't have any engagements anywhere, but some smart guy had said, 'Sure, I'll get the Beatles to the palace,'" Harrison said. "We turned the television on, and there it was, this big palace with lines of people, and the guy saying, 'Well, they're still not here yet.' And we watched ourselves not arrive at the palace, but we were never supposed to be there."

     Harrison said the story was played up in Manila as "Beatles snub first family."  

"Which I'm glad we did. See, even in those days we had taste."

     Marcos, however, was angered by the incident. Harrison said, "He set the mob on us and tried to beat us up, which they did. They beat up a lot of people in with us and wouldn't let the airplane leave Manila until Epstein, our manager, had to get off the plane and give back the money we earned at the concert. So that's what I think of Marcos, old twit he was."

She's really got a hold on me

 

The photographer and the photo

 April 14, 1966

It's a Girl!

 

In an interview recently released with Oliva Harrison but recorded in October 2025, she announces that she is the Grandmother of a beautiful baby girl!  Congratulations are in order for Dhani Harrison and his significant other, Mereki Beach.  Blessings to the entire Harrison/Beach familes.  

Island Days

 

Wings Guitarist

 

Revolver Session

 

April 13, 1966

Side By Side (Paul McCartney 1973)

 

Photo by Linda McCartney 

Side By Side

By Rosemary Horide

Disc 

December 1, 1973

    As part of one of the greatest groups there has ever been, or as the motivating force behind a relatively new outfit, Paul McCartney has always had a vast amount of charisma as well as talent. To those who would quarrel with that, all I can say is, how many other artists do you know who could get a collection of stars on the cover of their new album that makes Hollywood films at their height look like home movies?

     But Band on the Run has, on its cover, one or two luminaries such as James Coburn, Christopher Lee, Michael Parkinson, Clement Freud, Kenny Lynch, and, just for good measure, John Conteh (the boxer) all dressed as convicts. 

    How did he do it?

     "I just rang him up and asked him," said the man himself, grinning up at me from behind one of the desks in our office. "We had an idea of what we wanted, then drew up a list of names, and to our delight, they all said they'd do it. John's on there because he's a fellow Liverpudlian, and we chose all the people because they look the part. We thought it would be more interesting than just having unknown faces. give people something to look at."

     The piece of black vinyl inside the cover has a lot to commend it too. The songs are written and recorded in a great variety of locations. "Some Linda and I wrote together, some are mine alone, and there's one Denny and I wrote together. He's got half a song, so I finished it off for him."

     The majority of the songs were recorded in Lagos by the much-depleted Wings. "Denny Seiwell left about an hour before the plane took off, so we just went aboard, had a few drinks, and then waited until we got to Nigeria. Then we thought, 'What are we going to do?'  So I played drums, Linda played piano and Mellotron, Denny Laine added some extra guitar parts, and between us, we managed to make the sound a bit fuller."

     Now that the album is over, Paul says there's no real need to have a new band. "At this second, we're going to have a holiday, then Christmas, and think about it. After that, we will be looking for a drummer and a guitarist, but they'll have to be pretty good."

     Interesting to note in that context that Jimmy McCulloch and Davy Lutton of Ellis, a guitarist and a drummer, have just been recording in Paris with Paul, but he wouldn't be drawn on the subject of their becoming part of Wings Mark II. It's obvious no final decisions have been made as yet.

     The sudden departure of two-fifths of the band wasn't the only snag the McCartneys hit while in Africa. "For one thing, we thought it would be warm and sunny over there. Instead, we caught the end of the rainy season, and there were tropical storms all the time. There were power cuts too. 

    "What's more, we went there intending to use some of the local musicians. Thought we might have some African brass and drums and things. So we asked around. After a day or two, this guy, Fela Ransome Kuti, came round and said, 'You're trying to steal the Black African music.' We said, 'No, we're not. We just want to use some of your guys.' But he got so heavy about it in the end, we thought, 'blow you then. We'll do it all ourselves.' So we did, and the only guy from Africa we used was someone we met in London, then discovered he came from Lagos, but that was purely coincidental."

     As always, critical opinion is sharply divided about this album. One journalist has described it as "The best thing any of the Beatles have done since Abbey Road."  Paul disassociates himself from such generalizations. 

    He says, " It's fine -- we're happy with it, but I wouldn't say anything like that. In fact, the album was more of a fun thing to do." In line with a new McCartney philosophy of not taking himself too seriously.

     "If you are the subject of too much adoration, with people talking about you as if you're God, you can end up believing it yourself, then you're frightened to do or say anything in case it doesn't fit your image. I think that might have been what happened to Eric Clapton."

     So Paul, in the light of this attitude, wasn't too worried about those people who didn't like the TV spectacular he did, James Paul McCartney, with some reservations. He was pleased with it. "There were a lot of things we'd like to put into it, and couldn't, because it was sponsored in the States by a firm that makes nice family cars. So they wanted a nice family film.

    "For example, we wanted to do a drag sketch. Do you remember the bit at the end with the dancers? At that point, I was going to come on stage dressed as Diana Ross, and Linda was going to be dressed as a man. They didn't think that was a very good idea.

     "We did it because it was something we wanted to do and it hadn't been done before. What's more, a lot of people did like it. Elton John had it showing on his last plane trip. Although there was a choice, he was watching our movie."

     Rather than get screwed up about criticism, as he and his ex-colleagues did when Magical Mystery Tour was panned, Paul now accepts adverse criticism with resignation and prefers to dwell on that which is favorable. "After all", as he said, "a lot of people did like the show. The Osmonds, for example, were great when we met them. You can tell all the girls, Donny is a dish. Seriously, he's a great guy, and Jimmy is a real little trooper for his age. People say he's frightening for a kid that age, but if you're in a normal home and a little kid comes up and does a tap dance, you don't think that's frightening, do you? He comes from a show business family, and he's a performer. We asked him if he was going to do "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool", and he said, 'Sure, Paul, you bet!' He's a professional already. Anyway, I'm sick of people knocking the Osmonds. I love them for their whole teeny bop thing. Really, they're like an American version of the early Beatles. I think they're great. We found out they were on the floor above us in the hotel in Paris, so we had to take the kids up to see them. And they said, ;Hey, we really like your special.'

     "I definitely think it can all be too precious ----if we take too much notice of the bad things people say, we'd never do anything ever again." In the past, critics have given the McCartneys a hard time. The press, especially, were less than kind when Wings first started. "When the Beatles split, I just bombed off to Scotland. I had more than enough of everyone. And I really didn't see why I had to talk to the press. I didn't feel there was anything I wanted to say.

     "I think that all started to build up--- people thought, 'What's he up to with that?' And the fact that Wings weren't very good from the beginning (how can you be from the word go?), this is not surprising. They knocked us, but the British tour was incredible. By then, the band was going great."

     It's a shame that a band which was finally fulfilling some of its potential should suddenly disintegrate. But Paul doesn't seem disillusioned. He obviously realizes that musicians all over the world would be delighted to fill in the gaps in Wings.

     In the meantime, the project he's entertaining himself with is a film. "Yeah, we filmed the last four concerts of the European tour, and we're currently working on making them into a film. But it's not just us performing. The story is that there's a family of animated mice living under this stage we're working on." That will be the first venture for the McCartneys outside music since they formed their own company outside Apple. 

    Yet again, it's not something that's being taken too seriously. McCartney has the valuable gift of being able to laugh gently at himself these days. And although he's a highly talented musician and writer, he finds time to play happily with youngest daughter, Stella, who was running around the office while we talked--- a happy family man. 

    Soon, Paul says he will be back with his new band on the road, where he's happiest. He seems to have found a settled level at last. I'd invite anyone to listen to the Band on the Run, and then say he's finished or even losing his knack. Paul McCartney won't be finished until he's dead, and even then, his music will live on.