On the Wings of a Storm! (Detroit 1976)

 On the Wings of a Storm!

By Pauline McLeod

Daily Mirror

May 23, 1976

    The lead guitarist, Jimmy McCulloch, was slumped against a wall, exhausted, staring into space. Drummer Joe English was chatting with well-wishers. Denny Laine, rhythm guitarist and keyboard man, was playing darts with a couple from the horn section, and in the middle of the chaos, Paul and Linda McCartney were perched on a tabletop, enthusing about America. 

    Wings were coming back to earth in a barely furnished room backstage at the Detroit Olympia. The success of the evening showing on their faces. The 17,000-strong audience had gone wild when the band appeared on stage. They rushed into the aisles, climbed on each other's shoulders, and a stood on the seats. They reached fever pitch and were still screaming for more 20 minutes after the show was over.

     Detroit was the third stop on the band's 31-date tour of the United States and Canada. This tour is McCartney's return to the American stage after 10 years. The last time he was in San Francisco  in 1966 as a Beatle. 

    "Tonight was incredible," he said. "The kids gave us such a feedback that we did not want to finish the show. We are achieving what we hoped for."

     "I think a lot of people came to see Paul the Beatle, even though he's dead and gone, but I feel sure they left the place tonight with Wings on their brains." Linda, his 33-year-old wife, broke off from explaining to an earnest young man that she and Paul are not tax exiles to flash a bundle of snaps of the latest addition to the McCartney household, Lucky Star, an 18-month-old stallion bought in Texas. 

    "We'll be shipping him over to our home in Scotland, and I'll start breajubg him in when we get back," she said. "But that won't be much before the end of June. "

    The whole American trip is rife with rumors that the other ex-Beatles will be joining Paul to do a quick turn. Paul's reaction is to laugh lightly and ask, "What will they think of next?"

     And he said, "I'm not sentimental about it, and thinking, 'oh Christ, but it's not like the 60s.' I've moved on to other things. That period of my life is over, but I don't feel sad about it.

    " I've seen John in New York, and of course I'd love him to come to a concert, but he's not really into that sort of thing now. He wants to stay at home with his family. I don't really think he would feel very comfortable if he was to come to one of the shows, but I understand that entirely and respect him for it. I haven't heard from the other two. I don't know where they are at present."

     On May 24 and 25th Wings play New York's 20,000 seater Madison Square Garden. "What a night that will be with all the Daily Mirror Pop Fan Club there," said Paul. "We'll flood the place with the British."

Between shows

May 25, 1976

Paul is seen by fans at the Stanhope Hotel in New  York City 

 

John and Yoko seen the next day

 May 25, 1976

Paul is still in New York and the fans are still on the look out for both Paul and John -- fans once again saw John and Yoko outside of the Dakota.  

Linda Hits a Sour Note (1976)

 

Linda Hits a Sour Note

By Peter Senn

Daily Mirror

May 31, 1976

     Jealousy has reared its ugly head in that most harmonious of relationships, the marriage between ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his lovely wife Linda.

     Linda, who believes avidly that everyone needs love to keep going, was decidedly unromantic when Paul left her table at a party in New York to chat to Jackie Onassis, who was sitting at a table next to theirs. The party was at Madison Square Garden after the mammoth concert that marked McCartney's return to the New York stage.

     Jackie, 46-year-old widow of President Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis, was there with merchant banker Skip Stein when Paul joined them. Linda, in a great show of feminine fury, rose from the table too, and stalked off to talk to friends elsewhere.

     Unfortunately, they asked her the wrong question. What was it like sitting that close to Jackie? Snapped back, Linda. "Jackie? All she's ever done was marry a brilliant man, and I mean Kennedy." Concurred, another woman, even more bitchily, "Come, come, you must admit, she throws spectacular funerals."

     Jackie was oblivious to all the chatter. She spoke briefly to Paul, and then concentrated all her attention back to Stein, knees closed and eyes locked. The new romance is going down big in the United States, and so are the ex-Beatles. Ringo Starr is there, and so is John Lennon. The only one missing is George Harrison.

For Your Ears Only (1966)

 

For Your Ears Only

By Biff Bennett

Calgary Herald

May 24, 1966

    You might like to hear the details, although it happened a year ago, of what is generally regarded as the most successful radio April Fool's prank in Canadian radio. It happened on April 1, 1965. It was all the brainchild of Dennis Corrie (the Irish product who handles the 1-4 show each afternoon). So successful was it that the publication Canadian Broadcaster was moved to make special mention.

     To set the stage for the story, Dennis had just arrived here at CKW in Winnipeg, and he arrived with about six hours of tape of interviews with the Beatles that he had collected over the years. In a burst of inspiration (even now he can't recall what prompted it), he decided that the tapes were the basis for an immense practical joke. What he would do was edit the tapes, prepare his own questions which would be geared to the vocal answers of the Beatles, and presto! Announced to the April 1 audience that the Beatles were in Calgary.

     It took two weeks to edit the tapes, splice in the proper questions, dub in background noise, and duplicate them. To show you how meticulous the program was, they recorded music at the McFall Field terminal. Only a few people on the staff were let in on the secret, and to get the radio audience into the proper frame of mind, it was cited to make no advance mention of April Fool's Day. Normally, about that time of year, interesting little bits of April Fool's nonsense make news, but we used none of that, just to keep the listeners off guard.

     It wasn't until 7:25 in the morning of April 1, 1965, that we broke the story. Clarence Mack, then handling the morning show, tossed out the information that it was rumored that the Beatles had made a surprise visit to Calgary. That kicked off a response that even we hadn't anticipated. During the day, we ran six interviews with the Beatles, the same interviews that had been so laboriously put together in our studios weeks before, and they were put together well. You'd have sworn that our men in the street were actually interviewing the Beatles at McCall Field. 

    Mobs of students raced to the airport to see the Beatles, so much so extra police had to be detailed at the airport. They finally had to take the phone off the hook, and our own switchboard here at CFAC almost had a nervous breakdown trying to handle all the calls. We felt we'd really done a realistic job when another radio station in the city (I can't remember the name at the moment) sent one of its cruisers out to the airport to interview the Beatles. I might as well be honest and say that gave us a fair amount of satisfaction.

     Anyway, it was good fun, especially when something like that can be done on a day everyone is prepared for. And we didn't press our luck on April Fool's Day past. We played it straight all the way. The next year, who knows?

The lovely couple

 

McCartney and Wings Fly Into the Garden (New York City 1976)

 

McCartney and Wings Fly Into the Garden

By Ernest Leogrande

Daily News 

May 25, 1976

    The sustained yells that greeted Paul McCartney's entrance on the stage of Madison Square Garden last night were so deafening that they sounded as if the audience had been assembled on stage and the cheers were being fed through the amplifiers set up for McCartney's band. The enthusiasm was understandable and predictable. 

    Last night marked the man's first live performance in New York City in a decade, and the yells were like echoes of the time before, when McCartney was a member of the Beatles playing Shea Stadium. McCartney and his band, Wings, play the Garden again tonight as part of a United States tour, the final leg of an international round of concerts that began with Europe and Australia last year.

     Wings includes Jimmy McCulloch and Denny Laine, guitarists, Joe English, drummer, and a member whom McCartney introduced as "a girl from New York State, my missus: Linda."  Mrs. McCartney plays keyboards and assists her husband with a bit of harmony. The couple's three daughters are part of the international troupe, but strictly in the background. 

    England's best-known southpaw switched from his left-handed electric bass guitar to piano to acoustic guitar and then back to electric as he and the band, backed by a four-horn section, ran through a selection of songs from his own albums and a few oldies from the Beatles days.

     He was once on the outs with John Lennon, with whom he wrote the Beatles' most notable songs, but they have patched it up, and his recapping of songs from the Beatles era, like "Lady Madonna", "Long and Winding Road", and " Yesterday, " was greeted with wildly sentimental audience response. 

    Some slides, a bit of film footage of the band as "Band on the Run", and a laser show were added attractions. There was a bit of hubbub before the concert as Jacqueline Onassis took a seat, but as soon as the lights went down and McCartney entered, it was his show. He played for two hours, 15 minutes, and quite obviously reveled in his reception, remarking at one point, "You're making us feel very at home, I must say."

Meanwhile at the Dakota....

May 24, 1976 

While some fans were hanging outside the Stanhope Hotel waiting to see Paul after his Madison Square Garden concert with Wings --- other fans decided to mosey over and hang outside of the Dakota and try to see John and Yoko.   Crazy when I realize these photos were taken while Paul was in town.  

 

After the show

 May 24, 1976 

Fans rushed to the Stanhope Hotel after the concert at the Madison Square Garden and were lucky to see Paul and Linda.   

Sessons for How Do You Sleep

 May 22-24, 1971